Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Muzzle brakes.

Brake, not break.

Ok. Changed the spelling

Nice thing living on the farm in the boonies, don't have to worry about the guy next to you

I have a 300 WM, unbraked.

Little physics first on BREAKS. The recoil is generated and transmitted before the gases even get to the end of the barrel. The device reduces the torque moment, but the main recoil is already on the way. If you think not, show me the force diagram of the negative force vector or the deceleration vector.

The main advantages of breaks are the gases ejected from the ports, and if your shooting technique is good (both eyes open) you can catch a glimpse of the gases, which means your trigger and grip were probably correct. Also because the recoil vector comes straight back, you can stay on the shot longer, because your sight picture hasn't been disturbed. Additional things, depending on air density, humidity, and distance can be seen such as the trace, and sometimes the vapor trail.

At our gun club muzzle brakes are prohibited on the rifle line if other shooters are present.

There are pros and cons to everything. If I had to shoot on a range with shooters on each side of me I would not shoot a rifle with a muzzle brake. But if you have the opportunity to shoot out on the farm, ranch, or lease a muzzle brake is nice to shoot. I agree a suppressor is more fun. But in this case to OP can not use one. If I am shooting/hunting alone and not bothering anyone else, I have no problem using a muzzle brake. I must admit that when I was a younger man recoil did not bother me at all. I owned and shot high powered rifles from 30-30 up to 416 Rem Mag. But now that I am on the + side of 65 yo. I enjoy shooting a high powered rifle with a muzzle brake. I have never had a muzzle brake hurt accuracy. I have had them improve accuracy. Once I have had one installed on a rifle I rarely take it off unless it is to replace it with a suppressor.

I think a lot of clubs prohibit them, the best use is Precision Long range, PRMatches and 3 gun IPSC matches on ARs. Hunting not so much.

Being able to "stay in" your scope and seeing your trace is magic. Doing this while shooting in the wind is voodoo.


mike r

You couldn't give me one, or pay/force me to use one of the obnoxious fugging things.....

The original term was indeed BRAKE, because they "braked" (slowed) the backward velocity of the rifle somewhat during recoil. This originated with brakes on military weapons, up to artillery.

If you prefer to believe BREAK is the "correct" spelling, feel free. A lot of people on the Internet do these days, with all sorts of words.

haven't seen any that can validate the break concept as a brake ss00000 and as said the recoil moment is transferred down the rifle before the gases are out the barrel. Whats it going to do, pull the rifle forward? (one maker claims this on there Sail break) In any event, looking at the formula for calculating recoil it includes the total mass including the powder charge as part of the ejecta,
and working with the formula you can find the contribution of each in the recoil. What this means is that the recoil numbers is a combination of both the bullet and the weight of the powder. Now your telling the muzzle device is going to subtract the powder wt out of the calculation. show me the math. Diversion of it in the form of a gas. after the initial impulse doesn't change it.
One concept in the entire dicussion is skipped over, and that is the weight of the device. The heavier the device the more torque it has on the barrel to hold it down, and yes heavier ones work better. This is the concept behind comp guns, non-reciprocating wt.placed at the end of the barrel with a stationary front site, allowing lower time between shots. This alone would have a significant decrease in the jump of a howitzer and tanks.
originally they were called compensators, Thompson sub. even the AK47 has one without the muzzle flashhider as well as antiaircraft.
the term was even used in early IPSC shooting for modified guns, but the contribution to recoil of the powder charge is only about 3%, so the weight of a tapered cone compensator has significant advantage.
The gas exciting the barrel without the device are acting against the end of the barrel to also increase the torque moment.Beacuse of the pressure the exciting gases "see" the end of th barrel as a solid with no hole, so the force depends on the area of the barrel end.

Etoh, you need to visualize that the gases from combustion are hitting the vertical faces on the muzzle brake vents. For your force diagram take the pressure those gases as they hit those surfaces (in psi) times the surface area (square inches) that it is hitting.

One of the most effective muzzle brakes are the ones on the end of a Barrett M82A1. This brake has large vertical surfaces that the escaping gases hit which create a force in a direction away from the shooter. This brake also redirects the some of those escaping gases and turns them back towards the direction of the shooter. The force the brake is applying to the mass of those escaping gases to make it change direction also reduces recoil. Its acts similarly to a thrust block on a water main when you place a mass of concrete at an elbow of a main to resist the forces generated when the moving water is forced to change direction.

Another way to visualize all of this to picture a stream of water from a fire hose hitting a wall, or a person. That same phenomenon applies to the stream of escaping combustion gasses hitting the back of the vertical surfaces of a muzzle brake (also applies to those gases hitting the back of the baffles in the silencer, though it is not as dramatic as a brake because in a silencer the gases hit the back of the baffle and then “curl” in the baffle chamber and hit front of the baffle behind it somewhat, but not totally, negating the force on the baffle. With a muzzle brake some of the gases are forced to change direction and go perpendicular to the bore. That force reduces the recoil.

I don't have a problem visualizing the combustion hitting the baffles, had a lot of that in post-grad thermodynamics class. I would gladly even provide the math if I thought it would not complicate the discussion. Kind of disappointed you didn't provide it.

Shot a few Barretts, and a few Desert Techs, etc. as I currently live close to the West Deseret in Utah. Nice not having to deal with range rules. Barretts run about 30 lbs.. they aren't that bad to shoot without the comp. Currently Im using TRG 22s, and 42, nice long barrels, oh and I forgot to mention how a long barrel also decreases the torque moment. Jee I wonder if Sako already knew that.
I knew the guy who designed the comp for the Barrett, since your bringing it up. While I lived in Grand Junction, there was a gunsmith Glen Eimes (sp.) in Rifle Colorado who was making the new, amazing, great, wonderful compensators for the new shooting sport of IPSC. His compenators, muzzle brakes to you, were called Modi-Fire. I still have it, but after several hundred THOUSAND rd. of major 9 the end has been shot off. After cutting and truing it still works great. All wt. forward, shorter slide faster cycle time. Glen was nice enough to make a comp. for a friend's Uzi, NFA that is, to see if it would have less muzzle climb. I couldn't tell any difference after all the gun weighs 9 lbs. Oh while I'm name dropping, that year the Western division championships were being held in Gunnison Colorado, and our 3 gun team, was Jimmy Clark on rifle, Paul Miller on pistol, and myself shotgun. Clark was building comps at that time (their new beaver tails were the hot item, Wilson wasn't making his yet.) Miller was one of the first instructors at Gunsight, and a bullet maker, later took over Steel challenge. Short version. They all said the best part of the compensator (brake) was the non-reciprocating weight added to the front. The next year , at the Coors Challenge in Durang) I used one of Olympus arms new ARs that had the carrying handle milled off and and a Weaver rail installed, new to the world and first. I also had a 3 lb. compensator made up for the barrel end, no baffles and no holes. Cleaned the rifle stage. I was protested and accused of have the gun on full auto because of dumping 3 shots on the last target with split times of .2sec. at 200 yds. (no barrel rise didn't loose sight pict multiple shots increase probability on last target)

Sorry for the boring wind, but hell----

Now, why your last item doesn't hold water (sorry again)

1. The wall your hitting with the water cannon is not connect to the fire hose, so absolutely no results are going to be shown.

2. Assuming it was connected the weight of the wall alone would hold down the water cannon.

3. Assuming you only used a small portion of the wall, hmm say 2x the diameter of the cannon hose, (and that's generous) and that wall had a hole in it that was the same dia. as the hose. so that about 5% of the water was hitting the wall. Now analogy closer


IT STILL TAKES 2 PEOPLE TO HOLD THE WATER HOSE , JUST SAME AS WITHOUT THEL WALL

I'm confused - is the argument that muzzle brakes don't actually work, or that people don't agree on the mechanics of how they work?

MDT did a couple of good videos proving them to be pretty effective...

Must’ve been a “wanna be” sadist! 🤔 😂 I started my centerfire shooting at 14 1967 ish with an iron sights only, 6 1/2 pound, .308 Win. with the plastic butt plate (similar in recoil transfer). I never found it unpleasant! In fact, I gave it to my son several years ago…..still wearing the original plastic butt pad! memtb

I have one of these and like it quite a bit, https://www.area419.com/product/hellfire_st/, but I don't use it for hunting as I don't like the "have to" wear hearing protection as I don't always have time to put them in/on and they are a must for braked rifles.

I shoot suppressed these days for hunting but my suppressers are not full-auto rated and I don't want to ruin them at the range overheating. I use the Area 419 brake when I'm doing a good bit of shooting as it does make if much more enjoyable to shoot almost any rifle. I switch it over several rifles that are threaded.

Have several guns that are threaded. And had brakes.

Likely won’t use them again after getting a couple suppressors.

I’ll admit, i was hard headed about getting them..

The whole..

It takes too long…
I’m not giving .gov $200…

Blah blah.

Wished I would have done it years ago.


That being said.

I liked Mac’s Machine No-Timer radial brake.

Just tighten and shoot. I stand hunt. Not prone on the ground, so blowing dust / dirt up wasn’t an issue.

People don't agree on the interpretation of the data, and the math and chain of events.
MDT in particular misrepresents the data.
First -- the recoil moment is generated during the first several inches of barrel after ignition. How can an event that occurs later in the barrel, even though its a very short time. Reduce that value? does it go back in time? --- Answer human reaction time is incredibly long compared to that time. And in most cases confuse muzzle jump (a rotational torquing event) as part of the recoil impulse moment and don't separate out the torque moment about the center point of the rifle. (as a side note this is one of the main benefits of chassis type stocks and why the have become so popular)

Second- none of their comparsions are done with a barrel wt, with no baffles or holes. attached to the end of the barrel to determine a base line for those values.

Third, and most obvious -- if the recoil formula ejecta includes the wt. of the powder plus the wt of the bullet. how can it reduce recoil up to 60% if the powder contribution to the formula is only 20%

wait I know the answer, use the rocket effect of gases being greater the sum of the masses. Make the baffles really big too. some manufactures even claim there devices pull the gun forward. because of large surface area and the rocket effect.

Holy [bleep], why not just add water to the powder and get the same steam effect NASA gets with real rockets.

But, if the time of flight is long enough, and it is in LRPS, seeing the gases come out the sides of your field of view, means your shot release was good, and with no disturbance in watching the impact, which gives immediate feedback on sidewinds for horizontal corrections. Meaning less time needed for following up shot, meaning less time for wind changes. And that's why I use them

I hate muzzle brakes. This weekend at the range was painful and ended early due to an inconsiderate shooter and his muzzle brake.

Same here.