My father-in-law lost his home (and gun collection) to a fire in February of this year.  He is slowly buying guns again to replace what burned.  One of his favorites was a stainless Rossi 971 .357 Magnum with a 2.5" or 3" factory compensated barrel.  I don't see it listed on the Rossi website anymore.  He has asked me to find another compensated .357 with a 2"-3" barrel.  S&W makes some of their Performance Center guns in this configuration.  However, $700+  is too expensive.  They offered the 686 with a 6" ported barrel for a while.  Which other manufacturers make a compensated .357 (w/ 2"-3" barrel)?  Would it be less expensive to find a solid used gun and have it Magna-ported?  Any experience Magna-porting--pro or con?                                                          

I had a GP100 5" ported (Dual Trap) by Mag-Na-Port.  I would note that the shipping will cost a pretty penny (~40 each way) if you don't know how to remove the cylinder completely and thus ship parts, as opposed to a firearm (I am not a lawyer, please contact more authoritative sources for what is and is not a firearm with respect to shipping regulations).

Recoil is much more pleasant - it's completely lost any tendancy to feel like a magnum.  Velocity is  now ~1350fps for factory (Black Hills) 125gr, and ~1550fps for 22 grains of H110 under a 125gr Rainer FP.  I don't have a measurement of what it was before porting.

I have no issues with cleaning the ports - the pipe cleaner doesn't tend to find much crap in them, though there is some black on the sides of the sight.

Accuracy is still in the sub 2" at 25 yard category, where it was before.

Taurus makes lots of ported snubbies, and that brand would be comparable to Rossi in quality and price. A step up, more than likely, but close enough. Taurus makes Rossi, but Rossi is the budget line.

Ported snubbies suck, but that is another thread.


http://www.taurususa.com/products/products-revolvers.cfm

Ported snubbies suck, but that is another thread.

+1
Like .375mag snubbies aren't loud enough to begin with.

I had my S&W Model 41 Magna-Ported, man you can really feel the difference even in a littel 22LR. The only big probablem is the shipping, it must be done thru UPS, and from what I've heard, they only want to ship firearms 2nd day Air only. That can get pretty expensive. My S&W Model 41 costed more to Magna-port because it had a bull barrel, I think back then it was something like $75, don't what Magna-Port Intl charges today.