Muzzle Brakes – a Beaton Firearms Speciality
Since 2008, Beaton Firearms has been designing, developing and testing their own design of muzzle brake.  We quickly realised that a muzzle brake could not be made that suited every firearm in any calibre – a fluid design that allowed customisation to each platform was required.  Nowadays, hundreds of Beaton Firearms Muzzle brakes are fitted to firearms not just in Western Australia, but feature on firearms from Queensland to Victoria and on guns that have travelled to North America and Africa.  Each muzzle brake we fit allows us to improve our design.

 

The Beaton Firearms muzzle brake works on an asymmetrical design, where gas is released upward and to the sides, but not downward.  There are several advantages to this design; 

•The muzzle brake does not stir up dirt when shot from the prone position
•Excessive muzzle blast is not directed downward when shot over the roof of a vehicle
•This asymmetrical design keeps muzzle flip to a minimum

 

 

By directing more gas upward than downward, this design overcomes the natural tendency of rifle barrels to ‘Lift’ under recoil.  This is important for quicker follow up shots and for increased accuracy when shooting from a bipod.

 

Beaton Firearms muzzle brakes are 25mm in diameter and are tapered down to suit the profile of the barrel.  This both maintains the efficiency of the muzzle brake and ensures the finished job looks impressive too. This design is suitable for most centre fire rifles, from 223 to 338 Lapua

 

 

 

 

 

While 25mm Muzzle brakes are efficient, they don’t always suit the style of firearm or the tastes of the client.  However, we also now offer our muzzle in the same diameter of the barrel for those who don’t like the look of an oversize muzzle brake.

 

We don’t just turn the brakes down to roughly the same diameter as the barrel it is being fitted to – we hand fit the brakes to the barrel profile for that ‘Seamless’ look. These muzzle brakes look as if they are an extension of the barrel itself. This style of muzzle brake is at home on more classically styled or compact firearm.

Round Muzzle brakes are suitable on almost any firearm – whether they are tapered down to or machined flush with the contour of the barrel, they are usually effective without being obtrusive.

However, on some firearms you want the brake to be obtrusive.  With larger calibre, long, heavy or tactical styled firearms a large, aggressive muzzle brake can really complete the look of the rifle.  Beaton Firearms also offers a series of muzzle brakes to suit these types of rifles.

 

These muzzle brakes are manufactured using larger bar stock, finished with a flat on the top and bottom.  Larger flutes on either side give this brake an aggressive, tactical style look while maintaining the efficiency of the design.

This brake design is popular with large calibre, long range rifles or for anyone wanting that ‘Tank’ look.

Muzzle Brake – Design modifications

 

Since we began manufacturing muzzle brakes we have only ever fitted them by threading them onto the barrel using fine pitch threads in various sizes.  There are several reasons for this –

• Rifle Barrels are rarely profiled on the outside perfectly concentric to the bore of the rifle.  By turning a thread perfectly concentric with the bore on the end of the barrel we ensure that our muzzle brakes are always going to be ‘On centre’.
• Many barrels have little steel left in the walls.  A course threaded pitch on the muzzle brake would be too deep and could result in catastrophic failure of the rifle at the muzzle.  Fine pitch threads are very shallow, meaning a minimal depth of steel is taken out of the barrel when it is threaded.
• Fine pitch threads strongly resist the forces of the shot of gas exiting the muzzle, maintaining consistent muzzle brake position.  This is essential to ensuring accuracy of the rifle.  However, fine pitch threads mean the brakes themselves take longer to screw onto and off of the barrel.

As such we only thread barrels and brakes using fine threads, such as those listed below;

1/2″ x  28 TPI

9/16″ x  24 TPI

5/8″ x  24 TPI

3/4″ x  24 TPI

16mm x 1mm Pitch

18mm x 1mm Pitch

22mm x 1mm Pitch

 

While we are happy to quote on fitting muzzle brakes supplied by clients, unfortunately we cannot offer the service of threading rifle barrels without having an attachment to fit.  In the past we have had problems with the quality of the attachments our clients have chosen to use resulting in poor accuracy of the firearm.  We have also had issues with client fitting prohibited items to barrels.

In order to ensure the best performance of our customer’s firearms and maintain the professional nature of our business we require clients provide any attachments they would like to have fitted to their firearms prior to any work being agreed upon.

 

July 2015 – Many rifle barrels do not have a lot of excess steel on them in order to thread for the fitting of a muzzle brake.  Which is why threads with pitches of 24TPI and 1mm between threads is popular – the depth of the thread is barely 0.7mm in many cases.  The problem that arises with this style of thread is the large amount of force that can occur between the contacting faces of the barrel and muzzle brake often distort the material, causing muzzle brakes to go ‘Past Time’.  They also take a long time to screw on or off.

So in order to maintain the benefits of the current thread systems we use (strength, but with low thread depth), but make the brakes screw up faster with less force between contacting surfaces, we have changed our preferred thread types to Double Start threads.  With a double start thread, instead of having one thread rotating around the axis of the barrel 24 times in one inch, you have two threads rotating around the axis 12 times per inch.  This effectively halves the time to screw on a muzzle brake and halves the force between the contacting surfaces.

 

But there in never a free lunch – a double start thread effectively means one of our smiths needs to cut two thread pitches on the end of the barrel – a more time consuming process that requires unique skills and mathematical precision.

 

However, we are happy to say that this has not effected the price of our standard muzzle brake fit fee!

 

January 2016 –

We’ve done some more testing and had the ladies at Beaton Firearms do some rifle shooting – some with Beaton Firearms muzzle brakes and some without.  The results are outstanding.