Holland Brake-Is This Right?

[Backcountrypro]

OK so I went to pick up my Sendero rifle today from the gunsmith after he installed a Holland Muzzle Brake. The quaulity of the work looked great until I noticed that the top ports of the brake did not line up vertically with the barrel. I asked why it was not lined up vertically and his reply was that it was impossible to get the threads cut exactly so that it would line up. He told me that as long as it was close to verticle it was fine. I call BS on that. I could understand if it was off by a hair and you really had to look to see that it was not perfect, but it is obvious that it is off from verticle by atleast a eighth inch if not more. Do I just live with it or is there a way that I can get this fixed.

[ss7mm]

Is it really gonna hurt anything.....probably not. Should work o.k.

Should it be that way.....no way. It should have been indexed correctly and the top ports should be at exactly the top.

Sounds like a smith that either doesn't have the skills he should, or else he just doesn't care.

If he won't fixt it, you can have a "good" smith index it properly by facing it off properly until the top ports are actually on top.

I had a local smith install a brake for me many years back and it too was not indexed properly. He thought it was o.k., he never touched another gun of mine.

[Hired Gun]

Holland put one on my buddies Sendero last year. It was off as well. One thing you can do is put some blue loctight in the threads and then tighten it up until it indexed correctly. That's what we had to do. If it needs to go on some more put a round screwdriver through the big side ports and just tighten it up some more. Ours was over clocked so we needed to loosen it a little.

[eddybo]

There is a formula that can be used to determine how much material needs to be removed from the abutment for it to index correctly.

I cant recall the exact formula but I think that is the rotation desired in degrees times threads per inch or something like that. Maybe someone here knows the formula and will pass it along. Maybe you can figure how many thousanths of material needs to be removed so your smith can fix it for ya. Good Luck. ( I saw this formula over on benchrest centrals gunsmithing section but cant find it now)

[Ernie]

Not sure who did it but some guys (doesn't seem this is the case though on this one) while put it on a little off center (under-clocked), since in repeated use of taking off and on it will have the tendency to index/turn further.

[Bigcat_hunter]

I had a smith install a Holland brake on mine and it is off a little too. But I don't care. It still works fine.

[Shawn Carlock]

To index correctly simply screw on the brake, note the amount of turn it needs to line up (1/4 turn is .25). Take the thread pitch say a 5/8-24 tpi and divide 1 by the number of threads (1 divide 24 = .0416) this is the amount of material to take off the face to make 1 full revolution. Multiply this by the amount of turn say .25 for a 1/4 turn (.0416 x .25= .0104"). i loctite them in place and never remove them. Getting a brake to line up correctly is not a big trick.

Shawn