Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Do muzzle breaks damage scopes?

I have a muzzle break on my Mossberg 4X4 rifle in .270 Win., came that way from the factory. Was doing some research as I was thinking of removing it as it is loud to the other shooters at my range, etc. One writer on the internet said that the muzzle breaks on rifles cause the recoil to change direction and break scopes.

Is that true or is he mistaken? I don't want to damage my Nikon scope and as the .270 is not a heavy kicker anyways, I could just remove the break, but the rifle is soooo sweet in the recoil department.

It's got to be true then

Most scopes are engineered to handle recoil coming from one direction. I know the spring in air rifles actually causes a small amount of recoil in the opposite direction and there have been scopes designed for center fire rifles broken when put on air rifles. They make scopes designed to be used on air rifles just for this reason.

Never heard anything about a muzzle break doing this. My understanding is that they reduce recoil coming back, but not enough to cause recoil in the opposite direction. My gut feeling is that it won't damage your scope, but I'd welcome any information that says different.

Correct then can damage scopes. My 378 wby has killed 3 Leupolds including a Mark 4 30mm LR.

My new 378 has no brake and wears a a new Nightforce 2.5x10x40mm NXS

I don't want to get too far into the physics on this, but some of it is necessary, so please bear with me.

First, no muzzle brake (brake, as in "slowing down", not break as in to break something) I know of is capable of changing the direction of the recoil. In fact, if you were able to completely reverse the momentum of all the powder gas, I don't believe the combination of mass and velocity of the gas would be great enough to counter the momentum of the bullet.

Now, for a short but necessary physics discussion.

The change in position of an object divided by the time it takes to move from one position to another is VELOCITY. Most everyone understands velocity, even if they have little background in science.

The change in velocity of an object divided by the time it takes to go from moving at one velocity to another is ACCELERATION. Many understand acceleration as well. You feel it when you are in a high performance car and the straight line acceleration pushes you back into the seat. It is the difference between a wide receiver who is very fast, but takes a few more yards to get moving compared to a running back who is not as fast, but can go from a standing start and hit the hole very quickly.

Now comes the part many are not familiar with. The change in acceleration of an object divided by the time it takes to go from experiencing one acceleration to another is JERK. (Yes, jerk is a scientific term.) To understand it, imagine a high performance boat. Imagine the driver gets on the throttle quickly, but smoothly, and you are quickly but smoothly pinned back into you seat as the boat accelerates. The jerk is relatively low. Now imagine tying the boat to the dock, then bringing it to full throttle. The boat is not moving, but straining like hell on the rope. Now cut the rope. You are slammed back into the seat. In this case, the jerk is high.

Many devices can handle relatively high acceleration, but they cannot handle high jerk all that well. In addition, velocity, acceleration, and jerk are all vector quantities, meaning they have a value and a direction. Muzzle brakes can rather rapidly change the value and direction of jerk. They are not able to change the direction of the recoil velocity. None I know of will try to take the rifle forward out of your grasp. Depending on the design, they may or may not be able to change the direction of the acceleration. But any effective brake can absolutely quickly change the acceleration from a high value toward your shoulder into a lesser value still toward your shoulder. This is a high value of jerk in a direction some devices are not well designed to withstand. Spring piston air rifles and even some semi-autos can do the same thing. It is counterintuitive that a light .22 rimfire semi-auto that recoils hardly at all can be hard or a scope, but many a cheap scope has succumbed. The constant, repetitive, peck, peck, peck of jerk finally gets to them.

So, yes, muzzle brakes can damage scopes.

Just wrap blue tape around the forward portion of the scopes tube.

high-speed video of scope and barrel flexing on a 50BMG


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5pVya7eask

Have not owned a muzzle break, and having been around a few have no desire for one. Can't really see how it would break a scope, More up and down recoil perhaps. Air rifles seem to be the ones that can really put the hurt on a scope. Again it would depend on the caliber and what scope. Have had some heavy kickers, and it comes down to the scope and the load. A good scope seems to be fine, a cheaper one not so much. For a 270 I see no need at all for a muzzle break.

Just wondering how you came to the conclusion that the break caused the flexing in the video? I am no expert but I believe the same would have happened with or without the break.

No. But some air rifles and 10/22's can be tough on scopes.

I have some heavy kickers that have been tough on mounting systems, but the scopes have held up fine.

I have a 340 Wby. and a Beeman's R-1. I have had numerous high and low dollar "scopes" on both for at least 20 years and have never had any problems with them on either one. Both of those rifles have some recoil, fore and aft! -Muddy

A heavy kicker without a brake and one with are two different animals. I have heard from people I trust of heavy kickers that worked fine with the same scope for years. A brake gets installed, and the scope fails. It could be coincidence, but the physics makes sense.

However, I am not saying a muzzle brake, an air rifle or a semi-auto will damage every scope. The experience of many proves otherwise. In addition, as far as I know, Leupold (and likely some other brands as well) will stand behind any scope used on a shoulder fired weapon of any kind.

The one time a fellow with a muzzle-braked rifle set up at the bench next to me on the covered firing line and cut loose, I thought his muzzle blast was going to ruin MY scope.

I had to take a break to get away from the concussion. He was using some cheap ear plugs that apparently didn't work all that well, because after five shots he couldn't take his own blast anymore. He put the Mangle-um away and switched to his 10/22.

I hadn't considered the "Jerk Factor" before, but it seems to be relevant to this subject, perhaps in more ways than one.

In my ignorance I think you are comparing apples to oranges. I am willing to bet a brake will not damage the Nightforce.

Ringman,

I think you missed his point. Apparently the first 378 Wby was braked, and it did ruin three scopes. That is the point.

For that reason his new Wby is not braked. It doesn't matter that the new rifle has a Nightforce on it. It is understandable that he wants the tougher scope, and sure it probably would have survived on the braked rifle. His point is that he believes that the braked Wby did in fact damage three scopes.

Correct my new (to me) 378 wby did not came with a brake but I put an NF on it anyway as an upgrade.

Hog wash...

Part of the reason I started looking into this was that I sat next to a fellow with a .308 chambered AR rifle at the range a few months ago and the side blast concussion on me was really bad. the .223 chambered ARs are unpleasant too, but not nearly as ferocious as the .308.


My .270 Mossberg with muzzle break does seem to get the attention of the people next to me, not sure how bad it is for them, but they are looking at me when I pull the trigger, good peripheral vision. My towel on the bench will jump up some from the side blast as well.

Ironically, my RWS 34 pellet rifle (.177) with the plastic butt plate will bruise me from the recoil if I don't hold it right, I can definitely see why those spring airguns eat scopes.

What is?

When the muzzle breaks, if it splits far enough back to contact the scope, it certainly might break the scope as well.

Maybe the real question here is if a muzzle brake will help prevent a muzzle break?