Why would someone buy an aftermarket gun barrel? There are several reasons. First, many plastic gun barrels are molded with horrible seams along two sides of the barrel, which are often times difficult to clean up without flattening the tube. Resin barrels (and plastic ones as well) are often warped, and fixing the problem could be tricky. Kit barrels usually have solid ends, requiring the modeler to drill open the tip to make it look more realistic (easy to do on large barrels; not so easy on small ones). And finally, some times the kit barrels simply are wrong, such as in length, diameter, shape, etc.

In the case of this ABER barrel, it addresses all of the above factors. Meant for the King Tiger, this barrel will work equally well on the Italeri (ESCI) or Revell Tiger kits, though the Italeri kit needs it more. Accurate in both size and shape, what sets this barrel above the others is the inclusion of a turned-brass muzzle brake, which is beautifully done. There is a small amount of residual brass around the opening where the muzzle attaches to the aluminum barrel, but that can be easily cleaned away with a small drill.

This is a superb piece, and I highly recommend it.

Thank you very much to Rafal Niedzielski for the providing the review item.