Muzzle brakes sure are loud

DiRTY DOG

DiRTY DOG

Well-known member
The nearby public range is convenient for load testing etc. But lately the muzzle brake fad has caught on and the firing line is LOUD. Double hearing protection has become necessary to protect your hearing. Good ear muffs alone don't cut it.

Besides the AR15s and AR10s, now there are lots of bolt action shooters with big vented muzzle brakes that vent the noise and blast 45 degrees back towards the other shooters.

That'd be cool if it helped them be more accurate etc. But just about every one of these guys has a 5-10 inch "pattern" at 100 yards. Lots of them use the big paper plate sized Shoot-N-C type stickers and their shots are all over. Especially scoped AR10s. None of them ever say a word to me and my sub-moa groups.

At least I get their brass when they leave.
 
You know, about 12 years or so ago I had George Vias build me a .220 Swift on a M700 action. At extra cost he installed on of his famous muzzle brakes on it. Did a super job as you could not even see the transition from the barrel to the brake. Looked seamless until you unscrewed it.

Anyway, that did it for me. Going from not being able to see my hits on a lot of my shots to seeing all of my hits (or misses
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) was just so totally worth the extra cost and a bit more noise. I never needed more than just regular shooting muffs on in the field with it anyway.
 
Originally Posted By: sandy hicksThe break on my ar is painful with just foam ear plugs. Muffs and plugs required.
The Miculek comp is the same way. Without hearing protection it felt like someone drove 16 penny nails into my ear drums.
 
I mentioned to my lgs that my 338wm recoil was to harsh for bench shooting. He said he could brake it for me. I was skeptical and told him I shoot prone on a bipod and didn't want to be dusted by debris or snow. He explained that he and his son had experimented with several designs of their own and had a good one. Well it is great,recoil is less than my 7saum,no debris blasted around and for the shooter ear muffs are all that's needed. My neighbor who had a serious back injury, is having the same design made for his 7mm rem mag. I will have one installed on the 7Saum when I rebarrel it,I am sure I will see hits with the brake.
 
Savage Scout Brake Sucks! Had to take it off as I could feel the blast in my fillings and noticed that everyone on the firing line move to the next zip code on my first shot. Only one range trip w/muffs only (which have been ample on every other rifle I've shot or been near on the line) increased my tinnitus a couple of clicks. Muffs and plugs helped the noise, but not the fillings, so took it off. The short .308 Win. scout barrel w/o brake is still loud, but muffs are adequate, especially drowned out by the 2 click louder ringing caused the brake.
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OTOH, Mike built me an AR in 243 WSSM, and suggested a Dtech brake to enable seeing bullet impact on the 24" (IIRC) barrel and it is the berries. Have even shot it w/o earmuffs in the field (only because I forgot to pull down my muffs) without any damage to ears other than a ringing in ears for short duration,
and it eliminated muzzle hop very nicely. His vents are all @ 12 o'clock so no issues w/dust from muzzle blast. The scout vents to the side and back toward shooter. Haven't shot it prone but bet it would give you a dust bath.

I need to give Mike a call and see if his brakes would tame hop on the .308 and not deafen shooter @ same time.

Regards,
hm
 
The Gentry muzzle break has ports slanted forward slightly and put a lot of the concussion off of you...I can not stress this enough, slanted ports take a lot of the noise and concussion off of you.

20" barrels and shorter with a brake are rough on larger calibers starting with 243 Win. I had a 6 BR with a 21" barrel that was wicked accurate, but the concussion was terrible with the brake.

I like 24"+ barrels with a muzzle break.

I have at least 7 different kinds of muzzle breaks. The type with the large ports on the side that allow for shooting off of the ground are absolutely the very worst on noise and concussion for the shooter. Foam ear plugs and electronic ear muffs are what we use when shooting p. dogs, we have normal hearing when whispering back and forth to each other plus the extra hearing protection. P. dogs and chucks have keen hearing, people talking loudly puts them down in a hurry.

The Tank type of muzzle breaks are deadly on your ears, but they are very, very effective on recoil reduction. I will not sit closer than 20 feet to one of those type of side discharge muzzle breaks.

If you guys that are sensitive to muzzle breaks try a Gentry Muzzle break, you will be much happier due to the reduced concussion that is removed from your head.
 
The guy on my left had a short barreled bolt action something with a huge brake that looked like it came off a 50BMG. The two guys on my right both had AR10s with similar oversized piercingly loud brakes.
 
Brakes are IMO obnoxious, but do have thier pros for those that use them.
When a shooter sets up next to me at the range when I'm already shooting and I see a brake on his firearm I will ask him to make sure its over the front of the table or ask him to move a few tables down. I hate the blast/concussion from even 2-4 tables away.
 
I don't mind the recoil, even on the heavier calibers, but it sure is nice to be able to see my hits (and not so much, my misses
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). Even more concerned w/further ear damage caused by muzzle blast, as I sometimes fail to pull down my ear muffs when hunting. I use electric muffs, but adding earplugs not practical for my type of hunting.

Regards,
hm
 
It's interesting to feel/hear the difference on the firing line between two different muzzle devices. I spotted for my brother in law a few weeks ago with a Surefire Break/suppressor mount on his new AR, then when we swapped, he instantly reacted to the blast from my PRI Quiet Control break like I'd shot him in the chest. Same seats, same barrel length, just different brakes. One barely seemed to redirect the blast, one obviously did so very effectively.
 
I shoot at a private range and can usually avoid being near a muzzle braked rifle, but at the public range they put them all down at the far end where they can beat each other up. Maybe make that suggestion to the range officer on duty.
 
Ran our club's highpower rifle matches for a number of years. We had one competitor that shot an Egyptian Hakim 8mm semi-auto in the military rifle class. The Hakim had a wicked muzzle brake on it and threw hot brass 15-20'. All the regular competitors would approach me as I was squadding the match and ask NOT to be next to "Hakim" as he was known.
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Always put him on the last firing point at right end of the line and kept all but one or two competitors happy.
smile.gif

Regards,
hm
 
Originally Posted By: DiRTY DOGThe nearby public range is convenient for load testing etc. But lately the muzzle brake fad has caught on and the firing line is LOUD. Double hearing protection has become necessary to protect your hearing. Good ear muffs alone don't cut it.

Besides the AR15s and AR10s, now there are lots of bolt action shooters with big vented muzzle brakes that vent the noise and blast 45 degrees back towards the other shooters.

That'd be cool if it helped them be more accurate etc. But just about every one of these guys has a 5-10 inch "pattern" at 100 yards. Lots of them use the big paper plate sized Shoot-N-C type stickers and their shots are all over. Especially scoped AR10s. None of them ever say a word to me and my sub-moa groups.

At least I get their brass when they leave.

They probably have no clue as to what a good group looks like. I have seen much the same at our range. I saw a guy shooting a DPMS in .308 with a Bushnell laser range finding scope on it. He was all over the place with it. He wanders down to us and asks us to take a look at it. We poked around on the scope and got it on paper, but nowhere near zeroed. The guy packs up his noisemaker and leaves. It was obnoxiously loud and wasn't the greatest accuracy that I have seen. I will admit that it could have been new or not the right ammo but I sure wouldn't have put it away after just barely getting it on paper.

I have taken to using a blast deflector on my rifles if I am not going to use my suppressor. Easier on my ears and everyone around me.
 


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