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Am going lighter on my elk rifle...Tikka T3x in 300 Win Mag....so all in it looks like about 7 pounds. I'm not recoil adverse but wonder if a muzzle brake isn't in order here and can you recommend one. I'm not interested in a tactical tiger tank looking brake or something zooty. Simply something low profile but effective. Thanks! | ||
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I use a lot of Shrewd. Brakes. Nothing modern or fancy; just full of holes. The rule is, the more gas you can direct backwards, the more it will lessen recoil and the more it will blow your ear drums out. So the most effective ones are the armalite AR 30 type. | |||
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The mainstay brake I make is something very similar to the KDF, Weatherby and Shrewd brake. I have tested them back to back against the Holland, Quiet Quiet Brake and many others using load cells to measure the recoil force in pounds. I found that all of them generate about the same reduction in recoil within a few ounces to one another when used on exactly the same gun. I have also tested the reverse angle brakes and while they work MUCH BETTER, I won't make and sell them because of the liability factor. They send unburned powder and gases back to the shooter and if someone was ever blinded and you lost a lawsuit you would be finished here in Canada. All of them are loud as hell and hearing protection must be worn. I rented one of those high tech Extech Db meters that the government and workers compensation guys drag to all of the plants to test noise levels with and did a bunch of playing around with different brakes with the meter held at the shooters ear. If the so called quiet brakes are actually quieter, the Db meter I used does not distinguish it from the regular brakes. Noise levels and frequency levels were pretty much the same. About equal to putting your head into the exhaust port of a jet engine. When I was a kid. I had the stick. I had the rock. And I had the mud puddle. I am as adept with them today, as I was back then. Lets see today's kids say that about their IPods, IPads and XBoxes in 45 years! Rod Henrickson | |||
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There are some nice electronic hearing protection out there. I try and wear them hunting as much as I can. They are especially great when hunting in a group. Like in a duck blind. Even when hunting with firearms that don't a have brake. It is not a 100 percent use on my part when in the field but every shot you take with them on is one less doing damage. | |||
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A muzzle brake will make you very unpopular down at the range. If you worry about the recoil, either get a more hardened shooter to sight it in or put some sort of closed-cell foam between it and your shoulder when shooting at paper. I'm pretty sure you won't feel a thing when shooting at big game. With no muzzle brake, you won't even notice much noise, even though it will damage your ears. | |||
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I second the shrewd brake. I use Vais quite a bit too. Both work well at reducing recoil and amplifying volume. Brakes aren't for everybody (definitely not in Africa with your PH next to you and maybe not at your local range), but they are certainly handy for certain types of shooting. For some guys it's the ability to watch the bullet impact at extended ranges and for others the removal of a recoil induced flinch. I always provide a thread protector when I install them so that one can hunt without the brake if they don't want the extra noise but can still benefit from the brake when punching paper. | |||
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 A cute trick that I stole from Brownings BOSS system MNR: When I first started installing brakes about 25 years back, we did some testing with the brake on and then the cap on and noticed that a lot of the times there were some pretty drastic point of impact changes because of the difference of length and weight with the brake on and off. This really manifested itself with buggy whip barrels. We sort of suffered the problem and told customers that they had to do their final sight in with the brake off if they planned to hunt with it that way. We were never popular when we told customers that, but you pretty well have to tell them that screwing them off might change their POI bad enough to be detrimental. We even lost a number of jobs because of it. Being a man of very little brain I had no solution to the problem until Browning brought out the BOSS System. Their solution to the problem was to make a fake brake approximately the same weight and length to replace the brake with if the guys didn't like the noise. They actually worked very well and I started making fake brakes with the holes punched .050 short of going all the way through with a slot mill. It seems that they don't have to be EXACTLY the same weight right down to the gram, but the length seems to be pretty critical. I try to keep them within 1/64th or less the same length of the brake and the point of impact is dead on when switching them back and forth between them.  PLUS! It's one more item that you can manufacture and sell and that's never a bad thingy, is it now?When I was a kid. I had the stick. I had the rock. And I had the mud puddle. I am as adept with them today, as I was back then. Lets see today's kids say that about their IPods, IPads and XBoxes in 45 years! Rod Henrickson | |||
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I've had 5 rifles with KDF brakes and one with a Weatherby Accubrake. I would highly recommend the KDF brake. I would also recommend two layers of hearing protection at the range, ear plugs and ear muffs and ear plugs when shooting at game in the field. I know some people complain about putting ear plugs in before you shoot at game in the field but its really not a big deal. | |||
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That's a great idea! I also give the advice to do final sight-in with the brake off. Never lost a job over it but I could see why that would irritate some customers. The false brake sounds like a great solution. I'll give it a go.
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[/QUOTE] This is one of my fake brakes along side a real, working brake. (both in the white and unpolished) I make the holes slightly larger to compensate for the loss in depth. The fake holes of course do nothing but help bring the weight down to the same as the original. I designed the weight to be within a few grams give or take of the real thing. But that seems less critical than the length. I did quite a lot of playing when I first started making the fakes and the length seems to be much more critical. I don't know that they look any better than Brownings flutes, which they used to equalize the weight. But I go to bed knowing that I made a conscious effort to actually make them look sort of the same as the original device. Not that anyone probably cares as long as they work.  fake brake by Rod Henrickson, on FlickrWhen I was a kid. I had the stick. I had the rock. And I had the mud puddle. I am as adept with them today, as I was back then. Lets see today's kids say that about their IPods, IPads and XBoxes in 45 years! Rod Henrickson | |||
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I shoot a 338 Win. in a T-3 lite and only changed the recoil pad to a simms. I would shoot it a bit before I put a brake on it. | |||
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The brake that I build is a clamp on style and requires no threads It utilizes four 10-24 screws and a slot cut with a Wire EDM through the bore centerline. Each one is made to fit a specific muzzle dia. It directs the gas out 90º and up The next two rows direct gas backwards 30º and up All three rows only allow gas to go upward and outward only No gas is directed down to avoid extra muzzle lift and prevent debri from exploding when shooting prone Made of 6061 aluminum to avoid extra tip weight of a steel brake YouTube link to this brake in use...full force 180 grn. loads in a 30-06 Kimber Montana  ________________________________________________ Maker of The Frankenstud Sling Keeper Proudly made in the USA Acepting all forms of payment | |||
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I have the X-treme brake from this company, big difference in recoil with the brake on vs. off. http://www.straightshotgunsmithing.com/page14 "though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression." ---Thomas Jefferson | |||
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