I looked around the net fairly extensively trying to find some information on a Baby Roland, but I did not meet with much success. So I bit the bullet as it were and plunked down my $300 for the KKM barrel, comp, and thread protector, and then waited. This is a look at this rig that I hope will helps others who are considering going down this road.
First some specs. The pistol is a Gen 4 Glock 26 that is outfitted with an Apex Extractor, White Sound Defense HRED, and a Gen 3 trigger bar (and the correct ejector). I am running a variety of mags including the factory 10 rounder with a factory plus two extension, the MagPul 12 rounder, and a G19 with the Pachmayer grip adapter thing. This pistol continues to exhibit weak ejection. The combination of the Apex extractor and HRED has yielded more reliable ejection and minimized the BTF with the factory barrel, but the extraction is still weaker and more erratic than I would like. That said, it is also clear that hotter ammo causes more vigorous, positive extraction and ejection. Okay, enough of that bunny trail.
The new barrel is the standard KKM with the (I believe) 9/16 threads and their comp. I ordered the parts from KKM on 9/9/17 and they shipped on 9/26/17. This was well inside the four week lead time indicated on the website. The parts arrived well packaged and in good shape. No instructions enclosed because if you need those for this, you would probably be better off with a sharp stick.
The machining was excellent as you would expect from KKM. Everything that needed to be polished, was – and no crud in the lands and grooves. It looked ready to go right out of the box. So, as I go to install the barrel for the first time, I have this micro-second of panic. The barrel did not want to just drop into place. Whaaaa?!?!?! Am I really going to have to get this thing fitted?!? Nope. It was just a very precise fit. Just a little bit of jiggling and it fell (actually almost “clicked”) into place. Yee haw! Very clean threads at the muzzle, but they are also very fine. Careful with the first turn, and then the comp glides on from there. It snugs up just right to the front of the slide with maybe an 1/8” or less gap. Once the recoil spring is put in place, the face of the recoil spring assembly that protrudes just slightly through the front of the slide will actually obstruct the comp if you try to unscrew it off the barrel with the recoil spring in place. So, how ever much the RSA protrudes through the front of the slide, the comp fits closer than that.
I had thought that the comp might look goofy with the rounded nose of the G26 slide, but I don’t think it looks bad at all. That was not going to be a show stopper for me in any event. As it is, it looks like a friggin' ray gun.
With everything installed and just working some drawstrokes, the comp is, visually and in terms of balance, a non-factor. From the shooter’s visual perspective, the comp disappears. And even with an unloaded mag, the gun is not muzzle heavy at all. The one thing I did notice was that reholstering was a little more touchy with the comp in place. The width of the comp is fully the same as the width of the slide. I am running an RCS Eidolon with the high sides. This holster is very precisely fitted to the pistol so I have to slow it way down and be a little more precise to get the comp started in the holster. From there, its no problem. This gets me to the overall length of this rig.
With the comp installed, the OAL of the G26 is very slightly longer than a G17. Yup. To my eye, the comped G26 stops right about where the end of the barrel on the G17 ends. Wild stuff. Before ordering, I was trying to visualize what kind of length this was going to add to the 26. I *thought* I would end up with a G19+ OAL – so somewhere between the 19 and 17. Nope. I have only run this in the Eidolon (which has the open muzzle) and an Alabama Holster pancake for a G17. The Alabama Holster has the muzzle end sort of rounded in whereby it creates a bit of a stop for the slide, but it is not so closed that the kydex would touch the barrel. In any event, the pistol fit fine in the Alabama Holster pancake.
Now for the main part of this review. Does it, or don’t it, work? It do. I started with relatively weak ammo and worked my way up. First shot was with 115 grain PMC. This resulted in a stove pipe with the brass sticking straight up at 12 o’ clock. No big surprise really. I ditched that and went to some Perfecta 115’s. Surprisingly, that ran just fine. Not only that, but it was super soft and flat shooting with the comp. Let me say right here that, despite my best efforts, I have never been able to track the front sight in recoil. At best, the sequence is: front sight – bang – blur- front sight. The comp did not change this. What it *did* change is the time between front sights. With the comp in place, the front sight is disrupted very briefly, then it reappears in the same spot from a moment before. The comp absolutely makes the gun recoil flatter. Muzzle flip is almost eliminated. This was true across all ammo I shot. Other ammo included some Winchester NATO spec 124 grainers (this stuff is hot and flashy) and a variety of HST with some of that being +P. Again, the effect of the comp was evident across the board. My buddy had his G26 with him and we shot them back-to-back a few times with the same ammo. The comped version is like a different gun. While we did not shoot the comped 26 against a 17, I think the comped 26 would probably recover quicker than a stock 17. That’s just the sense that I get.
We were able to shoot on into dusk. Some flash through the ports was evident as the light dimmed. Honestly, the flash through the top ports was fairly distracting. I ran 10 rounds of both the 115 German MEN ammo and the Winchester NATO (one mag each) as fast as I could run the trigger at about seven steps. After the first shot, I kind of lost visual on the target. Nonetheless, I kept on keeping on and about 8 of the first 10 rounds were A zone hits. I attribute that to the recoil mitigation of the comp. The second 10 round dump was with the NATO stuff. Very flashy and more recoil (perhaps the most of anything I shot) and the A zone percentage probably dropped to 50% - but again, I was mashing on the trigger as fast as I could and I really could not see the target after the first shot due to muzzle flash. All the hits were, however, on paper and I think everything was in at least the B zone – for whatever all that is worth. I did not shoot any HST as it started to get dark (I should have done that), so I can’t comment on how that ammo would perform. One last thought on muzzle flash. Particularly in the short barrel of the G26, I wonder if the comp makes the flash only a little worse by directing some of that up around the front sight. For sure, this is the worst direction we could send the muzzle flash, but I wonder if it is that much worse than it would be with a stock set-up. I mean, a given ammo is gonna flash at whatever rate, so you will be dealing with it regardless. I will try to remember to do a side-by-side comparison at my next opportunity.
Also, the ejection perhaps improved with the KKM barrel in place. With the factory barrel and Apex/HRED/factory EDP in place, I was getting better ejection generally, but still about one piece of brass per mag coming back toward my noggin. Neither I, nor my had this happen with the KKM in place. With the weaker ammo though, the brass came out like from a popcorn machine – no pattern. With the hotter ammo, we saw positive ejection to 3 – 4 o’ clock. I am going to try some 147 grain +P HST. My theory is that this will give the comp plenty of gas and also help with ejection.
Overall, I am *very* pleased with the KKM set-up. It does what it is advertised to do – it makes the gun shoot flatter. I am glad I did not go full-Roland on this and comp my G19. That would be a little more than *I* would be inclined to carry. That extra muzzle length does impinge on my comfort when carrying AIWB and the G17 length is about my limit (other folks may have more room than I do down in the nether regions). So for me, this is a great set-up. This is my go-to carry rig.
What would I change with this set-up? Two things. I would love to see KKM come out with a version of the comp that would facilitate mounting the front sight on the comp itself. I have to think this would aid in tracking the front sight. There would be some challenges with this – mostly that the sight would get sooted up pretty quick; but I still think it is an idea worth pursuing. The other thing is the grip shape on the Gen 4 G26. Why Gaston went with the curve at the top of the back strap I will never know. The Gen4 G19 grip shape just sinks into my hand. With the G26, I feel like I have a gap between the gun and my hand near the top of the grip. And there is no good way to fill this in. I have absolutely considered cutting up a perfectly good G19 both on the muzzle end and the grip to get what I want. But I’m not there – yet. In any event, I’m sticking with the 26 because it allows me to scale the concealability up or down depending on what I have going on. The next iteration for this project will be to install an RMR. That said, I am going to wait for the Gen5 26 to hit and see how that goes. If those run like the 19s, I will probably grab one up and RMR it. Here’s hoping that the KKM barrel will work with the Gen 5.
ETA: I wish KKM would have tossed in a couple spare allen screws. I know I will end up losing the ones that came with the comp.
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Originally Posted by Lon
