Being as I don't have anything to do since retiring a few years ago I decided to go up to my Shop and play around on my Mill and Lathe. I turned some material internal threaded and then took it over to the Mill and cut some ports and the end result was a muzzle brake for an AR15. It works great, possible too great. You can feel the brake pushing down on the rifle in fact so much it makes the stock of the rifle come up and smacks your cheek with a bit of force. Can it be too efficient?
I made one similar to this one for my 308 AR and it works great, it also pushes the barrel down but the stock doesn't smack your face.
The AR15 is about as light as one can get with standard components with a 16 inch barrel and the 308 AR has an 18 inch heavy barrel.

Steve..........

quote:

I made one similar to this one for my 308 AR and it works great, it also pushes the barrel down but the stock doesn't smack your face

Can't see how a 5.56 would generate more force then a 308.

Could it be that because it is a 5.56 you are not holding on and have your face every lightly on the stock.

There was a definite difference in the way they felt shooting.
In the AR15 I was using 55 gr PPU 'Surplus" ammo.
In the 308 AR I was using Australian 7.62 x 51 Surplus.
I'm betting it was the heavy barrel in the 308 AR that didn't let it be pushed down as fast or hard.


Steve.......

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:

quote:

I made one similar to this one for my 308 AR and it works great, it also pushes the barrel down but the stock doesn't smack your face

Can't see how a 5.56 would generate more force then a 308.



Could it be that because it is a 5.56 you are not holding on and have your face every lightly on the stock.

You ever care to think the .308 is a heavier rifle? most likely with a much longer barrel.

The problem is in the design....it is top ported generously and only on the top.....to much gas exiting out one axis

Add side ports and you will see a big difference

Don't port the bottom if you ever plan on shooting prone or from a truck hood

quote:

Originally posted by Steve E.:
There was a definite difference in the way they felt shooting.
In the AR15 I was using 55 gr PPU 'Surplus" ammo.
In the 308 AR I was using Australian 7.62 x 51 Surplus.
I'm betting it was the heavy barrel in the 308 AR that didn't let it be pushed down as fast or hard.


Steve.......

I’ve made more than my fare share of muzzle brakes, good ones are easy to make, good looking ones get a little more complex, and yes they can be too efficient, why don’t you cut the same slots on the opposite side and rotate then horizontal, you get a nasty concussion from the side but it’s very effective and doesn’t shove the muzzle down

In full auto fire, yours would work fine.

But I don't has one as the lil boy says.

Steve.......

Yes, experiment with the vent dimensions/configuration.

I think I might try a small horizontal slot under each side of the ports as in line with the bore axis as possible.

Steve.......

I've made and tested a bucket full of different designs with load cells over the years. Recoil reduction always boils down to square inches of hole to let the gas out. Most brakes are over kill for the caliber they are on and most of the peoples crazy, geometric, scientific expansion chamber, hokey broken angle brakes are nothing more than cow biscuits! I call them tacti-cool brakes and they are designed to sell brakes to guys who think they might need to awesome someone to death, kill a guy with the device or give a whale an enema after they run out of bullets. They are not so much designed to control the firearm. I don't do a lot of paramilitary brakes. But one thing I have noticed is that the more controllable ones tend to vent the high pressure out the smaller, side ports first and then use the lower pressure near the muzzle with a large port in the top of the device to gently push the muzzle back down. They are always a lot smoother feeling when you fire them. Like I said, I don't make many of those brakes, but I do pay attention to what other people have come up with.

This one dumps too much gas too quick I believe. It really pushed the muzzle down pretty hard and the stock upward into my cheek.

Steve E........

No expert on brake design here...but physics, are physics- and Newton's law applies.
Top ports only, and big ones at that- means all of the redirected combustion gases are exiting vertically, shoving the muzzle down and the buttstock up (duh). I call top-ported muzzle devices compensators, as they're primarily for reducing muzzle rise.

For reducing felt recoil, you need ports on the sides, angled to the rear. Redirect gases back, to offset the recoil from the lead and gases being pushed down the tube. Add side ports like Rod said.

Since you're retired and all with nothin but time on your hands (bastard), order this up, buy some 1" 4140 and have a ball

https://www.amazon.com/Accurat...Newlon/dp/B00IAVOPD4

I'm pretty leery about angling holes rearward. Lots of these guns today spit un-burned powder like little kids spit watermelon seeds. You only have to blind one person and life will really start treating you bad.

As for material. I make all of my stainless brakes from annealed 416. It's expensive, but I make them 100 at a time and I can drill through about 16 feet before I have to throw the drill away. Good quality, screw machine drills are not cheap. The parabolic drills that I use to deep drill them are triple what the stub drills are. The cost of material is hugely offset by the savings in tooling. Plus the chips break into egg rolls and 6s&9s which makes drilling much less frustrating. I've tried 300 series stainless and 410 which is basically 416s non-free machining brother and they are just to big of a pain in the ass to work with.

For my carbon brakes I finally settled on 1018. It's cheap, is no better and no worse to work with than 4140 and 1144 and it colors nice. There are no moving parts to a brake and nothing touches them so no real strength is needed. I have never seen any of my brakes (burned out) so the need for high grade steel just isn't there. As I see it anyway. But to each their own.