Review: Bar-Sto .357 Sig Barrel for the XDM.

As promised, here is a full review of my new Bar-Sto .357 Sig barrel. You know it’s gonna be a good one when it’s over 3,800 words long and has not one, but TWO disclaimers in it, lol. Go put the kids to bed, grab a beer, and settle down. This is going to be a long post.

THE GUN, AND THE BARREL

The gun is a 4.5” Springfield Armory XDM-10 in 10mm. As much as I like to talk about it, it's not why we're here, but it's kinda necessary. A barrel doesn't do much if there is no gun around it. It’s a sweet little shooter with a lot of “knockdown” power. The only complaint I have for it is the trigger, which is really not that bad. Its’ a relatively decent striker fire pistol. We all know how those feel. It could be better, but it could be so much worse too. Overall, I’m very happy with the gun and honestly, it’s probably my favorite semi auto. I told you that I like to talk about it.



The barrel is a Bar-Sto stainless steel conversion barrel. It’s designed to fit the 4.5” XDM-10 and was about $255 shipped to my door if I recall correctly. Mine is the plain model with a target crown. For a little extra, they offer a few other configurations such as a ported and a threaded version.



Bar-Sto makes all of their barrels to order. The ones that you might see in stock on their website are from cancelled orders. Those will ship immediately. The ones that they don’t already have on hand will have to be made, and that will take some time. I believe that they have an estimated wait time of 4-6 weeks. They got mine done in about a single week though. Also, their customer service is top notch. I had a question for them and got a response from Irv Stone in less than 2 hours. You'll meet Irv later in this post. Anyways, the workmanship on this barrel is absolutely amazing. There is an area or two that was not finished to the point that all of the machine marks were removed, but these are small areas of little importance that will not be visible. Everything else is perfect and beautiful. The barrel I chose is chambered in 357 Sig. It also comes in 40 S&W, as well as 9x25 Dillon. All of which have the same rim diameter, and all of which will work in the same magazine. A barrel is the only thing you need to convert your 10mm to one of these rounds.

The barrels come in two forms. Match target, and semi fit. The match target barrel will have to be fitted by a competent gunsmith. The key word here is competent. Keep Bubba away from your shiny new barrel. The semi fit will drop into the gun 75% of the time without needing fitting. Bar-Sto will fit either to your gun for a fee. Before buying a barrel, I would look at their process and decide whether you want the barrel fitted by them or not before you buy it. The cost to fit a semi fit barrel is $65.00 not including shipping. The cost for a match target barrel fitting is $215.00 - $265.00 depending on the gun type and does not include shipping. Having them fit a barrel will require you to send the gun to them, and the return shipping will be $60-$90. Also, if I recall correctly, there was some important information that comes in a packet with the barrel regarding their fitting costs. Read it before you touch the barrel. If you decide to have them fit the barrel at a later date, I believe there were some extra costs involved depending on what you did/didn’t do with the barrel. I do not remember where I put that packet otherwise, I’d post that information here.

THE FITTING PROCESS

Warning. Before I continue, just know that this is not something you want to screw up. There are very real consequences and dangers to doing this. If you do not have a good understanding of what you are doing, then DON’T DO IT. I spent quite a bit of time looking up information from numerous sources and comparing it to information from other sources just to make sure I was doing this correctly. I am not a gunsmith by any means, and I took my safety into my own hands. If you choose to do this, you do so with the understanding that you are taking your safety into your own hands. Neither I nor this forum are responsible for any damage, injury, or death that results from doing this job incorrectly. This guide is meant to show you how I did this job. It might be the right way, or it might not be. You are solely responsible for deciding that. DO NOT USE THE FOLLOWING AS A GUIDE FOR DOING THIS YOURSELF.

Remember how I said that 75% of all semi fit barrels will drop freely into the gun? Guess who got one of the 25% that won't? There is not a competent gunsmith near me unless I wanted to drive 2-3 hours, so I put my big boy panties on and picked up the finest file I could find. You want to take off as little material at a time as possible when you do this sort of thing. I also want to stress that while this is an easy job, it’s not for those of us who are… less than good with our hands. Yeah, that’s the nice way to say it. If you don’t know how to file something carefully, and can’t keep something perfectly square and flat, then you might want to give Bar-Sto a call about getting them to do this job. If you can stay focused and be patient and can resist the urge to break out the Dremel, then you’re golden.

Now for the actual fitting process. Like I said, I picked up the finest file that I could fine. It would have been even better if I had had a good honing stone. Finding one that’s got a 90-degree corner on it is a huge plus. The area of the barrel that is being worked on needs to be absolutely perfectly flat and square. As you can see below, I used a square file, and I ground one side of the file so that it would be smooth.



Material needed to be removed from the vertical surface on the barrel that locks into the slide, NOT the horizontal surface. That is a big no no, and generally just bad juju. There is no way I could possible stress that enough. Don't do it bruh! Now, for those who have any reservations about modifying a perfectly good file, just remember this. Files are cheap, that barrel was expensive, and the cost of facial reconstruction surgery is about $184,000. I don’t have that kind of money and Obama lied to me about affordable healthcare.

I used a black Sharpie to mark the area that needed to be filed. This allows me to see how much material I’m taking away, and the see if I am putting too much pressure on either side of the fire area. Again, rounding over this area is not good. It needs to be kept as perfectly flat and straight as possible. The area with Sharpie is the ONLY area that needs to be filed on. Like I said, filing the surface that is perpendicular to the one marked with a Sharpie is a very bad idea. Every time I completely removed the Sharpie from the surface, I would re-coat it. Sharpie is basically the poor man's layout fluid. It was a tremendous help during this job.



Here is a picture of a reference card that Bar-Sto sent with the barrel. In order to get the barrel fitted, you have to reduce the length of #3 so that it will fit into the cutout in the slide. I did this by shortening the length at point #4. DO NOT file on point #2, which is the hood. Shortening this will change the headspace. It is already set where it needs to be, so changing it will cause problems. Problems that nobody in their right mind would want.



In some instances, material might need to be removed from the locking surface on the underside of the barrel (point #1). I did not have to do this on my barrel. Here is a video from Bar-Sto that does an excellent job of explaining where you need to remove material from. I told you that you'd meet Irv later in this post.



As you can see in this picture, the barrel will not fit into the cut out in the slide. It's actually wedged in there pretty good. Material needs to be removed from point #4 in order to make it fit. I was very careful to SLOWLY and CAREFULLY remove material from the surface and to check the fit frequently. You honestly cannot test the fit too frequently. Towards the end of the fitting process, my barrel went from being just a bit too tight to being a perfect fit in just a few quick passes with the file. It doesn't take much.



In this next picture, you can see that a proper fit has been achieved. The barrel is fully locked into the slide, and there is very little “wiggle room” between the forward and rear locking surfaces. It is a noticeably tighter fit than the factory barrel, but not so tight that it would impede the function of the firearm. From what I understand, this is exactly what you want.



At the end of this process, it is prudent to ensure that the gun actually functions with this new barrel. It needs to lock fully into the slide, and the gun needs to be able to cycle and reset with 100% reliability.

MY REASON FOR GETTING A .357 SIG

The review is mostly about the barrel, but I also feel like the 357 Sig kind of got a raw deal in the modern handgun cartridge department, so I'm going to ramble on a bit about it. It’s a good round, and I can fully understand why it has a cult following. It packs quite a bit of power into a relatively small package. It’s a little snappy and has some muzzle flash, but the claims of getting power reminiscent of the old 125gr 357 mag self-defense loads are not far off. I’ve shot this round enough to get to know it and I really like it. This will not be my last 357 Sig, and I would have no issues carrying it for self-defense. It’s a fun round to shoot too.

RELOADING

Fair warning, what works for me might blow your gun up. I don't know why it would, but I don't want to get sued, so I'm going to say that it could so that you can't say that I didn't warn you. Quit being a cheap bastard and go buy a reloading manual, or at least get a free one from the various bullet/powder makers out there. Do what it says, not what I say I did. ALWAYS work up your loads and look for any sign of excessive pressure. STOP if you see excessive pressure signs and reduce your charge. The following is for informative purposes only. It is up to you and only you to make sure that information is correct and safe. I am not responsible for the misuse of this information You are responsible for your own safety.

This barrel has not seen a single round of factory ammo, and likely never will. 357 Sig is not a common round in my neck of the woods, and any ammo available around here would likely be overpriced. I can reload it dirt cheap though.

I developed loads for three different bullets. A LEE 356-120-TC which is a cast 120gr truncated cone design, a LEE 358-125-RF which is a cast 125gr round nose flat point design meant for 38 caliber revolvers, and a 124gr Hornady XTP which is a jacketed hollow point. The two cast bullets types were coated with powder coat, and then sized down to 0.356". The purpose of the powder coat is to both prevent leading, and to act as a lubricant for the lead bullet. It acts much the same as a copper jacket in that it will allow you to push a lead bullet much faster than you could otherwise without leading or degradation of accuracy. 9mm is already temperamental enough when shooting lead. 357 Sig is like a 9mm on steroids. Attempting to shoot uncoated lead at full velocity in it could cause some leading issues. The powder coat jacket more or less eliminates that possibility. The 120gr LEE got a coat of UT burnt orange colored powder coat, and the 125gr LEE got a coat of translucent metallic copper powder coat.

The reloading data for these three bullets is more or less the same. The overall length (OAL) that I chose is 1.135". This worked well for all three of the bullets that I tested and they seemed to feed perfectly fine. One thing you need to keep in mind when reloading 357 Sig is that OAL and bullet profile are incredibly important. Most round nose 9mm bullets meant for the 9mm Parabellum will not work in a 357 Sig. You need a bullet that is not too long and fat, and that will allow you to get adequate neck tension on the 357 Sig's stubby little neck. Many round nose flat point, truncated cone, and hollow point designs will work. Some won't. There is a thread on another forum that I cannot remember the name of, where some kind-hearted fellow had tested several bullets in the 357 Sig and had posted his results about which do and which don't work. I cannot find that thread. If I should ever come across it again, I'll post a link here. Anyways, in that thread, he mentioned that the 124gr and I believe the 147gr XTPs do work, but just barely so. I think the Berry's 124gr Hybrid Hollow Point also worked. That should give you an idea of how little room for error you have when it comes to bullet selection. The 357 Sig is a wonderful little round, but is very particular about what it likes and what it hates.

One thing that I HIGHLY suggest you get is a LEE factory crimp die (FCD). It will make your life so much easier. I've had guns that just flat out wouldn't chamber a round until I ran the round through one of these. I haven't tried the barrel without using the FCD first. It's part of my reloading process, so I will do it regardless of whether it's necessary for reliable feeding.

The powder I chose is Blue Dot. It just seems to work great in "magnum" semi auto cartridges like the 357 Sig and the 10mm. My reloading manual (Lyman 49th) calls for a min of 8.9gr and a max of 9.9gr when using a 125gr JHP (they used the 125gr Speer Gold Dot), and it calls for an OAL of 1.135". I used this data for all three of the bullets I tested. It is worth noting that toward the upper end of the charges I used, there was some cratering around the primer indent. I feel that this is due to a sloppy/oversized firing pin channel, not excessive pressure. It does this with a lot of 10mm loads too.

I shot off a bench at a target 11-12 yards away. I am by no means a precision pistol shooter, and I do not have a way to take the human factor out of these groups. The barrel is likely capable of much better groups than I could possible shoot. 10 rounds divided into 2x 5-shot groups were used for accuracy testing. Holes were measured from the center of the two farthest rounds. The best group out of the two shot was the only one kept. Obvious pulled shots were excluded from the measurement, but only 1 per group. Multiple pulled shots in a single group led to the tossing of that group's score.

The most accurate loads I tested are as follows.

OAL = 1.135"

(LEE 120gr TC) - 9.3gr Blue Dot - 0.855" group

(LEE 125gr RF) - 9.5gr Blue Dot - 1.37" group

(Hornady 124gr XTP) - 9.5gr Blue Dot - 0.659" group.

A charge of 9.9gr of Blue Dot with the 124gr XTP also showed promise. It's a hot load (max load) and grouped at 1.20". I feel like it could have been better though. Like I said, I couldn't take the human factor out of this test. I do not have the chronograph results for these loads yet. I will have to get them and post them later. They should all be in the 1250-1350 FPS range though.

Some notes about the results. The barrel seemed to like the LEE 120gr TC much better than the LEE 125gr RF. The group size was much more consistent, and tighter overall. I had to throw out numerous groups with the 125gr RF because they could barely be considered groups. The barrel liked certain loadings, and absolutely hated others. The gun liked the 124gr Hornady XTP the best. It did create this odd concussive blast that shakes your teeth though. Not unlike shooting a smaller rifle round (like 5.56) through a compensator. I'm sure it would be an attention getter at the range. Maybe not in the best way, but hey. At least people will know you are shooting something with some power behind it. If muzzle flash is a concern for you, then this probably isn't the cartridge you want. The tail end of my shooting was at Dusk, and the fireball I was getting out of this round was impressive.

FUNCTION

I fired a total of 250 rounds through this barrel. The breakdown of those 250 rounds is as follows.

-50 rounds to test function (9.3gr of Blue Dot with LEE 120gr TC)

-60 rounds of load development (8.9gr - 9.9gr of Blue Dot with LEE 120gr TC)

-60 rounds of load development (8.9gr - 9.9gr of Blue Dot with Hornady 124gr XTP)

-60 rounds of load development (8.9gr - 9.9gr of Blue Dot with LEE 125gr RF)

-20 rounds of practice ammo (9.3gr of Blue Dot with LEE 120gr TC)

Within these 250 rounds, there were a total of 2 malfunctions. The first malfunction occurred at round #60. It was a failure to feed. I'm not entirely sure what happened. The round went 2/3rd of the way into the barrel and stopped. It was at an angle, so I think the bullet was wedged against the side of the chamber wall. Maybe where the body transitions to the shoulder? It was barely a malfunction. I didn't think about this at the time, but the round would have likely chamber had I just given the back of the slide a little bit of a smack. It's also worth noting that this occurred with a starting charge (8.9gr) of Blue Dot, and that the spring in the gun is NOT the factory spring. It's an 22lb aftermarket Wolff spring that I bought for shooting hot 10mm loads. The brass, even with hot rounds of 357 Sig, goes no more than about 6 feet. Lighter loads barely cleared the 3-foot-wide table I was shooting off of. This might have been a factor in that malfunction. The slide may just not have had enough momentum to chamber that round.

The second malfunction was also a failure to feed but was completely different. This one, I know what happened. It happened at round #228. The round went into the chamber but stopped just short of fully clambering. After clearing that round, I reinserted the mag and released the side. The same exact thing happened. I took the barrel out of the gun, looked in the chamber, and saw a tiny sliver of lead stuck to the throat of the chamber. I blew into the chamber, and that fixed it. I don't think you can blame the barrel for that. That sliver might have been stuck to one of the bullets before even being loaded into the gun. Seating lead bullets will occasionally shave a tiny bit of lead off of the bullet and leave it sitting on the mouth of the case. I usually wipe them off, but I guess I missed one. Jacketed bullets obviously don't have that issue. It was kind of a freak thing.

It is also important to keep in mind that this is a match barrel meant for a high degree of precision. It's not like an AK where you can shove any out of spec crap into it and realistically expect it to run flawlessly. The tolerances are tight. If you plan to use a barrel like this for self-defense and you reload your own self-defense ammo, always test fit your ammo using the plunk test. I do this regardless of whether I use jacketed or lead bullets. I don't really bother doing this for range ammo. One thing that I did not mention before is that since Bar-Sto makes each of these barrels to order, you can specify some things about how it's made. If you are more concerned with reliability than you are precision, then I believe you can specify that they make your barrel with a more generous throat. I don't know if a standard size chamber is an option, but you can always ask. Give them a call, I'm sure they'll work with you.

CONCLUSION

I am not really concerned with the two failures. The gun itself has proven to be extremely reliable in the past, and I don’t think the barrel itself was responsible for the two failure to feeds. I mainly got it as a range toy anyways. The XDM is a little on the large size for conceal carry, and I would probably opt for 10mm over .357 Sig for self-defense anyways. Once I iron the kinks out and get this thing really broken in, I feel that it will prove to be quite reliable. I'll have to try it with the factory spring, along with possible some other types of jacketed bullets. This review does not end here. I will post continue to post results as I go. Any new posts made by me in this thread regarding an update will be referenced at this end of this post (the OP).

You’re still here? Gees, you guys need a life. Thank you for reading!

Well done.
Thanks....