Muzzle brake

Charles Barkley said:

I am interested in installing a muzzle brake. Yet still make it viable for hunting without wearing ear protection. I am interested in your experiences with muzzle brakes, threaded- clamp on. Etc.
Thanks in advance.
Charles

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Are you going for the "World's Fastest Hearing Loss" record?

I occasionally shoot my AR with a brake, always double up my hearing protection, and it is still loud. I can't imagine shooting a 308 with a brake and no protection! lol

Try a 7 mag.

I use a gamma vg6 on my 7mm Ruger American, and I forgot to install my linear comp on it on one trip.
I fired 3 shots back to back, and honestly while significantly louder, shooting over the hood of my truck It didn't seem as bad as doing the same with my 7mm stw and no brake. Still not going to do it on purpose tho.

Functionally I LIKE the brake, as long as i have time to put hearing protection on.
A buddy of mine does this every shot (which frustrates the beejeebeez, out of me sometimes), so yes it IS possible. Not gonna try do it myself, but sometimes there's enough time to get set up.

I wouldn't recommend a brake on a gun that you don't NEED recoil/muzzle jump reduction on either. This coming from a guy who does it.
And I definitely wouldn't use a brake on any gun I shot around people I still wanted to be friends with. This I don't do.

I don’t have brakes on my hunting guns. I do use suppressors on a few of them though.

I do have brakes on my 3 gun rifles, 50 BMG and such but never shoot them without any ear protection and often with plugs and muffs.

I’d rather add weight to reduce recoil than noise, if shooting unprotected, then again I am old enough my hearing loss has effects in my life. I might have chosen differently back when I was invincible.

FWIW there are some pretty good electronic muffs that allow you to hear better than normal and still protect your ears.

don't shoot a rifle with a muzzle brake without hearing protection. if the brake helps reduce recoil, it will make the gun louder to the shooter, the link below compares recoil reduction to noise at the shooter, it is not a definitive list and I am sure there are some potential problems with their testing, but i think there is enough data presented to show that recoil reduction comes at the cost of added noise to the shooter.
https://precisionrifleblog.com/2015/08/21/muzzle-brake-summary-of-field-test-results/

anyone with the shooter gets punished more if they are off to the side in any manner. I shoot with double ear pro as a rule thanks to the popularity of muzzle brakes on AR's and AK's at my ranges.

with that said, a good brake does make a significant difference in the recoil pulse and helps you stay on target for follow up shots or to see the impact,

If you want to install a brake on a 308, i'd get the muzzle threaded and then look at many of the popular "self timing" brakes like the APA little bastard or the area 419 hellfire. the self timing feature makes it easy if you want to remove the brake for hunting, but install the brake for range use, or get a suppressor. the area 419 system for attaching brakes is very useful for mounting to different guns and using suppressors. both of these brakes mentioned have top levels of recoil reduction, but that comes at a price, hence their names.

Here's an option you might consider that saves the time and hassle of removing/installing each time. I have a T/C barrel in 300 Win and it chronographs the same, open or closed, with noticeable recoil reduction while in use.

https://www.eabco.com/brockmanbrake.html

I’ll concur with others who say don’t shoot unprotected and add that Walker makes a nice, unobtrusive in-ear device that enhances while protecting your ears.

You could try a linear compensator. They don't reduce recoil as much as a muzzle brake, but they direct the noise downrange instead of back and to the sides. There's not as many choices for .30cal linear comps as there are for .22cal but I believe joeboboutfitters.com has a few different .30cal choices for linear comps.

KansasSasquatch said:

You could try a linear compensator. They don't reduce recoil as much as a muzzle brake, but they direct the noise downrange instead of back and to the sides. There's not as many choices for .30cal linear comps as there are for .22cal but I believe joeboboutfitters.com has a few different .30cal choices for linear comps.

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I haven't found my linear comps to reduce felt recoil at all. They also don't seem to reduce the blast to the shooter much, at least in the long barrel applications I've been using them for.
They do a good job of not blasting the crap out of your hunting buddies, and at least with both of my rugers the brakes, and the linear comps shoot to the same poa, which let's me swap them for the brake when hunting, and not worry about zero (which isn't too far off on my guns anyway).

I've noticed a difference in noise, but maybe they lose effectiveness with barrels over 16"

KansasSasquatch said:

I've noticed a difference in noise, but maybe they lose effectiveness with barrels over 16"

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I've generally heard they do reduce blast, when Installed on shorter barrels. I think the 22-24" tubes on my rugers might mitigate the advantage, and ive not had the chance to try one on a short rifle.

The electronic hearing protection would be ideal for hunting they would increase your chance of hearing game walking in. Either that or get a suppressor to quiet it down and the suppressor does cut some of the recoil out.

Charles Barkley said:

I am interested in installing a muzzle brake.
Yet still make it viable for hunting without wearing ear protection.

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Mutually exclusive unless the brake is inside a suppressor.

No unsuppressed centerfire rifle is hearing safe. Not even close. Adding a muzzle brake only makes it worse.

Suppressors generally reduce recoil at least as much as a good brake.

My Kimber 308 is under 6 lbs scoped. Recoil is tolerable. My other 308's range between 7- 8.5 lbs and are very comfortable to shoot. I just don't see the need for a muzzle brake on a 308. Not enough recoil to justify the cost, not even talking about the excessive noise. If someone were shooting a lot from the bench with something 300 magnum or up I could see the need while at the range. But even then I'd leave the brake at home when I went hunting.

I won't shoot a gun without hearing protection without a brake (barring some life-or-death emergency). I cannot imagine planning to do so with a gun with any kind of brake/comp on it. Sir, I beg you to reconsider this notion.

Also: it's not that hard to find comfortable electronic ear-pro these days that can actually enhance what you hear.

Charles Barkley said:

Sir; that’s my concern. I understand there are different types of brakes.
Some that don’t angle back towards the shooter as badly as others.
I’ve not had any experience.
Your sentiments are my concern, and I certainly would have a hard time deer hunting with ear protection.
Thanks !

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Why would it be hard to hunt deer with ear protection? Wear very effective foam plugs for protection covered up by electronic muffs for extra protection AND to amplify ambient sounds. It is like hearing normally without the danger of the loud blasts. Excellent even indoors. Howard Leight electronic muffs are excellent and reasonably priced. The orange ones are low profile to not interfere with your rifle stock. If they still hit the stock, just raise that side until they clear. The plugs will still protect you and the other side of the muffs will still amplify ambient sound into the weak side ear. Works like a charm.

Walkalong said:

hso stands for health and safety officer.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/hunting-and-hearing.151420/page-2#post-1858849

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An excellent sticky for anyone wondering about sound pressure level & hearing damage.

To break it down, make it a tad more concise and cover some things absent in HSO's thread for the OP:

*140 dBA (Decibels, A weighted measurement) is the maximum peak impulse noise allowable without hearing protection.

*Mil Std. metering of gunshots is done 1 meter left of muzzle, 1.6 meters off the ground. Sound pressure at the shooter's ear with an unsuppressed firearm will almost always be lower than mil spec position, though not by much.

*The most powerful firearm which reliably has a muzzle report below that is a .22 LR rifle with a 20" or longer barrel. Even 16" rifles can hit the shooter's ear with >140 dBA. .22 pistols are well into the 150s

*Centerfire handguns & rifles generally exceed 160 dBA. That's 100 times the sound intensity of the max allowable. And yes, 160 dBA is more damaging than 145 dBA. Much more.

*Magnum rifles with muzzle brakes can peg a meter at over 170 dBA. That's 1,000 times the max impulse noise our ears can handle.

*Properly used quality hearing protection will generally offer 25-30 dBA reduction. Technically not enough in many instances, especially indoors shooting with lots of reflected sound pressure, but there's also a deflection component to the ear protection, muffs more than plugs. Before you decide to only use one or the other rather than both, know your firearm and your environment. A 9mm pistol outdoors is a whole different animal from a 5.56mm SBR with a birdcage being fired between stall walls and under a roof indoors.

*Some suppressors can offer similar or a little better protection on rifles than just muffs or just plugs. Lots of quality cans will meter below 140 at the mil spec position with full power rifles, and usually a few dB lower at shooter's ear on manual action rifles. Semi-Automatics are often louder at the ear than mil spec position due to noise coming out of the ejection port or when the gas piston vents.

*Except for subsonic loads in good suppressors which come in under 125 dBA at shooter's ear, it is still a very good idea to wear hearing protection even with a suppressed firearm, especially for prolonged use. My Hunting model suppressor, which meters 135.8 dB @ shooter's ear on my .25-06 firing indoors, gives enough reduction for one or two rounds in the field without ears, but a whole bunch of 136 dB impulses playing at the range can still damage hearing.

Like HSO points out in the linked thread, hearing damage is irreparable. His explanation is a little different, but basically high pressure sounds will break of the cilia, the little hairs in the inner ear, which detect vibration. They don't grow back and cannot be replaced surgically. See HSO's thread for futher details.

Heathen Brake. It has a jam nut, so no timing the threads or shims to deal with. Backblast is very minimal as long as you're the shooter.

Just curious, have you considered Electronic ear protection in the form of ear muffs or ear plugs? I understand the muffs may get in the way on rifles and the plugs can be a little pricey but there are options to protect your hearing and still hear what is going on around you real well.

This is the Brockman Brake I mentioned above. I have taken single shots while hunting without ear pro using this and many other rifles and while my hearing is still testing as excellent every year I have noted a decline and am committed to protecting my ears going forward. After 2 years of using plugs loosely inserted I can say fully inserting the “stick” type takes a split second each and has yet to cost me a deer.

Open for recoil reduction.


Closed for reduced muzzle report (equivalent to bare muzzle).