This text is a part of a sequence that highlights the gear the 200 top-ranked shooters within the Precision Rifle Collection (PRS) are working in long-range rifle matches. (Study concerning the Precision Rifle Collection.) This group of opponents represents the perfect precision rifle shooters within the nation.
My final article shared that nearly 80% of those high shooters choose to run a muzzle brake over a suppressor. It additionally coated the highest 2 causes many of the professionals select a brake, together with some new merchandise that appear to supply a few of the advantages of each suppressors and brakes.
This text will break down the particular manufacturers and fashions of muzzle brakes that the professionals are utilizing. Additionally, this 12 months, I requested every shooter in the event that they had been utilizing a barrel tuner, and I’ll share all of that knowledge in the direction of the tip of this text.
Greatest Muzzle Brake
Let’s dive into the information! We’ll begin by taking a look at a breakdown of what model of muzzle brake these high shooters are utilizing:
On the chart above, the assorted colours characterize the place a shooter landed by way of season rank within the PRS. For instance, black signifies shooters who completed within the high 10, the darkest blue is individuals who completed 11-25, and the lighter the blue, the additional out they completed in general standings. The chart legend itemizes the ranks every shade represents, however principally, the darker the colour, the upper the shooter’s general rating.
ACE Muzzle Brake: 32% of Professionals
The ACE Muzzle Brake has grow to be the most well-liked brake amongst these top-ranked opponents – by a reasonably extensive margin. 1 in 3 selected to run the ACE brake general, and 40% of these within the high 10.
ACE stands for Austin and Clay Enterprises (ACE). Austin Orgain and Clay Blackketter have received the PRS Season Championship in 3 of the previous 5 years. They clearly know what it takes to be aggressive on the highest ranges!
Not way back, I interviewed Austin Orgain, and here’s what he informed me concerning the ACE brake:
Now, if you wish to strictly optimize for recoil discount, the pure physics of ports which might be angled again to the shooter are onerous to beat, however that comes at a price. And for me, that was that I’d flinch. I began videoing myself, and I observed that my eyes would shut for a break up second. Effectively, that recoil discount was doing me no good. The recoil was lowered, however as a result of my eyes closed for a break up second, I nonetheless missed a part of that bullet flight. With our brake, you don’t get close to as a lot concussion again on the shooter, and I don’t have that finch and hold my eyes open via that first a part of recoil. It’s lots simpler to select up hint, and it’s lots simpler in your eyes to trace that focus on in your scope via recoil and see the place your bullet impacted on the goal.
We additionally had the concept fairly early on that we wished the brake to be ‘tuneable’ – not as in a barrel tuner, however to have the ability to tune out any lateral motion from recoil. So, there are index marks on the brake that assist you to flip the brake to offset any lateral recoil motion. Let’s say that you’re taking pictures positional, and also you discover that recoil is continually shifting you up and left. On most muzzle brakes, you possibly can’t actually do something about that, however on ours, we’ve got index strains and a set collar, and you’ll flip that brake so it’s angled or tilted into the route of the recoil. So in case your rifle is recoiling left, you flip the brake to the left till it’s fully offset. Now, you don’t have two elements of recoil occurring. You’ll have a bit little bit of vertical motion however no horizontal motion to need to cope with. We figured the less planes you may have of recoil, the simpler it is going to be to identify your shot and monitor the goal via recoil.
We tried an entire bunch of iterations and designs. We not solely sat behind them and shot them, however we shot rifles with TriggerCams on them and did plenty of testing earlier than we landed on what design was the perfect. We actually like the tip product and really feel prefer it’s an important resolution for what we wished in a brake. To date, it appears to be a reasonably standard product, and we’ve bought plenty of constructive suggestions on it from shooters.”
Like many different designs on this checklist, the ACE brake incorporates a self-timing lock nut (aka jam nut collar system), so the brake doesn’t need to be “timed” by a gunsmith in your explicit barrel. Which means the tip consumer can simply change it from one barrel to a different. That could be a valued characteristic by this crowd of shooters as a result of most of them will burn via a number of barrels in a single 12 months!
The road worth of the ACE brake is $185 (on the time this was revealed).
American Precision Arms Muzzle Brake: 20% of Professionals
The following hottest model is American Precision Arms (APA), representing 20% of those professional shooters and a pair of within the high 10.
APA has been one of the crucial used muzzle brakes among the many high PRS shooters for a number of years. Additionally they had been one of many highest performers again once I did my muzzle brake discipline check, and since that point many different producers have launched comparable designs – however APA continues to innovate.
APA has a few completely different brake fashions, so I requested these shooters which one they used. 90% of them stated they opted for APA’s Fats B* muzzle brake, and 10% stated they used the smaller APA Little B* muzzle brake. The Fats model is a bit longer and options extra side-ports for max recoil discount.
APA’s Gen 3 design options tunable high ports that assist you to customise how a lot fuel is directed upward to offset the muzzle rise of your rifle. The burden, steadiness, and general recoil and fuel stress can differ from one rifle to a different, in order that permits you to tune it to the distinctive recoil profile of your rifle and ammo.
Road worth on the APA Gen 3 Fats B* muzzle brake is often round $150, however I observed EuroOptic.com has them on sale proper now for simply $108 – making it one of many lowest-priced merchandise utilized by a major variety of these top-level shooters.
Strike With out Warning Muzzle Brake: 14% of Professionals
14% of those high opponents stated they used a Strike With out Warning muzzle brake, together with 1 within the high 10.
Strike With out Warning’s flagship design is their CHAD Tuner Muzzle Brake (TMB), which was launched in 2020.
The CHAD brake is a singular design that’s composed of six-piece stainless-steel items which might be CNC laser welded collectively right into a single meeting. The producer says, “Every bit has a tapered interface that aligns the meeting’s items completely, giving us industry-leading ranges of run out. As a result of its multi-piece design, we’re capable of simply create geometry that’s in any other case not possible through standard means. This implies efficiency not beforehand seen earlier than whereas sustaining shooter consolation. Designed with the usage of our high-speed 50KHz impression sensor and SolidWorks circulate simulations, we had been capable of design and refine the CHAD in methods the competitors aren’t even conscious of.”
The CHAD brake additionally options an built-in 24-position, adjustable, and locking harmonic barrel tuner.
The Strike With out Warning CHAD Tunable Muzzle Brake appears to have plenty of novel options, however they arrive at a price as a result of the Strike With out Warning CHAD TMB brake is 2-3 occasions greater than another brake on this checklist. It’s priced at $515 for a uncooked stainless model or $545 for it completed in matte gold (aka Morgun King Version).
Masterpiece Arms DN5 Muzzle Brake: 10% of Professionals
10% of the professionals had been utilizing the Masterpiece Arms DN5 Muzzle Brake, together with 1 within the high 10. Actually, there have been 6 utilizing an MPA brake within the high 25, which made it the 2nd hottest model amongst shooters within the high 25 (solely behind the ACE brake).
MPA makes a number of completely different fashions of muzzle brakes, however all of those shooters stated they had been utilizing the DN5 brake.
The DN5 is extraordinarily efficient at lowering recoil. It’s really a spinoff of the “Alamo 4 Star Cowl Induction Brake” design that proved to have the perfect efficiency years in the past in my muzzle brake discipline check.
You’ll be able to see the DN5 ports are extra slim on high than the underside, which implies extra fuel is directed upward, which offsets muzzle rise and helps you keep on the right track via recoil so you possibly can spot your impacts downrange. A number of shooters have reported that the MPA DN5 brake helps them keep on the right track greater than another brake due to how a lot fuel it ports up. I’ve heard one professional shooter who additionally shooter NRL Hunter competitions with a light-weight 6.5 PRC say it’s particularly helpful in staying on the right track with light-weight magnum rifles.
Road worth on MPA DN5 is $199.
MDT Muzzle Brake: 9% of Professionals
9% of the professionals had been working an MDT muzzle brake, together with 1 within the high 10.
The MDT Comp 4-Port muzzle brake is particularly designed for a majority of these high-performance competitions. The ports look just like APA’s design, which could be very efficient at recoil discount. Nonetheless, MDT says this design is a bit completely different in the way it redirects fuel:
“We started with two main design parameters, to redirect, or “break up” concussion in the direction of the shooter, a typical pain-point in muzzle brake gadgets, and to cut back felt recoil as a lot as attainable. By 16 months of improvement, testing, optimizing, extra testing, after which much more testing, we consider that we’ve got created the simplest competitors muzzle brake available on the market.” – MDT
The MDT Comp brake additionally options an adjustable plate on high which you could slide to permit kind of fuel to be vented upward to offset muzzle rise and assist you to keep on the right track.
Road worth on the MDT Comp Muzzle Brake is $250, which makes it one of the crucial costly choices on this checklist.
Space 419 Muzzle Brakes: 8% of Professionals
8% of those shooters use a muzzle brake from Space 419. Nonetheless, none of these utilizing an Space 419 brake had been within the high 25, though there have been 2 within the high 50.
The overwhelming majority had been utilizing the Space 419 Hellfire Match Self-Timing Muzzle Brake, however there was one shooter who stated they had been utilizing the Space 419 Sidewinder Magnum Self-Timing Muzzle Brake. Each are very comparable designs, however the Sidewinder is barely bigger.
From the surface, the design appears like a typical 4-port brake. However here’s what Space 419 says: “This 4-port design isn’t merely stacking extra of the identical design on the tip, it’s a whole redesign with every port being completely different. Completely different size ports, completely different angle ports, and completely different peak port optimizes every one to supply a great operate based mostly on the stress and quantity of fuel being acted on at its place. This ends in optimum recoil administration, optimum muzzle rise management, and imparts no further sound stress on the shooter place.”
Most brake designs have some sort of self-timing or locking collar, however set up will be irritating as a result of it’s a guessing recreation on the place you have to align the ports in order that after you torque down the locking collar, they level within the right route. After once you tighten down a brake, it can twist a small quantity. Space 419 emphatically claims to have solved that drawback with their patent-pending design: “Extraordinarily straightforward set up, brake WILL NOT flip as you torque the collar to lock. No extra guessing the place the brake ports will line up when you tighten it down!”
Space 419’s Hellfire Match brake sells for $195.
All Different Muzzle Brakes: 8% of Professionals
92% of the shooters used one of many manufacturers above, and the remaining 8% had been unfold over 8 completely different manufacturers:
Greatest Rifle Barrel Tuner
Barrel tuners have been round perpetually and have been very talked-about within the precision rimfire world, the place shooters should use manufacturing facility ammo and might’t “tune” a load for his or her rifles via reloading. However a number of years in the past Aaron Hipp, a veteran PRS professional shooter, launched the Adaptive Tuning System (ATS) barrel tuner that was designed for centerfire rifles. The thought is similar as rimfire barrel tuners in that you simply connect a small weight on the muzzle which you could regulate in or out in very high-quality increments to optimize your barrel harmonics for a specific batch of ammo.
I requested these top-ranked PRS shooters in the event that they used a barrel tuner, and right here was their response to that query:
83% of those top-ranked shooters stated they by no means use a barrel tuner. Among the many high 10, 8 stated no, 1 stated typically, and 1 stated sure. Among the many high 25, 22 stated they by no means use a tuner. So, the outcomes are constant via the ranks that 80-90% of these competing on the highest ranges of the precision rifle recreation aren’t working a barrel tuner.
Some muzzle brakes, like these made by ATS or Cortina Precision, have an built-in tuner constructed into the brake. So, for some manufacturers it’s apparent what sort of tuner they had been utilizing. Nonetheless, ATS additionally makes a stand-alone barrel tuner which you could run alongside any muzzle brake or suppressor. So I reached out to the few shooters who stated they had been working a barrel tuner, and it wasn’t apparent which one it was. I bought responses from all however 2 shooters. Listed here are the outcomes for what model of tuner the individuals who stated they had been utilizing one ran:
Observe: Those which might be “Unknown” are the two shooters that I by no means bought a response from and couldn’t inform from their muzzle brake precisely what model of tuner they could have been utilizing. On subsequent 12 months’s survey I’ll attempt to ask these utilizing a barrel tuner what mannequin they run explicitly to stop this going ahead.
Listed here are hyperlinks for more information on the tuners these firms provide:
I’ll additionally point out that Bryan Litz and the Utilized Ballistics group did essentially the most in-depth analysis on barrel tuners I’ve ever seen, and the outcomes are revealed in Fashionable Developments in Lengthy Vary Taking pictures Vol III. For those who like my fashion of writing and testing, I assure you’ll take pleasure in that ebook!
Coming Up Subsequent
The following articles will cowl the particular manufacturers and fashions of suppressors that these top-tier opponents are utilizing. So keep tuned for these outcomes!
For those who loved this content material, there’s extra to return! Over the following few months, I’ll be publishing a ton of information on what the highest precision rifle shooters are utilizing. Take a look at the opposite “What The Professionals Use” articles which have already been revealed.
Be the primary to know when the following What The Professionals Use article is revealed by signing up for electronic mail alerts.
For those who’d like to assist PRB, listed here are methods you could possibly try this:
Donate to PRB
No stress – nevertheless it does price fairly a bit to assist the quantity of site visitors PRB will get, and I spend fairly a little bit of time creating all this content material. For those who get worth from the content material and wish to donate, I promise 100% of it can go in the direction of holding this factor going!
Share on Fb & Your Favourite Discussion board!
It will assist me out in case you’d share a hyperlink to this text on Fb and your favourite rifle boards so extra folks can profit from the content material.
Like & Observe On Instagram
© Copyright 2024 PrecisionRifleBlog.com, All Rights Reserved.
