Muzzle break ?

Status
Not open for further replies.
R

Rebel Gunman HK

member
Joined
Jan 3, 2003
Messages
258
Location
Las Cruces, NM
I have a Bushy Ar-15 with a Ak? style muzzle break. Ive heard that muzzle breaks make the weapon louder... but how much louder do you think it makes the Ar style rifle. Why do they put them on anyway? Its not like the Ar needs a muzzle break in the beginning.
 
First of all, it is a muzzle brake, not a muzzle break.

There are a couple reasons why someone would want a muzzle brake on an AR. First of all, on a post-ban rifle we are not allowed to have a flash suppressor on the end of the barrel. If you remove the flash suppressor the rifle doesn't look just right, so you put a muzzle brake on the end of the barrel that looks like a flash suppressor. In other words, some people put them on strictly for looks.
The second reason is the practical reason; to control muzzle flip. Many people confuse muzzle flip with recoil. They make statements like the AR15 doesn't have enough recoil to merit a muzzle brake. Again, the brake isn't there to tame recoil. It is about muzzle flip. Recoil is the force that is directed straight back in the opposite direction of the bullet leaving the bore. Muzzle flip is the force generated at a right angle to the bore. Put a different way, it allows you to fire faster follow up shots because you can get the sights back on target faster than without it. If you want to prove this to yourself, set up some kind of test such as the El Presidente'. Shoot a few hundred rounds on a shot timer using AR15s with and without the muzzle brake. See which gives you the best times along with all your hits going into the A-Zone. The test isn't about just hammering off rounds as fast as you can pull the trigger. It is about firing rapid AIMED shots. You will be firing hammers (two shots with one sight picture) or controlled pairs (two shots each with their own sight picture). When firing a hammer, the distance between the two shots is determined by muzzle flip.
If you doubt the effectiveness of muzzle brakes, don't tell the guys that shoot IPSC race guns. They have been using them effectively for years in handguns chambered for cartridges like .45 ACP, .38 Super, 9x23 etc. Certainly not handguns that give you bone jarring recoil. But, it isn't about recoil, it is about making faster follow up shots.

Yes, some muzzle brake designs make the weapon significantly louder. One of the most famous is the Bushmaster Mini-Y-Comp brake.
I have taken a number of formal Carbine training classes and in these classes pretty much everyone was shooting an AR15 with a 16" barrel. It is kind of interesting to notice the difference between the report and blast of the various carbines on the firing line when everyone is shooting the same cartridge and basically the same carbine.
 
Ditto the above, 444. I would add one thing. It depends on what you mean by 'louder'. Louder to whom? The blast from the muzzle is normally directed out in a cone. The brake redirects that blast. The brake makes the gun seem louder to the shooter because the blast is directed sideways. But to the intended recipient of the shot (if you are in to that line of work:evil: ) the blast would not be as loud.
 
444 pretty much covers the concept accurately. The only thing he leaves out is that there is a cost/benefit ratio to consider with muzzle brake or compensator.

Like the mini-y comp, the bushmaster ak brake has a bad rep too. I have an ar-10 with the factory armaliet brake. With a bigger cartridge, it is pretty loud, but still not as nasty as that ak-comp when it comes to sound levels (in my opinion). That ak-comp also doesn't seem to work quite as well as other compensators that are quiter or at least not louder.
 
Muzzle flip is just another facet of recoil, so it is not magic. The muzzle rises because any firearm recoils about its own center of gravity. Since the center of gravity of an AR-15 is below the barrel, recoil causes the gun to pivot and the muzzle to rise. A muzzle brake can indeed reduce this, but it does so by directing some of the gas up and/or back, and that is what causes the shooter to experience extra noise and blast.

Jim
 
I to have the same Bushmaster AK configuration.
Is it louder than a non-brake barreled rifle?
Instead of disspersing the sound/flash straight out of a crowned barrel,the cap on the brake redirects the sound/flash horizontal with the barrel.
Why does Bushmaster sell such configurations,to meet buyers needs.
The 1.5 inch brake brings the barrel to Federal guidelines of 16 inch barrels.
Does it reduce felt flip or rise in the barrel?I havent noticed any reduction.But then again I've never scientifically tried to measure rise or flip using same and different loads.
I just enjoy the accuracy of quick follow up shots,the attention it heeds when I start squeezing off rounds and the quality of the complete rifle I ordered from Bushmaster.
 
I wasn't trying to imply that muzzle flip was some kind of mysterious phenomenon. Let me put it this way. We have all sat around the house and looked through the sights of a rifle and imagined firing it. Now imagine doing that and not having the rifle move at all after the shot (just like when you are dry firing at home with an unloaded weapon). The sights stay perfectly aligned with the target (assuming you are using good shooting technique including follow through). This would be the ideal situation. If this was possible, you could just continue to press the trigger and shot after shot would go right into the target. If the rifle didn't move, you could fire at the cyclic rate of the rifle and have good hits that would be close to duplicating the inherrent accuracy of the rifle.
But, in real life this doesn't happen. The gun reacts to being fired. Even a BB rifle moves off target to some degree when fired. This is undesireable because we now have to re-align the sights with the target prior to pressing off another shot, if we hope to hit the same target again. Obviously with heavy calibers, this reaction is much more severe but it is still present with much lighter calibers including .22 LR and in this case the 5.56 Nato cartridge. The purpose of the muzzle brake is to minimize this reaction to being fired by using the expelled gases generated by the shot to re-direct the muzzle downward which is the opposite direction it is trying to go normally.
This is what you are buying the muzzle brake for on an AR15, not to save a beating at the shoulder.
 
Yea the brake. I must be tired. So the brake obviously cant amplify the sound.... it must be like someone said. It is redirecting it in a way that the shooter hears more of it. Makes sense. Thanks
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top