Muzzle brake on a 300 Win Mag?

[ToKeepAndBear]

I guess I am the only one that hates muzzle brakes!

I have one for my Sako TRG (260 and 308) and find the noise obnoxious. I haven't used my brake in over a year. I find the suppressor a MUCH better option (and I still wear hearing protection). If I don't shoot suppressed, I leave the brake off my gun and suffer with the recoil. Granted, I am not shooting a magnum caliber. However, I do shoot 200gr bullets out of my 308 at 2500+fps.

At a recent comp, I had my muffs off for just a second to put plugs under my muffs (because of all the darn brakes). I was 10 feet from a shooter firing a 260 with a brake and got surprised by him firing with my ears off! My ears were literally ringing the rest of the day! I would never hunt with a brake and no ears. You risk serious hearing damage for sure!

At the recent long range competition, we had a stage that required shooting off your partner for support. One team was firing a shorter barreled (18-20") 308 with a brake. The guy was using his buddies shoulder for support with the brake literally inches from his partners face. The support man was only wearing basic ear plugs! I bet that guys ears are still ringing!

To each his own... I'll take my pppffffftttt!

 

[FEENIX]

At the recent long range competition, we had a stage that required shooting off your partner for support. One team was firing a shorter barreled (18-20") 308 with a brake. The guy was using his buddies shoulder for support with the brake literally inches from his partners face. The support man was only wearing basic ear plugs! I bet that guys ears are still ringing!

With or without a brake or with the best ear and eye protection, that's just asking for it. lightbulb

 

[farout]

Here's another vote for the hate brakes. My gun club restricts brakes to the first few benches on the right side of the field. When it is not busy, it is okey for the brake users to spread out, but if it is an busy range and a brake user is beside me, I have the right to ask the shooter to stop shooting.

I shoot my 300 mags and 7 RM without a brake and yes they can get tiring after 15 rounds. I happen to be kind of tall and enjoy a longer length of pull. My solution has been to leave the factory recoil pad on the rifle and then add a slip-on Limb Saver over that. Now I can shoot them all day with no issues at all.

I believe people have the right to use a brake if they want to, but just like smoking, you don't have the right to harm someone else's health with one.

 

[Old teacher]

I have no argument with that. That is why, as I posted earlier, I always checked with other shooters at the range where I used to shoot before I got shut out with their new membership rules as I described in my last post. I never had anyone complain about the noise from my brakes, but I did have a couple of fellow shooters mention that my brakes were blowing sand from previous shooters leaking bags into their faces. After that I always made sure that I was the first guy there, and I cleaned all the benches close to me so that would not happen. I never had a complaint after that. Just a little consideration and cooperation solves a lot of issues before they ever get started. Just one more short argument pro brakes. I bought a Remington model seven custom with a Mannlicher stock in .308. Beautiful little rifle, but short barreled and light, and with the full length stock, impossible to put a brake on. That little rifle had the most vicious and wicked recoil of any rifle I own(ed). I finally sold it because I could not stand to shoot it. It not only kicked backwards, but it jumped at least a foot off the bags when fired. I hated to see it go, but had no use for it. I just can't deal with recoil, and brakes are my answer. But you absolutely do have to be sensitive to the needs of fellow shooters.

 

[jsthntn247]

Last week a deer came out on me too fast to put my ear plugs in and I shot without them. Couldn't hear jack for over 24 hours. Kinda wishing I didn't have it on there now.

 

[foggybottombob]

I shot at an elk this year with my .300 win. I did not notice that it was any louder with the muzzle brake than my .270 is without the muzzle brake. My .300 is a lot louder if you are standing off to the side of it but I can't tell that it is any louder to the person shooting it.

 

[hunterforlife]

What muzzle brake were you using?

My 26 inch 300 WM, the side vent brake is more effective at felt recoil reduction but I will never intentionaly shoot it again without ear protection.

My 24 inch 300 WM, the Vais break is not too bad if I forget to protect the ears, but felt recoil is worse.

I don't think a 2" shorter barrel would make that much difference between the 2 styles of brakes.

 

[gebhardt02]

A lot of pages here and I'll admit I didn't read through all of them. I have never used a brake on my 300WM and never will. The rifle is heavy though at 15 pounds and is much more of a push than a kick. I shoot often enough with other people and have been to the side of muzzle brakes that I've grown to not like them much. However, they are very effective at reducing recoil and if a shooter doesn't like the recoil but needs the energy on target from a heavy bullet, a good brake might be the solution for them. To each his own and I won't begrudge anybody for setting up their rifle however it suits them best. I set mine up for suppressors so I get recoil reduction along with noise reduction.

Geb

 

[foggybottombob]

What muzzle brake were you using?

My 26 inch 300 WM, the side vent brake is more effective at felt recoil reduction but I will never intentionaly shoot it again without ear protection.

My 24 inch 300 WM, the Vais break is not too bad if I forget to protect the ears, but felt recoil is worse.

I don't think a 2" shorter barrel would make that much difference between the 2 styles of brakes.

My brake vents 360 degrees and was built by High Tech Customs here in Colorado Springs. It supposedly cuts recoil about 50%. I know the .300 win mag with the brake does not kick as much as the .270 win without a brake.

 

[Old teacher]

This is more of an observation than any advice to anyone. The brake vs no brake argument has pretty much been beaten into the ground, and no one seems to change their minds, which is fine. Both at the range and while hunting, but especially while hunting, I find it interesting that so many people are so consumed with the decibels created by a rifle report. At the range, yeah, a lot of people are shooting and we all have to be concerned about our own hearing and that of fellow shooters, but personally, I have never heard a shot that I have fired at a deer. My focus is getting my body into a proper position, getting a good shooting base, making sure that the animal is in a good position to properly place a bullet, target distances, and following actually pulling the trigger, following the path of the bullet through the scope, making sure I know exactly where the bullet struck the animal, (assuming that it did), What the animal does after being hit...did it go directly down, did it run off and then how far and exactly what path it took, and a number of other things connected with shooting and recovering a deer. I am much too busy dealing with gathering all of that information to even notice the report of the rifle when fired. I have never heard the shot I have taken at a deer. My mind is just to busy with all of the more important things to make sure I have ethically taken a shot and hopefully punched my tag. If I am paying attention to how loud my rifle is going to be when I pull the trigger, I am thinking about the wrong things and will inevitably lose a shot or worse yet, lose a wounded animal. One of my favorite hunting places is southeast Washington where the wheat fields border the Blue mountains. Bordering the wheat fields are fields of native grasses that are at times as high as four feet. The whitetails love to hide in that stuff, and as you walk by, they stretch out their heads and lay on the ground, and you can walk within ten feet of them and never see them. Once you get fifty feet past, they jump up and take off in the opposite direction. If you shoot a deer in this grass, they can be extremely difficult to recover if they travel any distance. There are a lot of places you can put a lethal shot into an animal which will not leave a blood trail. The lack of a blood trail does not mean you have not lethally wounded a deer. ( I posted a much earlier story about shooting a whitetail doe which was hit through the liver. We never found a drop of blood, and my partner was getting pretty impatient when I insisted the animal was mortally wounded. I saw the bullet hit the deer, I knew the deer was dead, it was just a matter of finding her, which we did two hours later.) If your bullet hits any place that interrupts the central nervous system, the deer goes down so fast that they just disappear. A hunter who is not watching what is happening through his scope after he pulls the trigger will be dealing with recoil, and will not see what happened to the animal. All they know when they recover the ability to see is that the deer is gone. With a brake, and paying attention to things like all of the above other than how loud your rifle is going to be when you pull the trigger will insure that you know what happened. I once watched a hunter shoot a nice ten point whitetail in this exact situation. He hit the der in the spine at the base of the neck and the deer dropped immediately, stone dead. The hunter was dealing with the recoil of a .300 Weatherby and had no idea he hit the deer. Since he saw nothing, he assumed he missed completely and that the deer disappeared over the edge of a canyon. He turned and walked away, not an ethical action, obviously, but he was so sure he missed, he saw no reason to go look. I flagged him down and we both went over to where we thought the deer was, and in that grass, it still took us a half an hour to find the deer, and he had a very nice trophy. End of story.

As an aside here, I apparently am doing something wrong with my posts. I get e-mails saying that someone has requested a reply to something I previously posted, which I do, but then when I review my reply in the thread, it is all out of whack with the current discussion. I did this a couple of days ago, and my reply had been removed by whomever edits the forum, which was fine since my post did not fit into the current discussion, which I have a feeling this one will be. Someone please advise me as to what I am doing wrong and how to get my replies to the people who requested them. I do not want to annoy other members of the forums by inadvertently tossing in replies which are anacronisms. I just want to get along and continue to glean useful info from the posts of others. Thanks.

 

[WildRose]

This is more of an observation than any advice to anyone. The brake vs no brake argument has pretty much been beaten into the ground, and no one seems to change their minds, which is fine. Both at the range and while hunting, but especially while hunting, I find it interesting that so many people are so consumed with the decibels created by a rifle report. At the range, yeah, a lot of people are shooting and we all have to be concerned about our own hearing and that of fellow shooters, but personally, I have never heard a shot that I have fired at a deer. My focus is getting my body into a proper position, getting a good shooting base, making sure that the animal is in a good position to properly place a bullet, target distances, and following actually pulling the trigger, following the path of the bullet through the scope, making sure I know exactly where the bullet struck the animal, (assuming that it did), What the animal does after being hit...did it go directly down, did it run off and then how far and exactly what path it took, and a number of other things connected with shooting and recovering a deer. I am much too busy dealing with gathering all of that information to even notice the report of the rifle when fired. I have never heard the shot I have taken at a deer. My mind is just to busy with all of the more important things to make sure I have ethically taken a shot and hopefully punched my tag. If I am paying attention to how loud my rifle is going to be when I pull the trigger, I am thinking about the wrong things and will inevitably lose a shot or worse yet, lose a wounded animal. One of my favorite hunting places is southeast Washington where the wheat fields border the Blue mountains. Bordering the wheat fields are fields of native grasses that are at times as high as four feet. The whitetails love to hide in that stuff, and as you walk by, they stretch out their heads and lay on the ground, and you can walk within ten feet of them and never see them. Once you get fifty feet past, they jump up and take off in the opposite direction. If you shoot a deer in this grass, they can be extremely difficult to recover if they travel any distance. There are a lot of places you can put a lethal shot into an animal which will not leave a blood trail. The lack of a blood trail does not mean you have not lethally wounded a deer. ( I posted a much earlier story about shooting a whitetail doe which was hit through the liver. We never found a drop of blood, and my partner was getting pretty impatient when I insisted the animal was mortally wounded. I saw the bullet hit the deer, I knew the deer was dead, it was just a matter of finding her, which we did two hours later.) If your bullet hits any place that interrupts the central nervous system, the deer goes down so fast that they just disappear. A hunter who is not watching what is happening through his scope after he pulls the trigger will be dealing with recoil, and will not see what happened to the animal. All they know when they recover the ability to see is that the deer is gone. With a brake, and paying attention to things like all of the above other than how loud your rifle is going to be when you pull the trigger will insure that you know what happened. I once watched a hunter shoot a nice ten point whitetail in this exact situation. He hit the der in the spine at the base of the neck and the deer dropped immediately, stone dead. The hunter was dealing with the recoil of a .300 Weatherby and had no idea he hit the deer. Since he saw nothing, he assumed he missed completely and that the deer disappeared over the edge of a canyon. He turned and walked away, not an ethical action, obviously, but he was so sure he missed, he saw no reason to go look. I flagged him down and we both went over to where we thought the deer was, and in that grass, it still took us a half an hour to find the deer, and he had a very nice trophy. End of story.

As an aside here, I apparently am doing something wrong with my posts. I get e-mails saying that someone has requested a reply to something I previously posted, which I do, but then when I review my reply in the thread, it is all out of whack with the current discussion. I did this a couple of days ago, and my reply had been removed by whomever edits the forum, which was fine since my post did not fit into the current discussion, which I have a feeling this one will be. Someone please advise me as to what I am doing wrong and how to get my replies to the people who requested them. I do not want to annoy other members of the forums by inadvertently tossing in replies which are anacronisms. I just want to get along and continue to glean useful info from the posts of others. Thanks.

Good points. I don't think you're doing anything wrong. You probably are just getting lost by replying to one post or thread when you think you are replying to something else.

That happens to us old farts in cyberland.

 

[rdsii64]

A lot of pages here and I'll admit I didn't read through all of them. I have never used a brake on my 300WM and never will. The rifle is heavy though at 15 pounds and is much more of a push than a kick. I shoot often enough with other people and have been to the side of muzzle brakes that I've grown to not like them much. However, they are very effective at reducing recoil and if a shooter doesn't like the recoil but needs the energy on target from a heavy bullet, a good brake might be the solution for them. To each his own and I won't begrudge anybody for setting up their rifle however it suits them best. I set mine up for suppressors so I get recoil reduction along with noise reduction.

Geb

I would much rather run a suppressor than a brake. Until get up to rounds like the 338 Lapua and on up, a suppressor actually reduces recoil better than a brake. Unfortunately I don't live in a suppressor friendly state so a good brake is as good as its going to get for me.

 

[jsthntn247]

Ive shot 3 deer with my Ross Schuler brakes 5r Rem 300 this year. The brake is extremely loud, all shots have been at 300 plus yards and I haves actually been able to see the bullet impacts on the deer through the scope. That in itself is worth having a brake on there.

 

[Old teacher]

Exactly the point I was trying to make in my lengthy post. If you see the bullet impact, the chances of recovering a wounded animal rise dramatically. You at least have enough information to make an educated estimate of how far the animal will most likely go before dying or at least lying down. If you are a dedicated, hunt every year from opener to closer, sometime in your hunting career, a brake will save you a trophy that otherwise would be lost. The story I posted above about the doe I shot is exactly a case in point. It was not a trophy, obviously, but an animal that had to be found and not wasted.