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Muzzle brake on a 300 Win Mag?

Do you have a brake on your 300 Win Mag?

  • Yes: I like it.

    Votes: 340 55.7%

  • No: I am not a wimp.

    Votes: 114 18.7%

  • No: But I am seriously thinking of one.

    Votes: 156 25.6%
  • Total voters
    610
A Mark V should have come with a factory brake on it. Mine did. Other than that, I have only used the Vais and the Benchmark brakes. The Vais is quieter, but the Benchmark is more effective. I am more concerned about the reduction of recoil, so I have switched to the Benchmark. In fact, I have a rifle in their shop right now getting one put on. They have built a solid reputation very fast due to their superior workmanship, so if you go with the Benchmark, you will have to wait a while to get your rifle back. My last one took three months. Good luck with whatever you do.
 
my mark v is from the first run of jap wby's, before anyone but a select few was thinking about brakes, much less putting them on at the factory, so this is strictly an afterthought kind of instillation approach. thank you for the recommendation.
 
Thanks to Wild Rose for the recommendation (although I am not an official participant in this thread, but it is always good to read new advice) on the Snowy Mountain Rifle brake. Maybe I will give theirs a try next time I need one, even though I have been happy with the Benchmarks.
 
I looked up the Snowy Mountain Rifle brake and studied the picture. It appears to be a hybrid of the original Vais and a number of other brakes. It looks like it would work very well, but there was one thing (based on one picture only)that I would question. The large side ports appear to vent straight out, as opposed to the Benchmark vents which angle slightly backward. I suspect that the Benchmark is slightly more effective, but the Snowy Mountain would be slightly quieter to the shooter. Overall performance would probably be very comparable. Again, that is just my observation based on looking at one picture. As usual, if it works for you, keep doing it. No personal offense meant to you, Wild Rose for your opinion. You post a lot of good stuff which I have appreciated.
 
I have the 9/16x24 die so I will be threading and installing the brake myself. I agree with old teacher on the orientation of the large side slots on the brake in question. actually some forward orientation, perhaps 7 degrees or so, would help with the noise and scope blast factor. I would probably give up some recoil relief, but I think the trade off would be worth it for me. I am still looking at brakes, but sadly not much in the way of tech info on most I have seen so far.
 
jamminjames said:
I have the 9/16x24 die so I will be threading and installing the brake myself. I agree with old teacher on the orientation of the large side slots on the brake in question. actually some forward orientation, perhaps 7 degrees or so, would help with the noise and scope blast factor. I would probably give up some recoil relief, but I think the trade off would be worth it for me. I am still looking at brakes, but sadly not much in the way of tech info on most I have seen so far.
Click to expand...
James you do not want to attempt to thread your own barrel with a standard tap and die set. You cannot get it concentric to the center of the bore with them and could very easily end up with some serious issues such as the bullet actually hitting it.

Watch this video and it'll give you a good idea what all is actually involved in proper brake installation.



You'll find it's no where as simple as one would think.

Teacher is correct. There is a lot less of a noise issue with the SM brake than many others. An even better one for noise issues is the Shrewd Varmint brake available from Brownell's and I think Midway carries them as well.

I have one on my .260 and it's pretty damned neat. The ports o it do actually angle slightly forward at around 7 deg. No the recoil reduction is not as great with it, but I really like it especially on a rifle that I have to just grab and shoot quickly since if anything it's not as loud with the brake on as with it off.

Kirby's muscle brake I believe has a slight forward angle on it's rear ports. You can go to his site and check it out.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
thanks for the video. I do appreciate your concern, but I am a retired tool & die journeyman, ran cnc equipment such as the lathe in the video, along with verticle & horizontal mills, boring mills, surface grinders, tub grinders, blah, blah, blah,:) I will be fine with centering the die on the barrel. Also, it would be interesting to survey gunsmiths around the country to see what method's they use to thread the barrel for a brake install, I know there are many ways to insure starting a die straight, and can't believe the majority of them are using a 75k-150k lathe.
 
Jamminjames: unless you are a very experienced machinist with the very best in lathes, etc., definitely do not try to install a brake yourself. They need to be aligned absolutely perfectly or disaster is the certain result. And, even if you manage to get the brake on straight enough to allow the bullet to pass through without contacting the brake, that is not the only issue at stake here. With any brake other than the Vais, the gas ports need to be directionally perfect to make the brake work properly. Vents slightly out of perpendicular to the bore will allow gases to escape at odd directions resulting in the end of the barrel going somewhere other than straight when the rifle is fired, and you could never get them properly placed with the "eyeball" technique. All of the good brakes run about $200 installed. It is best to just write the check.
 
I beleive this is as shooter-specific a question as ever.
One shooter might be disturbed from the recoil of a .30-06, whereas another shooter may shoot his .375 H&H all day long and never flinch.
Me, personally, I prefer to brake all rifles .300 Win/Wby/WSM or larger. I have 2 .300 Win Mags; one is a custom long range rifle that started life as a Win M70 Laredo, and because of its weight, is quite pleasant to shoot, although she still thumps ya when shooting prone. I have a brake on it, but truly it isnt necessary as it feels like shooting a really loud .243 Win with the brake on. The reason I installed the brake on it was because I wanted the surefire suppressor mount- even though Ill probably never get the cash to get one.
My other .300 is my lighter-weight medium-long range "mountain" rifle, which I use for hunting whejever Im in steep or difficult terrain. I built it using a 700 action, fluted bolt, 24.5" fluted SS Remington barrel, pillar and glass bedded Bell&Carlson stck (much lighter than my other rifle's stock which has a full length alloy bedding block), aluminum scope rings and mount; this rifle only weighs 8 pounds with it's Nikon Monarch 4-16x42 1" scope... it definitely smacks you good when shooting prone, but bench and offhand is fine. When I built this rifle, I was out zeroing and breaking it in - I was used to scopes with more eye relief than the Nikon, so I got scope kissed pretty good - I decided then that this girl is gonna get a brake lol.

I also like to brake all my auto rifles - for fast follow ups; nothing to do with recoil/flinch.

Its better to be safe than sorry; once you develop flinchitis, it's a pain in the butt to get over... I have trained several shooters who buy the latest and greatest uber-mag, and then have to re-learn the fundamentals of markamanship because they are scared of the recoil.
Sorry for all the typos, Im using my phone for this.
 
Interesting... kinda hard to take a product/company seriously when they name their unit something like "the fat basterd" lol
 
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