Fascinating thread.
Very informative and thought provoking.
Lots of great theoretical info and videos with visual examples of the applied theories.
Nice to see the attempts to bring "scientific objectivity" and repeatable OBJECTIVE testing into the discussion.
However, compensater design is probably as much VOODOO as it is science, as the "FEEL" of the recoil is a personally subjective intangible, that is hard to measure objectively. Different shooters will prefer different "felt" recoil, so once again,
like so many other personal choices,
YPMMV!!!!!
Back in the 1980s, I designed some of the first pistol compensators in Canada. I designed them ONLY for the .45 ACP pistols I was building for IPSC, so .45 MAJOR loads were the norm. In case you didn't already know this, most .45 ACP loads burn off most of their powder and develop their max pressures in that large bore, in the first three or four inches. AND, the .45 ACP pressures are quite low to begin with. So designing a compensater for a .45 that actually worked as more than a dead weight, that worked with those low residual port pressures, and could be [almost] competitive with the higher pressure .38 Super comps, was a challenge.
The comp that finally provided me with the "FEEL" I liked best, and the timing that put my double taps the closest together, was two long ports, parallel to the bore, at about 30 degrees each side of top dead center. The two ports exerted a stabilising V BLOCK effect, eliminating much of the squirming and twisting that some other comp designs produced. Very effective for weak hand shots. I used slower powders, and 155 Gr OMA hard Cast .45 ACP SWC bullets, at a power factor of about 178, to get the residual port pressures working effectively for my design. I shot that comp in my final year of IPSC competition, and saw my scores go up about 15 % over my previous efforts ... so that design worked well for me. Well enough that I made the BC team, and didn't embarrass myself too badly shooting the Canadians that year.
A good compensater is one place where dollars spent on equipment really is worth the money.
HOWEVER,
My .45 Comp designs did NOT transfer over to smaller bore/higher pressure calibers, like .38 MAJOR, as the gas pressures were higher at the ports, and my designs were for moving large volumes of low pressure gas.
Trying to transfer a comp design from a pistol to a rifle, or one rifle or caliber to another [ scalability ] is even less likely to work out consistently. I am not overly interested in .223/AR 15 COMP DESIGN per se, other than that some day I will probably shoot another three gun match with an AR 15. Most of my previous 3 gun match experience is with the AR 10, AND my current go to rifle, the shorty M14.
What I am most interested in is 7.62 NATO/.308 Comp design and performance. Especially as it applies to the shorty M14 rifles I like so much. I have built dozens of these M14 shorty rifles, and tried several different comp designs on them. Up until recently, the Dlask / Miceluk clone AR 15 comp, bored out for .30 cal, was my personal favorite, balancing recoil reduction, muzzle blast, and muzzle flip control into a package that "felt" the best to my personal tastes. And they didn't look to hideous hanging off a shorty 14.
Lately, I have been using the YHM AR 15 COMBINATION flash hider/compensator, again bored out to take .30 cal bullets. The YHM combo design, for me, seems to provide slightly less recoil reduction, and a significant drop in muzzle blast over the Dlask/Miceluk ... plus it looks TactiCOOL on the end of a shorty M14.
I have NOT worried much about muzzle flash reduction with any of my shorty M14 rifles, as personally my shooting adventures take place on the ONE WAY range.
Others, with two way ranges in their adventure planning, may be more concerned about flash reduction.
As always,
YPMMV!
Just a few facts, opinions, and a different perspective on the subject of compensators.
[;{)
LAZ 1
) from a buddy on the Jerry Miculek comp, and am about to try out a Smith Enterprises 5.56 NATO ar-15 brake ( PN 1002). i'd like to figure out away of doing an objective comparison - ie recoil reduction, noise increase, group size impact. I also tried the Levang on a 10-22 and group sizes seemed to shrink by 1/3.
