AK style brake helpful on a Mosin Nagant?

[leadcounsel]

I've got a nice scoped sporter Mosin Nagant M44 with no front sight. It's a handy, light, and really accurate rifle. I want to keep it light, carbine length, and affordable.

I'm thinking of threading it and putting an affordable brake on it. Don't even suggest adding some $50-80 or $100 brake because I'm not going in that route.
I'm not going to invest that cost of the rifle on a brake when other good options are almost free...

I purchased a bulk pack surplus 7.62 AK47 slant style brakes, 10 for $10. So the brake costs $1. I'm thinking that this brake - although not the best - will benefit the rifle by reducing felt recoil, muzzle rise, and dust signature in shooting prone. If this works well, I might consider doing this with several other of my Mosins - undecided about destroying their historic value by threading and installing a brake.

My other option is a $20 AK74 style .30 caliber brake. The drawback is adding significant length and weight (although could benefit from the that on the end of the barrel). I think this is an excellent design, just more expensive and longer and heavier.

The other option is simply professionally drill a series of angled holes in the barrel, say two rows of three or four... Adds no weight, no length, and little cost. Some risk of ruining the barrel though... and not reversible.

What say you?

 

[Inebriated]

A slant brake doesn't reduce felt recoil, it just pushes the muzzle down and to the left... The actual rearward impulse of the rifle is largely the same as without a brake.

A '74 brake does actually reduce felt recoil on a 5.45 or 7.62x39, at the expense of flash, but I'd wonder how effective it would be on an x54r...

I'd either get a good .308 device like a PWS FSC30, which does reduce flash and felt recoil, or just not bother. And when it comes to that, concern comes in about whether the bore is concentric or not, and how much to open up the ID of the comp for .311" bullets.

In short, seems like more work than it's worth to me when there are a number of modern .308 rifles ready for a brake for very little money.

 

[leadcounsel]

I will add that I've watched some videos and did some reading and it appears that the AK74 brake is superior over the slant brake, but the slant brake does work as designed. The AK74 brake pays the penalty in weight/length/cost.

It may not be the best but I don't need the best. Even a marginal reduction is desired.

Advice to use a different rifle, while appreciated, isn't the direction I'm going with THIS rifle, since I already have it and know its capabilities.

 

[TIMC]

I added a Kinkov brake to my Mosin sniper; doesn't do much of anythig for the rifle but it looks cool.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

As mentioned above, slant "brake" is not a brake, and can be considered more of a compensator; the slant cut forces escaping gas in a particular direction ( up and left on an ak) which in turn pushes the opposite way on the barrel. It was designed to aid in keeping barrel rise under control during full auto fire of the ak rifle. Using one on your mosin, assuming you get it timed properly, will do the same, but will have absolutely no bearing on felt recoil except the direction of it (gun comes more straight back instead of the normal muzzle flip).

The cheap 74 style brake is effective (ish), but a lot of that has to do with the extra weight on the end of the barrel. You'll need to be careful with cutting the threads concentric to the bore, else you could have a misaligned brake and shoot your own brake off the rifle. Also, with an m44, you will have truly massive fireballs coming out of the sides of that thing. My friend's m44 has crazy powerful muzzle blast as it is; putting a brake on it will definitely increase perceived muzzle blast for anyone standing behind or to the side of the gun, and my bet is that it would become unpleasant very quickly.

An effective and inexpensive option is to buy a rubber recoil pad:

http://m.ebay.com/itm/261718166760?nav=SEARCH

One of those tamed down my brother's m91/30 to where it is pleasant to shoot all day. Looks pretty good on the rifle too.

 

[leadcounsel]

As mentioned above, slant "brake" is not a brake, and can be considered more of a compensator; the slant cut forces escaping gas in a particular direction ( up and left on an ak) which in turn pushes the opposite way on the barrel. It was designed to aid in keeping barrel rise under control during full auto fire of the ak rifle. Using one on your mosin, assuming you get it timed properly, will do the same, but will have absolutely no bearing on felt recoil except the direction of it (gun comes more straight back instead of the normal muzzle flip).

The cheap 74 style brake is effective (ish), but a lot of that has to do with the extra weight on the end of the barrel. You'll need to be careful with cutting the threads concentric to the bore, else you could have a misaligned brake and shoot your own brake off the rifle. Also, with an m44, you will have truly massive fireballs coming out of the sides of that thing. My friend's m44 has crazy powerful muzzle blast as it is; putting a brake on it will definitely increase perceived muzzle blast for anyone standing behind or to the side of the gun, and my bet is that it would become unpleasant very quickly.

An effective and inexpensive option is to buy a rubber recoil pad:

http://m.ebay.com/itm/261718166760?nav=SEARCH

One of those tamed down my brother's m91/30 to where it is pleasant to shoot all day. Looks pretty good on the rifle too.

Appreciate the suggestion on the recoil pad.

I understand the concept of how the slant brake works and it helps reduce muzzle rise in rapid/full auto fire.

However, my thinking is that even in a bolt gun, you're getting the gasses to work FOR you by pushing down on the brake and directing gasses upward, thereby reducing both flip and recoil. In that way it does act as a compensator and even if it just reduces recoil/flip by a few percent, that adds up. Otherwise the gasses just come out in every direction and do not work in the shooter's favor. So, the brake MUST aid in directing gas/recoil to some degree; same principle as full auto - and it's clear that it does work there.

Oh, and it does act to reduce dustup from shooting prone...

 

[MErl]

Are you sold on a brake? The AR style flash hider could be very useful on the firebreathing monster. While not $1 they are on par with the 74 brake you are considering.

 

[leadcounsel]

Are you sold on a brake? The AR style flash hider could be very useful on the firebreathing monster. While not $1 they are on par with the 74 brake you are considering.

Thanks for the idea.

I've never understood why AR birdcage flash hiders have that name because they don't hide flash very well. Here's a video of a handful of AR brakes, and of course the good ones are outside what I'm wanting to spend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbXdghpxlrw

And of course we're not at the .223 caliber, we're at .30 caliber. So we're probably in the FAL/M1A flash hiders...

 

[caribou]

Hanging some weight off or added onto the end of your barrel can mess with your groups too.

My wife daughters love their M-38's, M-91/30's and their M-39's, and favor the M-39 for its recoil absorbing weight and balance. That adds up to easy shooting for the wife and girls, the muzzle blast being the reason the carbines arent used all the time by them.

 

[BCRider]

Threading it is going to cost a bundle as well unless you have a bit of a machine shop available.

If you're considering hand threading it then stop right now. There's just no way you'll get the threading centered and aligned to the degree needed to use it with a muzzle brake. Hell, without shoving the barrel in a lathe and dialing in the bore you don't even know if the outside is centered with the bore or not. After all we're talking about a situation where tenths of a degree and thousandths of an inch matter.

The easiest and lowest cost solution for the recoil is going to be a Limbsaver or similar pad on the butt of the stock.

The other option is simply professionally drill a series of angled holes in the barrel, say two rows of three or four... Adds no weight, no length, and little cost. Some risk of ruining the barrel though... and not reversible.

.... and impossible to remove the burrs you'll get in the bore without ruining the rifling in the most critical portion of the barrel. Any machinist worth their pay will know this and tell you this. The unscrupulous ones will do the work and charge you for ruining your barrel.

There's a reason why barrel porting of that sort is typically done using wire EDM. The EDM method drills precise holes with no cutting action. So no exit burrs. It burns the metal away instead.

Clearly you are not a machinist. And sadly that is who you need or what you need to be to do the work in a way that will give you a positive gain and not simply ruin the rifle. The stuff you're looking at doing does not take kindly to shortcuts or poor options.

 

[fireman 9731]

I put a Krinkov style brake on my PSL just to see what it did. It worked pretty well. It looked cool. It worked so well on my Draco AK pistol that the muzzle actually dove down when firing.

 

[leadcounsel]

I put a Krinkov style brake on my PSL just to see what it did. It worked pretty well. It looked cool. It worked so well on my Draco AK pistol that the muzzle actually dove down when firing.

Which Krinkov brake are you talking about? The funnel cone style? I fired a Draco pistol with one and the flash, noise and kick seemed to have been tripled!

 

[fireman 9731]

It had the cone and two ports on top. It shot most of the flame up through the top in a spectacular "V" shape that may of come close to melting my eyebrows.

 

[benEzra]

At least on AK's, the slant brake is known to increase group size/reduce accuracy, presumably by inducing nutation in the bullet's spin due to flying through the asymmetric high-velocity gas flow immediately after muzzle exit. Symmetrical muzzle brakes do not have this issue and are more effective to boot, though they are also louder.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Other than the slant break the other 3 look good for under $14.
http://www.brownells.com/rifle-part...brakes/ak-47-amd-muzzle-brakes-prod27512.aspx