Service pistols shoot amazingly well considering that they’re produced by the trillions. OK, maybe millions, but they’re still mass production items made mostly by machines. If you have a pistol that’s hand-fitted, you’ll be paying a lot more than the $500 give or take a few Benjamins.

The most significant difference between hand-tweaked guns and production ones is the tolerance slack built into every part. When you make eleventy-trillion barrels to mate with eleventy-trillion slides, you need to build in a bit of play so you can be sure that any barrel will fit any slide. The result is a perfectly good pistol, that’s reliable in part due to the slightly loose tolerances, but it will never be as accurate as one with carefully fitted parts.

Read the rest: What Can You Expect from a Barrel Upgrade? – The Mag Life