Muzzle brake

one is to lessen recoil

what caliber barrel is it? Caliber may help determine the reason behind installing it.

Ive had one rifle with a brake. It was a 300mag. I shot in once without protection shooting a 7pt. It was VERY painful to my ears. I traded it the next week.

A muzzlebrake reduces recoil by redirecting the mass of the burning propellant and/or recovering free energy from the high velocity of the propellant. A brake helps counter the recoil forces which will make a gun less abusive to shoot, or to let you use a higher-power round for the same level of abuse

From: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/ballistics.htm

"The only way of reducing the recoil force generated by a cartridge, while maintaining the muzzle energy, is to reduce the effect of the escaping gas by diverting some of it, either to one side or (preferably) to the rear. A device to achieve this is known as a muzzle brake. The extent to which a muzzle brake can reduce recoil obviously depends upon the proportion of the recoil impulse generated by the propellant gas - it gives the greatest benefit in very powerful, high-velocity weapons. One text on military cannon states that an efficient muzzle brake can reduce the recoil impulse by up to 30%. Higher figures are possible, but only by using brakes which are so large that they would be impractical. A disadvantage of a muzzle brake is that the rearwards-deflected gas greatly increases the muzzle blast and noise perceived by the firer, and may also kick up dust, revealing the weapon's position and affecting the user's visibility.

A type of muzzle brake is the compensator. This deflects some of the muzzle blast upwards in order to counteract the tendency for the gun barrel of a hand-held weapon to point upwards as a result of recoil. It is therefore mainly found in powerful handguns, or in automatic weapons like sub-machine guns."

Muzzle brakes are great at making your weapon as obnoxiously loud as it can possibly be made. This in turn will earn you the shun of any fellow shooters that happen to step up to the firing line along side you.

Some brakes (not breaks) are louder than others... or technically direct more of the noise back to the shooter than others. Finding the right balance is the key. They can and will dramatic reduce recoil however. My Mark V Weatherby had an "Accubrake" on it from the factory, and it cut the recoil of the 30/378 down to probably a 30/06, which is huge. The trade off was that it was stupid loud. Depending on how the ports are cut and angled however you can make them where they still reduce the recoil a great deal while not making your fellow shooters' ears bleed.

Muzzle breaks are great at making your weapon as obnoxiously loud as it can possibly be made. This in turn will earn you the shun of any fellow shooters that happen to step up to the firing line along side you.

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A lot of that depends on the design. We currently produce two different brakes for rifles and they are completely different in noise and concussion. The KA-1230 has interrupted porting which makes the brake a lot more noisy. The KA-1830 is a continuous venting design which isn't as noisy but has a strong concussion. A lot of those brakes you see out there that have a bazillion holes drilled in a brake will actually shriek/whistle when used, not even good earmuffs will make that tolerable.

Browning apparantly believes that their Boss system also increases accuracy, or can.

The Browning BOSS integrates a muzzle brake and a barrel harmonics adjustment thingy. I'm pretty sure that the muzzle brake has nothing to do with the purported improvements in accuracy.