308 muzzle break

[hermosabeach]

You need to determine the balance you want between recoil reduction and how loud you can tolerate...

For the money, the Miculik are awesome...

SJC Titan has scored well in all recoil tests and is about $110

here are some bigger ones being tested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpkhjzFF8Yw

[hermosabeach]

here are 35 brakes being tested - 5.56

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FD-Rou9-9A

[Guardian Mode]

As mentioned above, $54 for a Surefire Procomp.
There's also a PWS FSC30 off a Scar for $58.
Those are the 2 best for cheap.

[JMP]

Ross Schuler brake. $45 shipped. Can't beat them at twice the price.

Harrell's Precision muzzle brakes. They work they are built right and no hype. There prices include shipping.
If your after the best at reducing recoil the clamshell brakes are the best.

Those are good options, but they will tend to be what you want when you are getting a brake professionally installed, or at least by someone with knowledge and tools for timing. It sounds like the OP has a pre-thread and wants the cheapest DIY clamp or shim type.

Unless you are very weak, a 308 just needs a tiny amount of taming to keep your muzzle from jumping. I caution folks that get a brake that is TOO efficient on a short barrelled 308 like the OPs. It can be a bit of a nuisance.

I have a braked AR-10 with a shorter barrel, and that brake makes me not want to shoot the gun. It may sound counter intuitive to want to AVOID efficiency, but one may choose to do this on short barrels if there isn't too much lift. If you have a nice 30"+ barrel, then by all means, brake the **** out of it because you won't be in the shockwave, but everyone else will.

[MongooseV8]

Those are good options, but they will tend to be what you want when you are getting a brake professionally installed, or at least by someone with knowledge and tools for timing. It sounds like the OP has a pre-thread and wants the cheapest DIY clamp or shim type.

Thats what jam nuts, shims, and crush washers are for

[MongooseV8]

I use all three at once for best results.

[bubbala]

i've got the M-11 precision armament on a 308 and i gotta believe it's near the top in that caliber as well. ++ for crush washers too.

[JMP]

Thats what jam nuts, shims, and crush washers are for

ewwwwww

[brando]

Don't break your brake!

[LynnJr]

The brakes from Harrell's are all threaded and ready to go or you can get a large one and blend it to your barrel.
Most importantly the holes are all symmetrical symetrical.
I don't shoot brakes that have holes that are not counterbalanced out.

[MongooseV8]

ewwwwww

Lol I know right

[F4E Phantom]

Are brakes with one or two large chambers(AAC/AI/R&D type) going to be less effective as far as reducing recoil. I want to keep the brake short .

[brando]

It's a bit more complicated than just "more chambers means more recoil mitigation", but generally that's true. However, with short action rifles I personally don't think the difference is all that noticeable. I run a large single chamber brake on my .308 and 6.5 barrels but 2 and 3 chamber brakes on my .338LM and .338LM Improved (respectively) barrels.

The amount of actual recoil mitigation has more to do with the volume and pressure of gas being redirected.

[ScottsBad]

Here is the article from The Truth About Guns. This is a 5.56 muzzle device test and article, but many of these devices have 7.62 analogs.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/04/jeremy-s/ar-15-muzzle-brake-shootout-2/

My SCAR 17s have PWS brakes, and they are excellent, except the blast to the sides and behind the shooter will blow the hair back of any observers.

[brando]

The concept behind a muzzle brake is taking some of that high pressure, high velocity gas leaving the muzzle, and diverting it back at roughly a 45 degree angle towards the shooter. This essentially provides thrust that counteracts the recoil impulse by pulling the rifle forward. So you're basically taking a force vector from inital recoil and adding an inverse force vector from the brake and the difference in magnitude (minus rifle weight) becomes the felt recoil. The amount of thrust you get from a brake will depend on the pressure and volume of gas at the muzzle and how its diverted. So there will be significantly more thrust from a .50BMG than a .300WM because the volume of gas is significantly more, even though the muzzle pressure is similar. And this is also why brakes on .223 and .308s tend not to be as effective - there's just not enough volume being diverted.

Most of the brakes I have these days are designed to run with suppressors, so they have large chambers or ports and direct the gas laterally. That's why on their own, they aren't as good at mitigating recoil as a brake that has ports angling the gas back towards the shooter.

As the gas expands past the muzzle, not all of the gas will be diverted through the ports as it expands mostly in the path of least resistance which will be straight out of the front of the brake. If the ports are large, more of the gas can be diverted through them, however the larger they are, the more the pressure and resulting velocity drops, so there is less thrust. If you took the volume of those single large ports and instead divided them into two smaller ports on each side with the same combined volume, the gas being diverted will be doing so at higher pressure, giving the brake more thrust. This is why multiple ports tends to show an improvement in brake performance, though again, this is less noticeable with short action rifles and more obvious with big bore rifles.


Source: I have a physics background and do computational fluid dynamics for a living (at least for one more week).