Precision Rifle Muzzle Brakes Tested and Ranked

A very well done unbiased video. Lots of info for anyone looking at brakes. Now they can decide on what they are specifically looking for without buying different ones to find the one they want.
 
I bookmarked the video, intend to watch later.

I've acquired a Spearhead, MDT green, and Area 419 hellfire. I plan to try them head to head this summer.
 
adamg said:
I bookmarked the video, intend to watch later.

I've acquired a Spearhead, MDT green, and Area 419 hellfire. I plan to try them head to head this summer.
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Let us know what you find!

My guess is the MDT is the best tracking one if you usually load your gun, or shoot prone. Barricade, I would bet the 419 would work best.
 
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Cool test. Blast angle and and linear movement look very reliable, hard to say how consistent shooting off a sand game changer would be, any change in the packing of the sand would have a huge impact on muzzle movement, tough to insure it’s exactly the same each time. But still very informative, lots of effort went into this project nice work.
 
Camoman1 said:
Cool test. Blast angle and and linear movement look very reliable, hard to say how consistent shooting off a sand game changer would be, any change in the packing of the sand would have a huge impact on muzzle movement, tough to insure it’s exactly the same each time. But still very informative, lots of effort went into this project nice work.
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I do agree on the GC, I wasn't sure at all at the beginning, but we took 3 shots of each brake, letting the riffle move at every shot, and we also got a really repeatable result for all of them. It doesn't mean it was 100% reliable, but it give me confidence.
 
propliner said:
Blast angle or recoil teduction. Take your pick but you can't have both.
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Actually you can... just increase the volume/size and number of ports.

The APA big bastard is a 5 port brake.... lil bastard is a 4 port. The big is also wider and longer and not surprisingly, offers more recoil reduction. The larger the gas volume generated by the cartridge, the more obvious this would be.

compare the two CADEX brakes to see this very easily. Both are 3 port brakes BUT the smaller offers far less recoil reduction vs the larger.

Not a fan of rear venting brakes so I have to use something that must be physically larger and wider to get to similar levels of recoil reduction WITHOUT the blast to the shooter.

Jerry
 
The Insite Heathen in the test was a 5 port too, and it came in dead last for recoil reduction. No idea what diameter it was, but the extra ports didn't push it ahead of the 3 and 4 ports in that particular test which surprised me. Not that recoil reduction is the be-all and end all, but it suggests to me that the first port or two does the lion's share of the work.

That's the best muzzle brake test I've seen to date, love that it wasn't a sales pitch for any one brake. Thank you!

Now do one for bigger cartridges! Haha
 
Unholysavage said:
The Insite Heathen in the test was a 5 port too, and it came in dead last for recoil reduction. No idea what diameter it was, but the extra ports didn't push it ahead of the 3 and 4 ports in that particular test which surprised me. Not that recoil reduction is the be-all and end all, but it suggests to me that the first port or two does the lion's share of the work.

That's the best muzzle brake test I've seen to date, love that it wasn't a sales pitch for any one brake. Thank you!

Now do one for bigger cartridges! Haha
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Beyond baffle number, the rest of the engineering has to be sound... but my comments was to show what is possible... not HOW to make it possible.

Unfortunately, something was amiss with the Heathen and I am sure they will have a review and get it working better on V2 or V3

Jerry
 
The Heathen is already is great. The first port is perpendicular, that cuts the blast and sound from the following ports.
If Insite angled that first port the recoil reduction would increase, but so would the noise and blast. I would think the first port does the most work, vs the following ports.
 
Yes, the perpendicular blast from the first port blocks the rearward blast from the ports ahead of it.

I'd leave the first port perpendicular but make it shorter. This might create a more narrow wall of gas that still blocks the rearward blast of the next ports, but doesn't use up too much energy.
 
If the first port does more work, I would not make it smaller. I have a video shooting mine and you can see the vapor clear the shooting bench nicely to the side. It would be fun making and testing brakes.
 
there are videos of testing using some type of fine powder under compressed air. Showed some very interesting patterns

They should include a measurement of the amount of gas blown into the shooters face. there are some brakes I will not use because each shot, leads to a flinch.

Recoil is one thing... saving my eye balls is another.

Jerry
 
Mystic Precision said:
Beyond baffle number, the rest of the engineering has to be sound... but my comments was to show what is possible... not HOW to make it possible.

Unfortunately, something was amiss with the Heathen and I am sure they will have a review and get it working better on V2 or V3

Jerry
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We won't be addressing anything really and nothing was a miss with it . Yes we were under in the recoil reduction side of the test but we didn't design this brake to be a recoil reduction monster at all. 10% below is fine for us as with today's rifles Weighing in at nearly 25 lbs what's another 1.5 lbs of recoil to eat but we feel the main goal of the break was to keep sight picture off of elevated and weird positions as to which we did very well we feel. We are quite happy with the trade off indeed. Spotting trace is even easier now and sight picture retention is increased. Knowing the tests that were being done we wanted to see how the new one stacked up. If it had been a recoil in a prone position test we would have opted to send the original 5 port 1.125 od brake.
 
Unholysavage said:
The Insite Heathen in the test was a 5 port too, and it came in dead last for recoil reduction. No idea what diameter it was, but the extra ports didn't push it ahead of the 3 and 4 ports in that particular test which surprised me. Not that recoil reduction is the be-all and end all, but it suggests to me that the first port or two does the lion's share of the work.

That's the best muzzle brake test I've seen to date, love that it wasn't a sales pitch for any one brake. Thank you!

Now do one for bigger cartridges! Haha
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You get it right. The heathen didn't performed really well on the recoil reduction bench, and at first I was quite bummed, expecting more. But if you look at the muzzle jump, wow what a surprise we got! One of the, if not the, best performance in keeping target in sight. This is definitely a brake made for barricade shooting in my opinion (refer to the second video, conclusion 1 I think).

For the number of ports, we can clearly see with the carbon that the first port have done must of the work. It's a big brake, and so for smaller caliber (br, 223, etc.) I would consider one of the smaller model like the 4 ports as I'm sure they will perform as good if not better, using more of the baffles.



I agree with Jerry about the work that can be done on a brake to perform better in X or Y situation. You can mixt stuff to get a good performance without too much concussion. But what I've seen so far, is that NO brake performed top on all tested. ie linear recoil reduction, muzzle jump, working good with big and small caliber, and concussion.
At some point, bigger port will work, but as soon as you put a smaller cartridge, you lose pressure, and so efficiency. At some point, you can't have everything, so choose what fit your shooting style the best.
 
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