muzzle brakes

mark11

New member
I read in the last issue of field and stream that having a muzzle brake on your rifle can harm your scope. A friend of mine recently had a break put on his 30-06, have any of you heard of or experienced a scope problem
 
no, They are loud, that is the only ral draw back. A magazine that empl;oyes some fool like ZUMBO would be suspect in any opinions in my book.
 
Nope what your heard is not true. I've several friends that have shot braked rifles for years with nary a problem, except the 300 RUM's shoot like 308's as far as recoil is concerned.
 
I have six B & L 12-32's that I have been on rifles since 1990, they have never given me any problems over the years and each one of them has never been on a rifle that did not have a muzzle break on them.

I shot untold thousands of p. dogs and ground squirrels with these rifles.

If a muzzle break is going to tear up a scope, then all of these would be trash by now.

Sounds to me like the guy hates muzzle breaks.
 
the article was written by david petzal, it claims the damage is caused by deceleration of a muzzle brake. It says its like slamming the scope into a wall,some scopes can't take it. The full article on advantages and disadvantages is in the sept. issue of Field and Stream
 
Quote:
deceleration of a muzzle brake.Quote:


What in the [beeep] does that mean?
I think if you were to ask the author this question, he would not know either.
 
"deceleration of a muzzle brake.

What in the [beeep] does that mean?
I think if you were to ask the author this question, he would not know either."

Perhaps he's claiming that the muzzle break creates a "forward/backward" type of recoil like a spring operated airgun can produce? I know those can be hard on some optics.
 
Some muzzle breaks just vent gasses in other directions lessening the "jet" effect. Others have expansion chambers where the gasses slam into the forward portion of the break causing a force the pushes the rifle forward. This is common with breaks designed like canon breaks.

I have never seen a scope go bad from that effect, but if the break is efficient it could cause stresses the scope isn't made for.

Sako uses mounting grooves that are wedge shaped so that recoil naturally tightens the bases; I have heard with some muzzle breaks on larger calibers it will loosen the bases.

Dave Petzel from all accounts is an very intelligent guy. He might be just be talking about the fringes here; high intensity rifles with very efficient muzzle breaks.

Aaron
 
Quote:
Some muzzle breaks just vent gasses in other directions lessening the "jet" effect. Others have expansion chambers where the gasses slam into the forward portion of the break causing a force the pushes the rifle pushes the rifle forward . This is common with breaks designed like canon breaks.



Not to totally disagree with you because this is what the intention of a compensator or muzzle brake was intended to accomplish. From my point of view after firing many many comped or braked rifles and pistols, the fact is the firearm still fully recoils to the rear and at no point during recoil has a rifle ever felt as though it wanted to go the opposite direction.

If you consider the expanding gases pushing against a staionary object (bullet) when you pull the trigger, the vast majority of powder is burned way before it reaches the expansion chamber of a brake. Therefore you are already recoiling to the rear at this point. And once the gases reach the ports or chamber , yes the recoil will dampen to a certain degree depending on varying factors. In order for the rifle to "push forward" the comp/brake would have to overcome the recoil energy plus the weight of the rifle.

Muzzle devices do work, some much better than others. Some devices work better with one cartridge, action or barrel length vs. the same cartridge with a different action or barrel length do to the changes in pressure at the expansion chamber.

There may be something to this theory, I'm not the one to contest it but it sure doesn't make any sense to me.
 
Quote:
the article was written by david petzal, it claims the damage is caused by deceleration of a muzzle brake. It says its like slamming the scope into a wall,some scopes can't take it. The full article on advantages and disadvantages is in the sept. issue of Field and Stream



Complete nonsense. I'd like to see a verified instance of that happening. Brakes cut way down on recoil but they don't eliminate it. He's full of cr*p.
 
The rifle begins recoil as soon as mass (bullet + gases) start moving down the barrel (action/reaction). This process stops after venting of the gases from the muzzle.

The start of the process is pretty sudden and violent resulting in sudden and violent and rapid rearward motion of the gun (and scope). This puts a violent forward-directed momentum on the scope BEFORE the brake comes into play (bullet moving the length of the barrel to the muzzle).

The end of the process (rearward rifle motion coming to a halt) is...not so sudden and violent? And puts only a gentle rearward momentum on the scope as the gun stops its rearward motion? Hmmmm. If a brake were to arrest the existing rearward-recoil forces a little more suddenly than they would be without the brake, does that increase the decelerative force of the gun stopping its rearward motion, thus putting a slightly greater rearward momentum on the scope?

I think I know what he's getting at, but I find it hard to imagine it would make a lot of difference. The scope-damaging reverse jolt from a spring piston air rifle comes from its piston slamming against its stop, which is a hard physical blow of one solid part against another solid part. Nothing like that would exist with the muzzle brake effect.

My $00.02, or probably more like $00.00001.
 
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