FRONT SIGHT • November/December 200744

As practical shooting competitors, ourability to reduce the time interval betweenshots accurately delivered on one target is some-thing that we perhaps focus too much attention on.

“Double Tap,” “Double Hammer,” or “Controlled Pair” -pick your phrase and prepare to defend your definition inthe tactical wannabe internet chat rooms. Or simply un-derstand it matters little what you call it, just as long as youcan do it, and preferably faster than the competition.

While proper technique is the most important aspect inthe delivery of accuracy at speed, our equipment choices, in-cluding compensators, or muzzle brakes if you like, play avital role. I spent many years as a devout Limited divisionpistol competitor and had little use for the gadgets until theworld of 3-Gunning demanded my attention. At that timethe only major 3-Gun event I was attending is the now de-funct Soldier of Fortune (SOF). Their rules prohibited theuse of compensators, as did the USPSA Limited division dur-ing the same period. This was fine with me as I was plentyhappy with my finishes at SOF and other less notablematches. And besides, who needed a compensator on a.223!

Fast-forward a number of years to the height of the 1994- 2004 Assault Weapons Ban. USPSA is pressed (as wereother match organizers) to allow muzzle brakes in the Lim-ited division to accommodate the many permanently-at-

tachedfactory-brakedARs sold during theperiod. The new rulesapproved compensators, pro-vided they were no more than 1inch in diameter and no longer than 3inches.

Now AR muzzle brakes are showing up every-where and creative marketing campaigns abound. The fol-lowing are clipped quotes from various internet sites.

“This allows the brake to negate recoil and muzzleclimb”

“Best we have ever seen!”“Rapid fire on target without loss of sight picture orsight alignment is no problem”

“The finest AR-15 / M-16 Muzzle Brake in the world” “Stops all muzzle climb”“Virtually eliminates muzzle jump”“Corrects sight misalignment and makes you look slim-mer”

AA QQuueessttiioonn ooffCCoommppeennssaattiioonnAA QQuueessttiioonn ooff

CCoommppeennssaattiioonnBY PATRICK KELLEY, TY-14401

45November/December 2007 • FRONT SIGHT

Okay, that last oneis not a direct quote but how do

you pick one out of the field?

A few months ago I mentioned to Front Sight’s as-sistant editor that I had some ideas about how toobjectively test and compare muzzle brakes using atest fixture. Robin, ever eager to offer you, The

Reader, something to help you in your quest for bettershooting said, “Go for it. If it reads well and works we’ll

try to get it in!”

“Try” was the operative word here. After assemblingfour test fixtures, one remote trigger release unit, expending300 rounds of 55 grain 5.56 ammunition, driving some 400miles to and from my most local range, I have some data toshare with you and some ideas on what makes a muzzle

brake work and who makes those brakes.

Before we get too much further I would liketo deeply thank the participants in this test.All of these fine folks sent me a compen-sator on my word that I would fairly testeach and report the findings here in thepages of Front Sight. Each knew that aranking of sorts would result and thatsomeone would be first, and accordingly,last. While the list may not include yourfavorite comp I chose to limit the test tothose available “over the counter” and Iwas limited to those who responded tomy request.

Test fixtures and testing protocol.

My initial idea was to buy a rifle restthat incorporated a built-in recoilscale. Yes, a company makes one buta few things shied me away from itspurchase. #1 -the ad copy led me to

think it was designed for “real recoil”and may not offer useable data at the low

end of thescale. #2 - it onlymeasured in one plane: rear-ward thrust. For a thorough test I felt it necessary to ascer-tain lateral and downward movements as well. # 3 - the re-mote trigger device looked cumbersome.

So I attempted to build a better mousetrap.

Of the four devices I built, two were used to gather datafor this article.

The first item to build was a remote triggering device. Iplayed around with a couple of remote trigger ideas, in-cluding an electrical solenoid and a camera pressure bulb,but ended up making a simple pump-to-bladder unit thatslipped into the trigger guard. Inflation of the bladderpresses the trigger to the release point.

Roller Ball 2 in action. Kelley’s rest rode on a bed of material-handling ball bearings, allowing the rest to slide easily both front-to-back and left-to-right. Note the recoil-tracking Sharpie™ in theforeground.

Patrick Kelley lights up the night skywith a Hill comp.

FRONT SIGHT • November/December 200746

The first test fixture, “The Sled,”was designed to offer enough scale ofmovement to make effective compar-isons in the rearward recoil reductionbetween the un-braked (naked) rifleand each compensator. In its final ver-sion The Sled proved it could repeatthis accurately over many tests.

The second fixture, “Roller BallOne,” would have allowed me tograph lateral and rearward movementsover the horizontal but it turned out tobe too sensitive for field use, e.g., itmoved in response to temperature

changes andrangebreezes.

The thirdfixture,“ChainGang,” sus-pended aplatform viachains froma truss workthat wascoupled toan electronicstrain gauge.While thisset-up gener-ated someuseful num-

bers, I couldnot get repeat-able data so

they were not included in the test.

The last fixture (a modified versionof Roller Ball One), “Roller Ball Two,”used dampeners to attenuate the previ-ous sensitivity issues. An attached penwas used to graph the results for lateraland downward force independently.This also served as secondary proof ofrearward thrust data collected fromThe Sled.

The AR used for the tests was oneof my Frankenstein guns. Many of youhave at least one of these assembledfrom bits and bobs collected over the

years. This 20” flat top was strappedand bolted into a Caldwell rifle rest forall the tests. Israeli 55 grain mil-specball provided the motive force. Foreach test I would singly feed the cham-ber and close the bolt, set the fixture inthe start position and verify the fixturewas level. My wife Karen would tripthe trigger on the signal “Hit It” and Iwould then record the data. This wasrepeated for all rounds fired. After arepresentative sample was collected, Iwould refit the muzzle with the nextcompensator and repeat. It is worthnoting that to verify the accuracy ofour testing methods we would fire astring between each compensator withthe muzzle naked to confirm our set-uphad not changed.

Our goal was to demonstrate bycomparison the percentage of recoil re-duction offered by each brake reflectedversus the naked barrel.

For example, during the rearwardthrust test The Sled would roll 10”without a brake attached. Each brakewas compared to that “full pull” valueto calculate a percentage of reduction.A roll of 5” would be a 50 percent re-duction.

The downward and lateral testingused the Roller Ball Two. This set-uphad the Caldwell rifle rest firmly setupon a platform that was balanced ona group of 1” material-handling rollerballs. Attached to the platform was a

SJCTTI

CooleyHill

SabreNeth

Miculek

JP

The little comp that could. The TTI comp surprised Kelley withits effectiveness and shootability. Its dust signature was notmeaningfully worse than the other seven.

47November/December 2007 • FRONT SIGHT

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KimPro™ Tac-Mag™

Kimber Custom Shop

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set of springs to control and dampenmodulations. A marking pen wasfixed to record the modulations on asheet of graph paper.

As you may expect the naked bar-rel test showed no lateral or downwardtravel. However, the pen did lift off thepaper under recoil, leaving a dottedline in the process. It was very impor-tant to have the assembly balanced sothat the recoil energy was evenly di-rected, and thus not skew the results.This balance was checked as before byshooting a series of shots sans muzzleappurtenance between each compen-sator.

Since all the compensators ventedlateral gases symmetrically, the data Icollected from my graphs showed nodiscernable difference in sideways mo-tion from that of the naked muzzle.

In the down force tests compen-sators were indexed 90 degrees clock-wise from “normal” directing the forceto move the graph pen to the left, if atall. I can only submit a ranking ofcompensators using the amount ofmovement off the center line produced

by the plain barrel asuseable information.Seven of the eight brakestested had some specificredirection of gas to re-duce muzzle lift. Thedifference betweencomps was subtle in-deed.

I have also included a se-ries of photos depictingthe “dust signature”produced by each brake.I will let the photosspeak for themselves.

The Participants.The JP Recoil Elimina-tor resembles the muzzlebrakes found on someartillery pieces andtanks, thus giving us itsalternate name, “theTank Brake.” I re-quested this Open divi-sion compensator to use

as a benchmark for effectiveness.While it ranked well in our tests at 2ndwith a 61% reduction in rearwardmovement and 5th for down force, mybet is the .223 does not offer enoughgas energy to make full use of its largesurface area.

JP’s Tactical/Limited division offer-ing, the Cooley compensator, is ar-guably most popular unit with 3-Gun-ners. It ranked 5th in our tests at 56%in recoil reduction and 4th in downforce performance.

The DNTC (David Neth TrainingConcepts) brake offered by AK Con-cepts was designed from a differentpoint of view - that of shooter comfort.Applying David’s logic that there ismore impact on the competitiveshooter than just recoil, the crew at AKConcepts created a brake that reducedboth recoil and muzzle blast. My test-ing ranked this brake last, with a 43%reduction in recoil movement and tiedfor 3rd with respect to down force.

The Rolling Thunder comp was de-signed and is manufactured by mastergunsmith and veteran 3-Gunner Benny

“The Sled” consisted of a Caldwell rifle rest onrollers. Smooth rollers gave repeatable results witheven the modest recoil of a compensated .223.

49November/December 2007 • FRONT SIGHT

Hill. This comp is employed by someof the more notable 3-Gunners on thecircuit. That fact alone may say morethan the test fixtures. Nonetheless mydata put this stainless steel seven-portbrake in 4th place for recoil reductionat 57%, and 1st for down force.

What may be the best brake for thebuck is the simply effective DPMSMiculek compensator. At less than$50, this three-slot brake has cleverlyregulated the size and placement of theoval slots, putting itself in 3rd place forrecoil reduction at 58% and tied for2nd for down force. Instead of sepa-rate holes directing gas to producedown force the Miculek brake narrowsthe bridge at the top of the first slot tovector a portion of the gas upward.

Sabre Defense builds a full line ofhigh quality AR rifles and offers itsown competition-labeled “Gill Brake.”Nicely machined and finished, thiscompensator sports three “gills” oneach side. These “gills” have flat sur-faces that are used as gas impact platesand also vector the exhaust gas rear-ward to complete its recoil reductioneffort. While I detected no change indown force versus the un-comped bar-rel, this brake managed a 54% reduc-tion in rearward thrust ranking it 6thplace.

The last two compensators tested

used very similar gasvectoring techniques totie for first place in thereduction of recoil.

A brake I would nothave tested (nor hadheard of) until a got anemail from John “Mig”Migliaccio, an activeEast coast 3-Gunner,was one offered by Yel-low Tavern Custom.Their TTi Eliminatorcomp is the slimmest ofthe group at just under3/4” in diameter. Mysample was fitted witheight ports, two on topto focus on down forceand three per side tohandle recoil. My ini-

tial impression was “How can this lit-tle guy work?” It did not follow con-ventional wisdom that maximizing gasimpact surface area was crucial in re-ducing recoil. Instead this effectivecompensator relies on the redirectedjets of exhaust gas to garner a 63% re-duction in rearward movement. It alsoranked 2nd in down force.

The award for most stylish yet ef-fective compensator tested goes to theTitan Comp of SJC Custom. UnitedStates Shooting Academy instructorErik Lund had a hand or two in the de-sign of this beautifully machined andfinished muzzle device. Employingboth exhaust gas vectoring and impactsurface plate ar-eas along withtwo jet nozzleson the top ratethis a tie for 1stwith TTi for re-coil reductionand 6th fordown force.

So that’s it,just run out andbuy the SJC orthe TTi compand you aregood to go,right? Not nec-essarily. In the

end it is not the rifle with the most re-coil reduction or a particular level ofdown force that lets you shoot faster.It is the “predictability factor” if youwill, in the muzzle movement of yourrifle, that cues your vision to break thenext shot.

Without straying too far into thesubject of another article, recoil fol-lows the path of least resistance — andas resistance changes, so does the muz-zle movement. A compensator thatworks perfectly for you shooting off-hand may not work as well from a dif-ferent position.

Let us say that when shooting a ri-fle from the prone position the muzzleand thus the sights move up and rightin a circle the size of a dime. As the re-sistance changes with a shift fromprone to offhand, so changes the size,shape and path of our sights in recoil.Accordingly our visual cues will haveto adjust to suit the new feedback.

We expend great efforts tuning ourpistols’ spring rates, slide weight, andloads to achieve the visual feedbackthat suits our shooting style. Most ofus don’t monkey with our AR’s springrates, but we do tune our loads and gasimpingement system to suit us. Con-sider your muzzle brake as more thana one-size-fits-all device. The tuning ofyour rifle’s muzzle gases can be an im-portant part of the equation. Gettingthe best out of your rifle may bea question of compensation.

WHACK! Kelley reports the Sabre defense comp di-rected considerable amounts of blast toward theface. (Hence the involuntary blinking after the shot,above.)

Rearward Movement Down ForceTTI Eliminator 63% (tie) 2nd

SJC 63% 6th

JP Tank 61% 5th

Miculek 58% 2rd (tie)

Hill’s Thunder 57% 1st

JP Cooley 56% 4th

Sabre’s Gill 54% 7th

DNTC Neth 43% 3rd