ABER released their original set of replacement cal.30 barrels in set #35 L54 which consisted of etched cooling jackets that required careful bending for the jacket and as well as the additional work that depended on the modeller's skill to achieve a result.

They have now released a second cal.30 barrel set which contains two barrels done in what is now the "conventional" way for barrels of this type with finely turned perforated brass cooling jackets and the inner barrel also in brass.

metal barrel parts with Dragon barrels

The inner barrel has the muzzle drilled out slightly and also includes the two small notches on the muzzle tip so typical of the .30cal while the cooling jacket is done in quite thin brass with cleanly drilled holes to give a very good appearance with minimal work.

Ther eis some fine brass residue inside

Fitting the barrel to any available .30Cal MG is very easy and I have used the gun from the recent Academy M3 Lee kit for this example and you simply cut off the kit barrel, drill a small hole and insert the end of the brass barrel, nothing could be easier.

The size and contours of the muzzle brake match the plans perfectly with cleanly machine holes in the sides and muzzle opening and the small brass collar also has the four notches included with the Tasca kit barrel only having two of these notches as the other two coincide with the split in the barrel halves.

Other details include the inner muzzle brake collar and the muzzle brake in two parts which means it is completely hollow but also leaves a join between the two halves. On fitting the two muzzle brake halves together sees the join so good as to be almost invisible but by running a thin bead of solder around the join will see it eliminated completely.

The aluminium barrel has rifling included in the muzzle as well as the small notch on muzzle brake which is not often seen but is included on Ordnance drawings of the 17pdr muzzle brake making this the only metal barrel to date that includes this feature.

Easy fitting to kit parts D7, D20

Assembly of the muzzle brake was fairly straightforward with the brass collar and etched ring fitting perfectly to the end of the barrel and the inner muzzle brake collar fits exactly into the front muzzle brake half and the rear section then fits precisely in place leaving just the fine join seam as mentioned above. The fit of the muzzle brake to the barrel was also good but quite tight and very minor filing of the inside of the muzzle brake neck may be needed and test fitting will show if this is the case?

ABER barrel with Dragon kit parts assembled as per instructions
Note close-up of rifling in both barrels

Conclusion:
This new barrel from ABER is in my view the best yet released as the hollow muzzle brake with inner collar offer better defined detail then the other solid muzzle brakes despite the fine join seam between the two muzzle brake halves.

The barrel dimensions are very good and while the fit to the Tasca kit did require some minor filing of the barrel neck for a precise fit the resulting barrel looks very good when fitted.

Highly recommended 8/10

See the full comparison of available metal .30cal machine gun barrels.

Thanks to ABER for the review sets.
carry the full range of ABER update sets and barrels.