Muzzel brake affect on acuracy

paul T

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Mar 31, 2006
160
0
Ireland
When using the heavier 185+grain bullets for 308 with a muzzel brake has anyone noticed acuracy not as good with same barrel without muzzel brake? I have found this to be the case with my blaser LRS2 rifle, im guessing i will have to tune the Loads when using the heavy sako brake as the weight of brake must affect the barrels harmonics thus affecting group acuracy, although the use of brake has its downside with increased noise it has its advantages with reduced muzzel flip and recoil specialy with the heavies.
 
Re: Muzzel brake affect on acuracy

What design muzzle brake is it? If it is a quality muzzle brake and was put on correctly, you should not be seeing a decrease in accuracy. Sounds like someone screwed the pooch to me but more info on the setup would help.
 
Re: Muzzel brake affect on acuracy

The whole question of muzzle brakes affecting accuracy seems to be one of those yes/no issues.

On some barrels adding one has an adverse effect on others no effect and on some an improvement.

IMO it has to effect barrel harmonics and I think you're right that the heavier the brake, the more effect it will have.

That said unless the effect was severe, I would just tune one load for the way I was going to shoot the majority of the time an leave it at that. Trying to keep two loads straight would probably mean me having the wrong one loaded at some critical time.

YMMV
 
Re: Muzzel brake affect on acuracy

CavScout1983 was recently showing me a rifle he had (Remington 700 Tactical of some sort). Before he had a muzzle brake installed he could get moa or better accuracy from it. After the muzzle brake installation he said it was about 6 moa.

It wasn't a muzzle brake I recognized and it wasn't a gunsmith I had heard of.

Plenty of shooters have no effect on accuracy and sometimes an increase with a properly done brake.
 
Re: Muzzel brake affect on acuracy

I have never seen any loss of accuracy after installing a brake. I tested one rifle by shooting a group, removing the brake, and then shooting another group. Recoil was the only change. I did have a point of impact change with an AR15, but accuracy stayed consistent.
 
Re: Muzzel brake affect on acuracy


I have had 3 rifles with FTE brakes (1 was a switch barrel). Had a few with Thruster brakes also. I found no distinctive pattern but did have accuracy that was better/worse. Some loads I made shot better with the brake on. Others shot better when off. The only possible pattern was when shooting a heavier bullet and the load closer to the edge of over pressure, the brake seemed to 'tame' the groups. This was the case for 2 combination's, then a 3rd rifle was the opposite.

I don't think it is something predictable but if I had to prepare for the best case scenario,

heavy brake + long barrel = greater degree of accuracy
lighter brake = not much of a change

My barrels tend to be more in line with a Med Palma contour. I never noticed much difference in the Thruster brakes on or off.

Of course if it was a greater change than 1 moa I would be concerned. The most I ever experienced was about 3/4 MOA size differences.
 
Re: Muzzel brake affect on acuracy

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: McCrazy</div><div class="ubbcode-body">CavScout1983 was recently showing me a rifle he had (Remington 700 Tactical of some sort). Before he had a muzzle brake installed he could get moa or better accuracy from it. After the muzzle brake installation he said it was about 6 moa.

It wasn't a muzzle brake I recognized and it wasn't a gunsmith I had heard of.

Plenty of shooters have no effect on accuracy and sometimes an increase with a properly done brake.</div></div>





that my friend is a bullet strike......
 
Re: Muzzel brake affect on acuracy

I believe you are correct Boltripper. He showed me the brake and the internal diameter didn't appear to be cut concentrically. Although it was not obvious that there were bullet strikes occuring, they are definitely not out of the question.
 
Re: Muzzel brake affect on acuracy

I once watched a smith (not to be named) trow a barrel in the lath and thread it without checking to see if its spinning true, just chuck it and thread it. I then asked him if he really expected to get paid for that threading job and he said "why not?"

I then walked out of the door and never returned.

If the smith knows what he is doing, the brake should not mess with accuracy.