Overtightening a muzzle brake?

[MickB]

Can a muzzle brake be over tightened?

If so, what problems can it cause?

Installed a Surefire MB556K and using the supplied shims, got the brake to where it needed to be on the supplied indexing chart.

Surefire says to tighten to ~30 ft lbs.

This one would not index correctly until at least 60 ft lbs.

Mick

[outerlimits]

No worries-you'll be fine

[Bryan 45]

I have heard of muzzle devices that are too tight causing fliers and opening up groups. I don't know how tight is "too tight" though.

If your accuracy is not acceptable, that is the 1st place I would check.

[boomfab]

I just hand tighten my brakes with a couple drops of red loctite. A wrench will still get it off no problem but it'll never move otherwise. Over tightening a muzzle device is generally a bad deal.

[MickB]

I guess the question is "how tight is too tight" before accuracy suffers.

On the Surefire brake, it is indexed with peel washers to the 4-5 o'clock position before being tightened. Surefire specifies 30 ft lbs.

In my case, it was around 60 ft lbs.

I haven't shot the rifle yet, but will find out this weekend.

How is everyone else putting their muzzle brakes on?

Hand tight with loctite, or tightening from the 4-5 o'clock position with loctite or rocksett?

maybe someone needs to do a Front Sight article on muzzle brake tightness?

:-)

Mick

I just hand tighten my brakes with a couple drops of red loctite. A wrench will still get it off no problem but it'll never move otherwise. Over tightening a muzzle device is generally a bad deal.

[gixxerjunky]

I used a crescent wrench and rocksett. My battlecomp came with a shim kit and I tightened the hell out of it until it lined up. I'm sure it was a lot more than 60 lbs lol

[Aristotle]

No, you can not "over tighten" a muzzle device to the point where it will affect accuracy. Even if you were to bring the muzzle to the ends of the threads of the device. But what you can do, that will goof up accuracy is tighten it to the point where you snap the index pin off of your barrel and the barrel actually rotates within the receiver.

With that said, there is no reason to tighten it beyond where it should be clocked at per recommendations of the mfg. I have never used a torque wrench to put on a MD. It's just tightened until it's properly clocked.

Generally, when using a peel or layer type washer, you want the MD to sit at about 9-10 o'clock of TDC of where the MD should be clocked at from hand tightening. Then turned with a tool until it is clocked where it needs to be. Most good crush washers can be clocked a full rotation or two when properly blocked up on a vice, but it's not entirely necessary. This just ensures that you can position the device where ever it needs to go to get it to clock properly. The only MD I know of that does not require any sort of tool to clock is a Smith Vortex, those can be hand tightened and will clock itself under fire. Everything else, should have a reasonable amount of tension. Generally, a quarter turn beyond hand tight is money.

You also shouldn't need to use any rock set unless of course it's a QD for a suppressor.

Edited May 11, 2011 by Aristotle

[EkuJustice]

I like the PWS shimms over a peel or crush washer