Gunsmithing Made my first Muzzle Brake.....

[csdilligaf]

Its for a 7mm WSM and the barrel is 1" dia. The brake is 1.5". Its overkill but I dont care. Its a single shot Surgeon action and should work out nice. If I charged myself by the hour it would have been cheaper to buy one but defeats the point of it being a hobby. Sure was nice to install the brake without the ports or flats, use a level on the picatinny rail will holding the brake in the vice, cut the top flat, remove the brake and flip it over too cut the other flat and then use the flats to orientate for the ports. Made timeing it less work.

 

[338RUM runner]

Sounds like it's going to be a nice 500.00 brake, LOL. Nice job and good way to do the machine work.

 

[glbreil]

Nice looking work!

Gary

 

[Turd in the Pool]

Looks good. I think I would have angled the ports but I'm sure it will work well. Nice job.

 

[csdilligaf]

I guess its a bad angle because the front three ports are at 15 degrees and come to a knife edge to split the flow. I made the first port flat cause it seems to look cleaner when its flush with the barrel. It was tough to deburr the angles ports around the bore but I got it.

 

[thrusty]

Nice work on that brake. I like the flats you put on it. I'm sure it's loud as hell!

 

[E. Bryant]

That should be rather effective in converting recoil into noise. Looks good!

 

[Turd in the Pool]

I guess its a bad angle because the front three ports are at 15 degrees and come to a knife edge to split the flow. I made the first port flat cause it seems to look cleaner when its flush with the barrel. It was tough to deburr the angles ports around the bore but I got it.

See it now. Kinda dark on the front ports. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Spent round]

If I send you some barrel info can I have one too.

 

[Jim See]

thats close to a copy of the 4 port Muscle Brake that I developed 4 years ago, straight port followed by 3 ports at 15 degrees, slabbed 1" tall and 1.25 wide. you can buy them for $125, or if you are a gunsmith can buy them for considerable less at dealer pricing. Center Shot Rifles - Products / Sales - Muzzle Brakes
I recently sold them to Ryan pierce who is now the manf. of them. his contact is on the link.

My design works very well at reducing recoil and the cuncussion/blast effect to the shooter. You will have to give yours a try and see if it works as well, some of the dimensions that are critical to that effect look different on yours, good luck.

 

[csdilligaf]

I really didnt think about dimensions effecting recoil or sound. I knew I wanted the front face at the end to be flat rather than coned just because I like the look. I made the ports .400 wide x 1.1 tall because a 3/8 endmill fit in nice and 15 degree's angle because it seemed about right and I had a 15 degree block. I modeled it up to get the depth right to make the knife edge. I made the first port flat after seeing ones with it being angled and it just looked funny with the barrel protruding in or having a big hole with the barrel sunk back. This looks nice and clean

A question for Jim See: What kind of added recoil reduction does angled port walls give? I see some with angled ports and some with straight. Will there be less recoil with angled ports?

Answer for Spent Round: No, I am just a hobbiest. The Muscle brake, Fat Bastard and many others that are in the bussiness of making them will be cheaper. I just love to machine and make most everything I use. And I mean everything. If its metal, I make it.

 

[kortik]

Would be interesting to learn what Jim See thinks about angled ports.

I've made a bunch of muzzle brakes myself, mostly with straight ports, but a couple with angled ports, and didn't notice any significant difference. Theoretically, if brake ports are angled, rifle is supposed be to be pulled forward, at 15 degrees, up to 20-25% of redirected gas should be doing some "pulling forward" work. On the other hand, angled surfaces are likely to channel gas back into the exit hole, which is kind of defeats the purpose of having muzzle brake. Feels to me it's a wash. My observation has been that the section surface and distance between slots is more important, along with the diameter of the exit hole, which is very important. Another observation is that 4 ports are no better than 3, but 3 ports are better than 2, at least by the feel.

Nice job, btw.

 

[csdilligaf]

Well when I first made the model in cad it was 5 ports. Then I cut the bar stock and saw just how big it was and couldn't bring myself to do it. I would have gotten to many size jokes with friends.

 

[Jim See]

Would be interesting to learn what Jim See thinks about angled ports.

I've made a bunch of muzzle brakes myself, mostly with straight ports, but a couple with angled ports, and didn't notice any significant difference. Theoretically, if brake ports are angled, rifle is supposed be to be pulled forward, at 15 degrees, up to 20-25% of redirected gas should be doing some "pulling forward" work. On the other hand, angled surfaces are likely to channel gas back into the exit hole, which is kind of defeats the purpose of having muzzle brake. Feels to me it's a wash. My observation has been that the section surface and distance between slots is more important, along with the diameter of the exit hole, which is very important. Another observation is that 4 ports are no better than 3, but 3 ports are better than 2, at least by the feel.

Nice job, btw.

pretty well sums up my findings.

Angled ports may give a perceived increase in recoil reduction, but in actuality the larger surface area caused by the angle may be the cause of a very slight, if any, increase in reduction.

3 vs 4 ports, this has a lot to do with the bore dia. and the distance between each baffle ie. port opening width. This is also one of 2 critical dimensions that affect the shooters perception of "back blast". a brake with a larger dimension between baffles allows more gas to be caught by that baffle if said baffle is wide enough in relationship to bore dia. and port distance. The larger the port width the less baffles that are needed to reduce the same amount of recoil. These brakes also increase "back-blast".

The one often overlooked thing about brakes is the proper sizing per cartridge size, (bore/case volume) some brakes work more efficiently on one vs the other based on this alone. One of the reasons I offered so many sizes of brakes. Thru fitting hundreds of brakes and shooting them on a mass of different cartridges. I learned that in some instances what you think will work best sometimes dosen't and the one think may work poorly may excell. that experience took me 6 years to accumulate.

I have been working on a couple new brakes that I will market soon that will have what I feel is very acceptable properties, combining; easier machining process (cheaper to build/cheaper to buy for the end user) 50% + effectiveness(based on my experiences with brake design) back blast reduction similar to my Muscle brake line which Ryan now carries, easier to clean/maintain than angle port brakes currently are.

I am hoping to get the retail cost below the $80 level and still offer a strong , precisely machined, concentric and attractive brake.

 

[kortik]

.....The one often overlooked thing about brakes is the proper sizing per cartridge size, (bore/case volume) some brakes work more efficiently on one vs the other based on this alone.... .

It's indeed very important to consider this situation, as Jim pointed out. For brake to do anything, there should be enough of gas available to be re-directed, so using brake on a gun, shooting, for example, cartridge with heavy bullet and light powder charge, is not expected to help too much, as most of recoil is related to influence of considerable bullet mass, and portion of recoil attributable to "jet stream" of the gas is relatively small. Theoretically ideal case of the maximum muzzle brake efficiency is all gas, no bullet, which is called a blank, but then, we have a bunch of other funny situations, like not enough pressure and volume of gas without bullet plugging the bore, etc... But, I never had a chance to confirm that on practice. I played mostly with muzzle brake for MNs, and was able to get to some good level of felt recoil reduction, which I estimated to be 35-45%. But 7.62x54R is somewhre in the middle between bullet mass and volume of gas, so it was not too tricky to get something out of it.... I do like to use at least some volume between muzzle and brake for an expansion chamber, and it appears to help a lot to reduce both felt recoil and muzzle flash for short barrels.

 

[csdilligaf]

Very good information from people with experience.

Thank you.