If there are plans to Buy Muzzle Brake, then it becomes essential to know it in details, so as to make a wise investment and to benefit from its usage.
Table of Contents
What is Muzzle Brake?
The best Compensators or muzzle brake is considered to be a device that is connected to or perhaps a feature which is integral to the barrel or muzzle construction of cannon or firearm. Its purpose is to redirect part of propellant gas towards unwanted muzzle rise and counter recoil. Often, barrels having integral muzzle brake are stated to be ported. Its concept was introduced for the first time for artillery and then became a common feature for anti-tank guns, more specifically for those which are tank mounted. This feature is to reduce area that is otherwise necessary for kickback and to take up recoil strokes. For pistols and rifles, they are used in different forms to control recoil and rise of barrel, which occurs typically after firing. These are generally used for practical pistol competitions on pistols and referred to as compensators.
Rationale
Muzzle climb, muzzle flip or muzzle rise refers to the front end (muzzle end of barrel) of the handheld firearm to rise immediately after firing. The firearms having less height from barrel centreline to grip line experience very less muzzle rise.
Primarily, muzzle rises due to the fact that the barrel centreline for majority of the firearms is above the contact centre between the firearm’s stock, grip and the shooter. The fired bullet’s reactive forces and propellant gases come out directly from the barrel’s contact point centre. In case, this force line is found to be above the contact points centre, then it creates a torque or moment (rotational force), which in turn leads to rotation of the firearm and rising of the muzzle.
Construction & design
In construction, the best Muzzle Brakes are quite simple like the one that are used on M47 Patton Tank’s 90mm M3 gun. There is a tubing of small length mounted to the barrel’s end in right angles. Often, the brakes use vents, slots, baffles, holes along with similar devices. The muzzle brake’s strategy is to control and redirect the combustion gas bursts, which follows projectile departure.
The brake designs of all muzzles are found to share basic principle, which is to divert partially the combustion gases from its bore, at perpendicular angle to barrel’s long axis. The diverted gas momentum is not added with the coil. Behaviour of the brake is affected by the angle direction of the gases. In case, gases get directed upwards, then downward force will be exerted and muzzle will rise. Mass will also be added to the muzzle end if any device is attached at this position, thereby increasing inertia only to move mass forward its centre. The former is likely to reduce coil, while the latter diminishes rise of muzzle. Compensator or muzzle brake construction is quite simple like that of diagonal cut at the barrel’s muzzle end to direct escaping gas upwards.
Porting is another simple method, where slots or holes are machined within the barrel, close to the muzzle, thereby allowing gas to escape.
Expansion chambers and baffles are used by the more advanced designs to slow down escaping gases. It is considered to be a basic principle of linear compensator. Often the expansion chambers are included with ports to produce multi-chambered, long recoil compensators, noticed often on raceguns.
Effectiveness
Although, several ways are present for measuring recoil impulse energy, the fact is that it is possible to measure 10 – 50 percent reduction. Few manufacturers in the domain claim to offer significant reduction in recoil percentages. Sufficient gas pressure and propellant gas volume is desired at the firearm’s muzzle to achieve adequately measured reduction recoil percentages. It effectively means, cartridges having small bore area for casing volume ratio when combined with high-operating pressure tends to benefit immensely from recoil reduction from small standard cartridge muzzle brakes.
Apart from reducing felt recoil, the muzzle brake also offers the advantage of muzzle rise reduction. It allows quick realigning of the weapon’s sights and is essential for fully automatic weapons. It is possible to eliminate muzzle rise theoretically with efficient design. Since there is less rearward movement of the rifle, the shooter does not have to compensate much. Muzzle brakes do benefit fully large bore hunting rifles, automatic fire and rapid fire. They also are common on the small bore vermin rifles muzzle rise reduction allows viewing of bullet impact via telescopic sight. Recoil reduction does reduce undesired contact chances between telescopic ocular sight and shooter’s head or perhaps other aiming devices which is to be positioned close to the shooter’s eye, termed as ‘scope eye’. Muzzle brake also offers recoil fatigue reduction while carrying out extended practice sessions. The shooter is able to fire consecutively accurately more rounds.
