Best Bigbore brake

[Rich Coyle]

I've made lots of brakes for testing. If the first holes nearest the muzzle are too big the brake does not do well at reducing recoil. I heard if you have four holes they don't do anything after the first three holes so I made one with four holes per side. After trying it three times to get an average on the slide I sawed off the front holes. Let me tell you they were working.

 

[FEENIX]

I have the mini version on this on my .300 WSM amd works like a champ ...

[ame]https://youtu.be/FE7HujR0DRA?t=1[/ame]

 

[Shootin4fun]

Thanks for the reply and video Feenix! Looks like it tamed it quite a bit. Maybe not the most efficient on the market, but likely sufficient for my needs. I just need it to calm down enough to not have to act like human vise so I can throw good groups consistenly. I like the numbers on your 270AI.

 

[Don A Parsons]

Awesome thread as I planned on recoil brake for my 30/06 build.

Thanks to all for so many good ideas too consider along the way.

Western Canada Pal Don

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Got my rifle back on Wed with the medium Pain Killer installed. Had Rhian turn it down to minimum specs to lighten it up a bit. Turning it down lessens its effectiveness a bit, but I just would rather have less slab out on the end of my barrel. Did not have time to load develop this one so I just threw together a load of 105g rl33, Fed 215, under the 285g Hammer Hunter at a vel of 3115fps. This is a Sako 995 with a 30" Lilja Sendero contour barrel chambered in 338 Lapua imp. Crossed my fingers and headed to the range. Rifle shot great, thanks to Bigngreen. Held sub moa out to 1000 very nicely. This load is very mild. Primers still completely round, should be able to get quite a bit more out of it.

Now to the part that matters. Recoil in now quite a bit less that what it was. I can set up firm behind the rifle and just lightly touch the stock with my trigger hand and nice cheek weld. More or less a free recoil. Don't get me wrong it is still a big rifle, but it no longer hurts. I can now have a range session with this rifle and not get any worse for the wear. I would say that the recoil is like a 308 win. With the other brake it was about the same as the light weight Cooper 325wsm running 221g Hammers at 2900fps that we just finished loading for a customer. That rifle was un-braked. Not fun to shoot. I am very happy with what I have now. My days of experimenting with other brakes are over. Not on my dime anyway.

Headed out this morning to see if I can drop a Hammer on my first one of the year.

Steve

 

[royinidaho]

Hey Steve,

I can shoot 395 Hammers in the 375 AM @ 3125 all day long, prone, with the big
Pain Killer brake. The rig is at 15.94 pounds.


I'm headed out this morning to see if I can find a nice tender tasty young antlerless elk to drop a 126 Hammer (alloy 7) on out of a 270 WSM @ 3525 FPS MV and 545 yard verified G7 bc of 0.187 (as published).


Drop verification group was 0.2 MOA vertical 0.8 MOA horizontal @ at the 545 yard mark. The wind was switching and got me a bit. Oh, and with N204 there's, I'm thinking there's at least another 75 FPS in there with a he Norma brass but I'm really liking the very low single digit ES with this load.


More coming in a bit more professional write up.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Hey Steve,

I can shoot 395 Hammers in the 375 AM @ 3125 all day long, prone, with the big
Pain Killer brake. The rig is at 15.94 pounds.


I'm headed out this morning to see if I can find a nice tender tasty young antlerless elk to drop a 126 Hammer (alloy 7) on out of a 270 WSM @ 3525 FPS MV and 545 yard verified G7 bc of 0.187 (as published).


Drop verification group was 0.2 MOA vertical 0.8 MOA horizontal @ at the 545 yard mark. The wind was switching and got me a bit. Oh, and with N204 there's, I'm thinking there's at least another 75 FPS in there with a he Norma brass but I'm really liking the very low single digit ES with this load.


More coming in a bit more professional write up.

Go get em Roy. That is the alloy that we have concluded to be the best one.

That is some smoking velocity. Should work great.

Steve

 

[Varmint Hunter]

I've got several slab brakes made and installed by a gunsmith who posts here regularly. The brakes work great and I'm happy with them except for one inevitable problem, they come out of time. Regardless of the fact that I only install them hand tight after cleaning they all need to be re-timed.

Some say that it is unnecessary to ever remove them once installed but they get too loaded with fouling to not remove and clean. At least IMO.

Notice - Don't ever clean your brakes using the stainless pin tumbler method. They get very clean but the threads will never be the same. Guess how I know.

 

[Deleted member 46119]

I've got several slab brakes made and installed by a gunsmith who posts here regularly. The brakes work great and I'm happy with them except for one inevitable problem, they come out of time. Regardless of the fact that I only install them hand tight after cleaning they all need to be re-timed.

Some say that it is unnecessary to ever remove them once installed but they get too loaded with fouling to not remove and clean. At least IMO.

Notice - Don't ever clean your brakes using the stainless pin tumbler method. They get very clean but the threads will never be the same. Guess how I know.

That is the thing that keeps me from using side port brakes. For some calibers side port brakes are almost required. I have 2 side port, both non removable.

Up to 338 Edge, radial port is what is on all my rifles except one.

The 50 DTC of course has a side port.

In looking at the next build which is a big 375

 

[Shootin4fun]

Off topic of brakes but following up to the last few posts by RockyMTn and others...

Without an intention on promoting one manufacturer over another Hammer's site contains a link to this very informative study on lead fragmentation using several different bullet types.

Although it's fun and less expensive to target practice with a variety of bullets containing lead, this study is a real eye opener as to how much bullets that contain lead spread through a carcass. Go through it, and you might be surprised, as the researchers were. Makes me glad I started using copper bullets 7 ago for hunting in reaction to California's Condor zone regulations.

Bullet Fragmentation
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[338 bruce]

I have the original 3 port muscle brake on my 375 rum, the recoil is still stiff and will bruise my shoulder after several shots. How does the new 5-port muscle brake compare to the assassin brake?

 

[RockyMtnMT]

I have the original 3 port muscle brake on my 375 rum, the recoil is still stiff and will bruise my shoulder after several shots. How does the new 5-port muscle brake compare to the assassin brake?

All that I can tell you is that we have the med PK on our 375 Lapua imp. It is very comfortable to shoot with 400g bullets going 2800 fps.

My 338 Lapua imp is much more comfortable to shoot with the med PK than it was with the 5 port Muscle break. I can now shoot it for as many shots as I want in a range session with no ill effect. With the Muscle break I was done after half a dozen shots.

Steve

 

[royinidaho]

Go get em Roy. That is the alloy that we have concluded to be the best one.

That is some smoking velocity. Should work great.

Steve

All hell broke loose about 400yards east of me. Sounded like a Viet Nam firefight. 30 or so shots in less than 90 seconds, it seemed.

I put a sand dune between my ride(Jethro the donk) and the action. Very shortly about 30 or so cow elk ran across about 300 yds ahead of me. Didn't want to take a low percentage shot.

Spent the rest of the morning sneaking up on about 5 opportunities but all were large old cows which I passed on.

Finally a cow and young one crossed ahead of me. Got off the donk and put the sneak on. Got within about 60 yards of mama but couldn't see the lil one. At that precise moment the wind went from zilch to about 5 mph directly at them. Spooked the lil one and again I passed on a low percentage shot.

Too windy and raining today. Gonna hit it again in the morning.

The cool thing is that the shot opportunities all occurred within 900 yards of my house.

Did I mention that I live in a great spot!

 

[RockyMtnMT]

All hell broke loose about 400yards east of me. Sounded like a Viet Nam firefight. 30 or so shots in less than 90 seconds, it seemed.

I put a sand dune between my ride(Jethro the donk) and the action. Very shortly about 30 or so cow elk ran across about 300 yds ahead of me. Didn't want to take a low percentage shot.

Spent the rest of the morning sneaking up on about 5 opportunities but all were large old cows which I passed on.

Finally a cow and young one crossed ahead of me. Got off the donk and put the sneak on. Got within about 60 yards of mama but couldn't see the lil one. At that precise moment the wind went from zilch to about 5 mph directly at them. Spooked the lil one and again I passed on a low percentage shot.

Too windy and raining today. Gonna hit it again in the morning.

The cool thing is that the shot opportunities all occurred within 900 yards of my house.

Did I mention that I live in a great spot!

Other than hiding from stray bullets, sounds like you had a ball. Hopefully you and Jethro will be dragging one back to the house.

Steve