Illusion Kinetics Fixed 1911 Barrel in a KJW!

[Dimitri]

Yes that is no typo, I decided to upgrade the KJW Les Baer/MEU that was gifted to me for Christmas ...



It's a $210 pistol from where it was bought. So I know what your going to say, but that is a expensive upgrade for $111, over half the price of the pistol itself. So bare with me please.

In stock form, I get a 11 shot group at about 2-1/2 inches (63.5mm) using the gun as is from KJW (rapid fire into the black center).



Pistol works fine, other then the fact I ended up losing the front sight, it seems that a few others have as well, Illusion fixed me up with a new one, but more on that later.

Any ways, the original barrel is thinner, all around then this one, and not as nice of a finish, which is a obvious (especially in person) ...





When you swap the barrel, there is no modifications required, however the beefier IK fixed barrel I will warn you needs to go on straight when you put the slide back, the thinner looser KJW barrel never gave me a problem it always "slapped" back on.

The IK barrel? Nope, need to make sure the bottom tang area is going in straight otherwise it's too well fitting to pop into place!

But it looks so nice once installed without that gawd awful orange barrel.



The IK barrel, to be sure of proper fit before testing it under gas, I cycled it about 50 times, not a hick up even with it being thicker. But I also don't have that pocket change sound of the barrel assembly slapping about when racking the slide. The KJW now cycles like every "real steel" 1911 pistol I've shot, or handled. Smooth and crisp.

So, I said I'll get back to the front sight issue, well I lost it one day at UA, a bummer, but it popped off going in and out of the holster near the end and didn't actually notice it till the next weekend as I was getting my gear together.

Any ways Illusions MEU front sight is about 0.025" maybe (judging by eye should have taken my calipers out to measure) too wide. With a small FINE half round file, filing it the one way only (giving it a slight taper) I got it to pop in in no time at all. It is doable, just pay attention, and test it for fit as you go along. got it to fit properly under a "by hand" press fit, and loctited it down. It hangs off the front a little, but doesn't actually pass the front surface of the barrel bushing, just as a FYI. I don't really mind, otherwise I'd have taken a file to that too.

So I was ready to hit the "range" again which happens to be the living room, to see what kind of improvement I got out of it. I figured since it is a fixed barrel, and fits inside the gun much more tightly it should shoot better.

Well it does "feel" better, which is subjective, and strictly my opinion, but this tells me it's better now.



That is right, this 11 round group was 1-3/16" (30.2mm) once you get rid of the flyer (gas output ended up dropping by the last one, which is the flyer, didn't refill the propane before both group firings, because clearly as you can see it didn't go through the paper ). The group, using the same shooting technique (rapid fire into the black center) shrunk by over half!

So yes, to mention that it does cost more then half the cost of the gun, but it got rid of the orange, it fits and feels better, and it cut the grouping in half.

If your going to spend money on upgrading anything on the gun especially if you want accuracy, it would be foolish not to get a better barrel like this one first.

Definitely a

Dimitri