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Muzzle Brake: possible DIY?


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So, I just bought a Saiga 308 and have conversion plans.

 

One of these is to have a competent gunsmith move the front sight post rearward, merging it with the gas tube / gas block (you know what I mean).

Then, I could thread the barrel and tap a piece to make a muzzle brake, saving some dough. (Every dollar not spent on stuff I can do myself is another dollar for ammo and such)

 

Questions.

If I build a muzzle brake, which is better suited for my goal (reducing recoil)

A---) Perforated with holes. (like a sprinkler head)

B---) Slots (AR-15 "bird cage" style)

C---) Holes drilled at a rearward angle.

 

Also, keeping in mind that the bullet must not physically impact the brake, which is better:

1) The internal diameter of the brake be slightly more than the ID of the barrel, so the gasses are more affected by the brake before venting straight forward. This would be harder to fabricate, but doable. The brake would act similar to a threaded couple with a pipe nipple inside it, merging the barrel and the nipple as like a barrel extension.

2) The ID of the brake is roughly the outside of the barrel. Far easier to fabricate.

Edited by BBQ_Pork
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One of these is to have a competent gunsmith move the front sight post rearward, merging it with the gas tube / gas block (you know what I mean).

Then, I could thread the barrel and tap a piece to make a muzzle brake, saving some dough. (Every dollar not spent on stuff I can do myself is another dollar for ammo and such)

 

Sounds like a bad idea to me. There are some things worth paying for besides ammo, and in my case, they included having a competent gunsmith cut, crown, and thread my barrel, and installing a Battlecomp BABC.

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If saving money is the goal you wont save any by DIY on a simple brake. Brakes, good ones, are made with very tough alloys that most folks cant tool.

 

Now the other work, yes if you already have the tools AND the skills is cheaper.

 

Not only that you will find the job better done cause no one is going to care about results the way you will.

 

Now if you just want to DIY for the hell of it... knock yourself out and enjoy. Just leave room to fix anything "unexpected".

Lots of folks like that around here.

Edited by Rhodes1968
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A simple design for a brake is the Nordic Components tactical brake. Still, in order to be at all effective, it requires very precise machining to make sure the exit apertures are dead concentric with the threads. Furthermore, even easy-to-drill mild steel is difficult to drill with higher diameter bits. This requires lower speeds than many home drill presses can manage. Add a heat treatable or stainless alloy to the equation, and the project quickly starts to leave the realm of a hobbyist's project.

 

There are some brakes threaded for 5/8"-24 that will come in at under $50 if you're going with that thread. The Nordic Components Corvette brake, DoubleStar Carlson muzzle brake, and SI Defense muzzle brake should all come in at that price point and should save you at least $50 in headaches, safety, and disappointment.

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  • 6 years later...

I have been involved in racing all my life and have a machine, fab shop at home. I did a welding job for a friend and he traded me a 20' long solid 3" diameter bar of aluminum for the work. I look on the net for pictures of muzzle brakes and found most are tacticool with little or no science behind the designs. Several have some science backing up the designs and I make one that is a hybrid of those. Aluminum is easy to machine and I have one that is very effective reducing recoil. Yes they are clunky looking compared to steel. When I have one that is real effective I can reproduce it in steel. If I didn't have the machinery and tooling already it wouldn't be cost effective.

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have your i.d. Close to bore diameter. 

Slots or holes work, but it's a matter of surface area that is perpendicular or more aggresive to bore, which is exposed to high pressure gasses. Pressure drops off rapidly after the first port or two. So those ports need to be designed to do the most work. Sometimes I see brakes with a few holes and then big ol slots, which is backward. A few slots close together, with enough meat in the remaining material to take the thrust of the gasses they are turning will do more than a lot of holes.  My preference is angled gills and enclosed bottom. Gills need to leave stock that is somewhere around 3/16" thick between them.

Also you are basically making a high pressure whistle. The shape of the vents will affect the tone, but I don't know how to predict what a less obnoxious design would be.

You will probably see gas cutting and wear on the i.d. where it is doing the most work. Cut the same thing in steel, and it will do fine. People kind of make these into super high tech magic, but there are plenty of chineseum brakes that do fine in mystery steel at ~$20 each. 

Be sure to have clean threads with full engagement. Every bit of recoil the brake absorbs is basically thrust tugging on the end of your barrel. shallow thread engagement is a great way to strip the threading on the barrel. It needs to be solidly enough mounted that you would trust repeated slide hammer blows to never move it.

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Very well though out, GF. There's loads of bad brakes out there, when the design is pretty much exactly the way you stated, with minor variations here and there.

A single port brake can be highly effective, when properly done. It WILL be loud as hell though.

Look up the Loudener. Single port brake. Stupid loud.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The only steel brakes I hear of failures with are those amazon/ebay ones that are low quality cast steel copies of expensive brakes. i.e. there are a lot of crummy copies of the old Tromix shark brakes, that actually do break from time to time, and make the tromix people mad as can be when people try to submit them for warranty. 

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