Original Title:
357 SIG barrel for Beretta 96?

My brother has a 96 in 40 S&W.  He also has a Beretta Cougar 8357 in 357 SIG.  He loves the 357 caliber and I want get him a 357 barrel for his 96 for a birthday present.  This would keep him from having to buy two types of ammo also.

I found this Bar-Sto Semi-Drop-In Barrel at Midwayusa.com.

Does anyone have any other good suggestions on where I can find good barrel?
Does Beretta make a 357 SIG barrel for the 96?  I didn't see that as a caliber offered at Berettausa.com.

Thanx in advance for the help!
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OK, the barrel arrived today.  I unwrapped it, inspected it, switched the locking block assembly, and test for function.  Everything seemed OK.

Then, I went to the range with 150 rounds of Ultra-Max 125 grain FMJ, and one box of Speer Gold Dot 125 grain JHP.

I had several FTF's with the Ultramax, that worried me.
Then the FTF's got worse with the Speer.

I took it home, and increased the feedramp at little with my handy dremel, and them polished the begeezus out it with a polishing wheel followed up with some 600 grit paper and my finger.  The feedramp is way smoother and more angled than the OEM 40 barrel, but it keeps FTF?

What gives?  I even noticed that on some of the rounds that do feed properly, the bullets have been set back several hundrenths of an inch, and that ain't good for chamber pressure.

I'm afraid to "dremel" the feedramp anymore because I don't want to end up with a GLOCK like chamber that allows the 6 o'clock position of the case web to be unsupported.

I using a Wolff 18 lb recoil spring and a Wolff extra power magazine springs with genuine Beretta mags.  Can someone please recomment what next?

Bump for the Saturday night guys

Bar-Sto makes a damn good barrel. Nowlin may make one, I'm not sure. Brownells should be a good source or hit the barrel makers' web sites?

Good luck!

OK, I researched this and found this:

The .357 SIG can't be fired out of a Beretta 96, because its locking block system would be to weak, the Cougar's rotating lockup is strong enough however.

Beretta 8357 Cougar F - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
But I don't consider Wikipedia to a definitive gun website so I'll take it all in stride.

The first two things I did was to order the Bar-Sto 357 Sig Semi-Drop-In Barrel.  They were out of stock so I'm still waiting on the barrel.

I also grabbed a Wolff 18 lb Recoil Spring.  The standard spring rating is 13 lbs, so I rekon that the new 18 lb one is +38%.

I also nabbed 3 used 11rd LEO mags off AuctionArms.com and popped in some Wolff 10% Extra Power Magazine Springs.

I was worried that the firearm would shortstroke with the 18 lb spring so today I took it to the local range and ran 100 rounds of PMC 165 FMJ 40 S&W through it.  It ran through the ammo without a hitch.  Since the 96 has a fixed ejector, I can sorta guess slide speed by how far the empty cases are thrown.  With 18 lb spring the cases were hitting the lane divider, bouncing off and still landing on the staging table about 10' behind me.  I imagine that unless you use some really weak ammo, nobody would have any problems with shortstroking a 96 with a 18 lb recoil spring.

So, when the Bar-Sto 357 Sig barrel gets here, I'll run to the local gunsmith to have it fitted and then back to the shooting range I'll go.

My plan is to have the stainless barrel finished in GunKote when it's fitted and functioning like expected.  At the moment, only 49 people have even clicked on this thread, but I'll keep somebody updated on the process.

Todd Green of SIGARMS presently (he used to work for BerettaUSA) had converted a Beretta 96 Elite to a 357SIG back when barrels weren't available, he used a 92Elite barrel rechambered for 357SIG.  I believe the recoil springs he used were 20 or 22lb Wolffs and he used Heitt red buffers to cushion the blow to the frame.  He said the buffers would wear out in short order (about 1K rounds or less).  The slide velocity was very fast.

If you IM me I can put you in contact with him.

OK, the barrel arrived today.  I unwrapped it, inspected it, switched the locking block assembly, and test for function.  Everything seemed OK.

Then, I went to the range with 150 rounds of Ultra-Max 125 grain FMJ, and one box of Speer Gold Dot 125 grain JHP.

I had several FTF's with the Ultramax, that worried me.
Then the FTF's got worse with the Speer.

I took it home, and increased the feedramp at little with my handy dremel, and them polished the begeezus out it with a polishing wheel followed up with some 600 grit paper and my finger.  The feedramp is way smoother and more angled than the OEM 40 barrel, but it keeps FTF?

What gives?  I even noticed that on some of the rounds that do feed properly, the bullets have been set back several hundrenths of an inch, and that ain't good for chamber pressure.

I'm afraid to "dremel" the feedramp anymore because I don't want to end up with a GLOCK like chamber that allows the 6 o'clock position of the case web to be unsupported.

I using a Wolff 18 lb recoil spring and a Wolff extra power magazine springs with genuine Beretta mags.  Can someone please recomment what next?

Quoted: What gives?  I even noticed that on some of the rounds that do feed properly, the bullets have been set back several hundrenths of an inch,

Seems like you've hit upon your problem? The rds are hitting the ramp at the incorrect angle for it to work, or the slide is hitting the case due to too fast of a slide speed? Seems like the cheapest experiment would be to bump up the recoil spring poundage by 3-4 lbs & see where that leads you? By slowing the slide, you might give the rd more time to properly enter the chamber at a correct angle?

Good luck!

Quoted: Seems like you've hit upon your problem? The rds are hitting the ramp at the incorrect angle for it to work, or the slide is hitting the case due to too fast of a slide speed? Seems like the cheapest experiment would be to bump up the recoil spring poundage by 3-4 lbs & see where that leads you? By slowing the slide, you might give the rd more time to properly enter the chamber at a correct angle? Good luck!

I tried that already, I'm using a Wolff 18 lb spring, which is 5 lbs greater than stock.  I'm also using Wolff extra power mag springs to get the rounds up quicker.