Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Higher velocity with muzzle break?

The other day I swapped scopes on my browning xbolt. Sighting in, the first rounds were with a muzzle brake, the last few were without. All rounds were chronographed, and it was a beautiful sunny day. Rounds with the muzzle break were 69 fps faster on average than without. Odd?

Hmmm....🤔

Sounds to me like the outcome of random chance when dealing with a statistically insignificant sample size.

That or something is up with my chronograph. 3180 fps with a 160 Accubond is trotting along a little hot in a 7mm rem mag.

This...

What chronograph ?

I’ve seen that several times over the years with my braked rifles. Some rifles do it, some don’t.

Something could be broken besides the muzzle.

Very well done!

^

Brake: a device for arresting or preventing the motion of a mechanism (like the reward travel of the rifle)

Break: to separate into parts with suddenness or violence. (like the gas leaving the muzzle)


They both work.

They both are derived from the same word.

Just based in the thread title alone.

Adorable, I used the wrong term of break instead of brake. Yall so punny.

It's a Shooting Crony "gamma master".

Defiantly something broken besides the muzzle then. #chronographsmatter

Poking the bear aside, Shooting Chrony doesn't have a great reputation for consistency. Were lighting conditions different between shots?

Muzzle blast --- just saying !!

Thanks for the info. I don't know much about different chronographs, this unit is one my buddy bought and left at my house.

Lighting conditions were generally the same, full early afternoon sun. I had the poles and sunscreens setup. I set the chronograph about 11 feet away and have the angle set so that my horizontal reticle crosses all four brass connectors on the sunscreen poles and the vertice is through the center and on the target.

Maybe the unit is junk.

Try setting it 20 feet from your rifle. Muzzle blast from the brake can interfere with bullet velocity measurements.

[ this unit is one my buddy bought and left at my house.] - I like those kind of buddies!

[Maybe the unit is junk] - It might or might not be "junk", but if it repeatedly and consistently shows you get higher velocity with the brake installed than without, it is still telling you an interesting fact. I suggest you repeat this effort any time you go to the range and find out.

Have you ever pulled a travel trailer with someone following closely? When the air is disturbed the vacuum is broken, velocity will increase.

Wouldn't the muzzle blast from the brake be headed away from the crono.....?

You'll often see similar changes in velocity with two different people shooting the same rifle/load. You can also see significant changes in velocity shooting the same rifle/load prone, benched or standing. The more the rifle moves rearward as the bullet moves down the barrel the slower the muzzle velocity will be. Brakes reduce the velocity of the rifle rearward so will often increase the bullet velocity at the muzzle. If you were to prevent the rifle from moving rearward by placing the butt against a rigid object, you would in theory see the maximum velocity possible because more energy is available to push the bullet down the barrel rather than being used to push the rifle rearward.