Muzzle Brakes and the Cast Bullet

[BruceB]

Gents;

Muzzle brakes are one device which I have happily ignored for almost all my (many) years. A few years back, I bought a Savage .338 with their "on-off" adjustable brake, which a hundred rounds or so of cast bullets turned into a FIXED (non-adjustable) brake. Even a couple of weeks' soaking in a container of penetating oil failed to free it up. Thankfully, it's frozen in the "on" position, which makes the rifle recoil about like a .270.

Anyway, I'd like to know what happens to cast bullets when they encounter vent holes near the muzzle which are drilled right through the rifling. Are all those Marlin Guide Guns made this way? The brake on that Savage is un-rifled.

I'm thinking about having my .416 #1 Magna-ported, because I want to preserve the outside appearance of the rifle. Would it be desirable to have the last couple inches of the barrel reamed to a thousandth or so over bullet diameter to avoid bullet damage?

Any info or opinions are much appreciated.

[Halfbreed]

Bruce, I have a 458 winnie with a Gentry quiet brake on it, reduces recoil a good 30%+. I shoot mostly cast in it. I believe the hole in the brake is .003 larger than caliber. I also use Hornady gc's, and never had a problem.
hope this helps, John

[jhrosier]

Bruce,
I have had some good results in removing leading from a muzzle brake on a handgun with a heavy charge of slow burning ball powder. I used a near max load of H110 in the .357 mag., with a light bullet. It seems to "grit blast" the lead out with a few shots.
I don't know how well this would work in a rifle.

Jack

[35remington]

Now, I don't own a rifle with holes drilled through the barrel like the Marlins, but I do have a few shotguns so set up, and the gasses perforate the wads on the edge of the driving cup. Pressures in a shotgun aren't so high at the ports.

Kinda wonder what the drilled ports in a rifle barrel do to plainbase bullets. Gascutting a divot on the edge of the base, perhaps? Shooting results would be proof if ports matter or not with plainbase.

Anyone have any recovery of cast bullets fired through such barrels?

[crazy mark]

I have 2 14" T/C's with muzzle brakes, a 30-30 and a 7x30 Waters. I have never recovered a cast bullet shot through either. As far as accuracy, condom and cast seem to shoot equally as good. I did recover one condom bullet after it had penetrated a deer and broke the offside shoulder and there really wasn't much of anything left identifiable on the bullet. Cast bullets alway seem to just go through the deer. Not much leading in the ports either. A brass brush usually removes and leading.

[broomhandle]

Hi CM,

I have a six & 1/2 inch S&W 686 (357) with the single port in front of the sight.
Shoot lead bullets in it about 90% of the time.

:???: Discovered quickly, that unless the comp was cleaned often the accuracy of the pistol fell off.
I dug a ton of lead out of the right side & bottom clearence cut of the comp.
It was just packed with lead chunks & shavings.:(

A small hard brass punch & a dental pick were a godsent, when carefully removing the lead. :)

Best to you,
broomhandle

[Glen]

My experience has been pretty cut-n-dried -- GC bullets shoot just fine out of muzzle-braked or Magnaported barrels, and plain-based bullets generally don't (there are a few isolated exceptions to the PB trend, but for the most part they just don't shoot worth beans for me).

[redneckdan]

try soaking for about 3-5 minutes in a solution of 50/50 hydrogen peroxide and white vinegar. This will oxidize the lead and it will clean out like powder fouling. This solution will sometimes affect blueing but it takes over half an hour to do it.

[Meatco1]

My maganaported 629 has never shown any problems digesting either cast, or jacked bullets. Certainly no leading of the port with cast either.

Richard

[The Double D]

I use to work for a major Muzzle brake manufacturer. A properly made muzzle brake is reamed to larger than major bore diameter. Lead bullets made of harder alloys and using good bullet lubes did not lead as bad as softer alloys. We recovered bullets and found gas cutting. We also fired these same bullets in non braked barrels and recovered bullets, they were also gas cut.
Softer the alloy the worse the cutting. We only worked with alloy and not lubes back then. But we did notice the Synthetics worked better than the old standby Alox/wax from Lyman

The worse leading was with pistol powders in pistol calibers. My 45 ACP Revolver with 12 inch barrel was the worse.

Gas checked and jacketed bullets did not foul our muzzle brakes. But some companies muzzle breaks fouled badly with anything shot through them. This was back in 1988-89 when every one was jumping on the muzzlebrak band wagon and some outfits hadn't figured out to ream the muzzle brake to make an expansion chamber. Yes we bought and tested the competitors MB's

[35remington]

So the consensus is.....

Drilled ports harm plainbase cast bullets. Or maybe not.

My questions have to do with those ports cut into the rifled portion of the barrel, not muzzle brakes (the thingies on the end of the barrel after the rifling, for the technically minded).

Can't see how drilled ports into rifling maintain bullet base integrity with plainbase bullets. Low shotgun pressures perforate the driving cups as soon as they hit the ports - so pressures that run higher in rifle and many pistol cartridges may contribute to erosion of the bullet base. A gaschecked bullet might be more resistant to this gascutting.

Less affected, anyway.

[Cherokee]

My experience, I had a 6" ported barrel 357 that was a real tack driver with j**** bullets but would not shoot cast with accuracy, no matter what I tried. Its gone.

[The Double D]

The Magnaport system is EDM and leaves no burr in the barrel. Magna port works best with handguns and does alrigh with rifles. Never tested it with shotgun, but understand it works well with shotgun.

There were some other systems being used back then that involved drille dholes inthe barrel. Te one sysgtem that come to mind was used by Weatherby...The holes were drilled in the barrel and then the area drilled was reamed. This eliminated a burr and an expansion chamber was created.

I have the Remington 870 we used for testing the shotgun brakes. Yes the back of the plastic wads blew out as they passed under the holes of the brake. We expected that as the wad was a thin walled cup expanded under pressure to form a seal as it passed down the barrel. If you pick up a shot gun wad that has been fired in a non braked/ported barrel, you will find the the cup is blown out when it exited the muzzle and won't fit back in the muzzle.

[The Dust Collector]

The fastest way that I have discovered is to plug the muzzel with a rubber "cork" and
wrap the porting with a high grade vinyl electrical tape. From the breech pour in enough mercury to fill the porting and let sit vertically in a coffe can for a day or two. the mercury will not hurt the rifle in any way but will dissolve all of the lead. Seeing that mercury is seen in a bad light these days. Finding mercury, I don't have a clue as to where.
Maybe someone might have a sorce.
DUST

[dominicfortune00]

Being that you're in Nevada, BruceB; I would try to find some place that sells gold mining supplies.

Mercury can be used to separate gold from ore.

You may get lucky at a gold mining supply store and they will have some mercury for sale.

If you choose to use mercury, make sure you know the hazards associated with mercury.

Good Luck,

dominicfortune00

[Alangaq]

I have a ported Marlin Guide gun in 45/70 and it seems to have no detrimental effect on cast bullets. I am shooting the RCBS 45-405 gas checked bullets at about 2000 fps from its 18 “ barrel. Leading is not an issue with WW alloy and 50/50 lube. Recovered bullets look just fine with no abnormal markings or signs of gas cutting.

All I use for cleaning the ports is Hoppies on a pipe cleaner. Works just fine.

[35remington]

To once again clarify, my interest was in plain base bullets. And the gascutting effect of reasonably high velocity gasses on a plainbase bullet going past a small hole. On drilled or EDM'd or whatever of holes going directly to the rifled barrel.

I'm not interested in shotgun wads and muzzle effects. Just plainbase bullets passing small holes that may concentrate the gas cutting effect.

[Nueces]

My only experience with porting was with a Magna-Ported M-29, 6 1/2" barrel. Shooting plain base lead boolits resulted in a lead-plated front sight base. No exhaustive testing was done. I plan to cut the barrel to 5 inches.

Mark

[Meatco1]

I also have a.338 Magnaported Ruger 77. I can see no trace of ANY leading on the ports, after 30+ years of shooting.

Richard

[45r]

My S&W 44mag PC model with magna-porting shoots plain based boolits very well.Plain base boolits are just as good as Gas-checked boolits.Elmer Keith never had a use for them,gas cutting complaints are over exaggerated for the most part.Some plain-base boolit designs have small base bands and actually slug up better to form a good gas seal and don't lead at all.If the base is square and sharp edged it will shoot well.Even some bevel-based boolits shoot well sometimes if done right.Lazer-cast BB boolits have shot ragged hole groups in my S&W.I use a Q-tip or pipe cleaner on ports when cleaning my gun and have never had a problem.I've have never seen plain-based boolits that looked eroded that much.Guess I"ve been lucky,but then I don't try to push a plain-base boolit too hard.I don't think porting would hurt PB boolit performance myself.

[AZ-Stew]

Bruce,

I have two ported pistols, a TC Contender in 45-70, and a Taurus Tracker Titanium in .41 Magnum. I haven't shot any PB cast from the Contender. I've had no leading issues around the ports from the GC cast.

The Taurus is another story. 100 rounds or so of PB SWCs cast from WW and fired at about 850fps leaves a LOT of leading around the ports in the milled recess near the front sight. I also get a lot of powder/lube residue on the front sight from the debris that blows out of the ports. I've never recovered any boolits, so I can't tell you whether they exhibit any gas cutting at the base that might be associated with passing the ports, but there must be some, considering the lead deposited above the ports. If I learn more I'll let you know.

Regards,

Stew