Pro Muzzle Brakes, The Origin Story

[Salmon River Solutions]

@Ryan Avery Said I should post this here as well as our social media pages...

We will be doing a 9 part series with photos and brief descriptions on how we ended up with the designs that we currently use. What we have made first looks almost nothing like what we offer now. We figured it would be cool to showcase the evolution from a design, functionality, and machinability standpoint.

Here's the teaser photo... once we start releasing them on social media I will add each post here.

Ken

 

[TNKnoxville]

I like seeing the evolution of a design! Look forward to it. Might be cause I have 4 TI Pro brakes....lol.

 

[hereinaz]

@Ryan Avery Said I should post this here as well as our social media pages...

We will be doing a 9 part series with photos and brief descriptions on how we ended up with the designs that we currently use. What we have made first looks almost nothing like what we offer now. We figured it would be cool to showcase the evolution from a design, functionality, and machinability standpoint.

Here's the teaser photo... once we start releasing them on social media I will add each post here.

Ken

View attachment 686373

I recognize a couple of them!

 

[Mag_7s]

I'm not sure of you are doing Q&A here but I'm going ask anyway. I have noticed many brake builders have started adding vertical ports to their gill style brakes. The concept seems to make sense to me in compensating muzzle rise. Are the vertical ports something you have explored and decided against?
I was in contention between your brakes and Boring Rifles with the vertical ports. Ultimately I went with the Ti chub and am really happy with it.

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

I'm not sure of you are doing Q&A here but I'm going ask anyway. I have noticed many brake builders have started adding vertical ports to their gill style brakes. The concept seems to make sense to me in compensating muzzle rise. Are the vertical ports something you have explored and decided against?
I was in contention between your brakes and Boring Rifles with the vertical ports. Ultimately I went with the Ti chub and am really happy with it.

Questions are more than welcome.

We tested top ports a bit.

Look at King of 2 Mile guns. They all run terminator brakes. Huge 5 and 6 ports on 375’s and 416’s. The recoil on these is crazy. They are heavy but they have lighter weight classes. One have top ports.

Less recoil means less muzzle rise. If you have good shooting form you don’t need top ports.

I’ve also seen adverse effects… they can put extreme downward pressure on the barrel and stock / chassis. On some guns it’s made it impossible to keep the front action screw tight.

Ken

 

[wind gypsy]

I recall seeing a slo-mo video years ago of something like a RUM with a ultralight contour barrel and an aggressive top port brake. It was outrageous how much that barrel flexed down when it was shot!

 

[Mag_7s]

Questions are more than welcome.

We tested top ports a bit.

Look at King of 2 Mile guns. They all run terminator brakes. Huge 5 and 6 ports on 375’s and 416’s. The recoil on these is crazy. They are heavy but they have lighter weight classes. One have top ports.

Less recoil means less muzzle rise. If you have good shooting form you don’t need top ports.

I’ve also seen adverse effects… they can put extreme downward pressure on the barrel and stock / chassis. On some guns it’s made it impossible to keep the front action screw tight.

Ken

That makes more sense now. I didn't even think about the added downward pressure on the barrel. Thank you!

 

[Flyjunky]

Best brakes I’ve ever used!

 

[Lemhi]

I have tried most brakes on the market. The SRS Ti 2 port on my ultralight 7PRC is made with some sort of voodoo magic. Wild how effective it is at reducing recoil while not being overtly loud to the shooter.

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

The OG... This was the first brake I ever made. A buddy drew a super good elk tag here in Idaho and I did a bunch of rifle upgrades for him. Designing and making this brake for it was part of the upgrades. With straight ports and no flats, it was as basic as it gets, as was the performance. For a period of time we offered this on our website, calling it the "Basic Brake".

Ken

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

This was the first try at angled ports. With no flats and very small ports, the performance vs weight we were hoping for wasn't there. The port size also made the machining a challenge. We were making these complete on a CNC mill and surfacing the crown of the brake also.

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

THE SLAB STYLE BRAKE

For a short time, we dabbled in "slab style" muzzle brakes. While looking cool, the functionality of the brake wasn't as good as we had hoped. The massive flats limited the port height and made the piece of titanium we needed to start with very large. The performance from the top ports vs no top ports was almost nonexistent. This design also made it very challenging to make a self-timing muzzle brake and attempts were abandoned quickly.

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

Next.... We chose a diameter a little under 1", and angled our ports back 25 degrees. No brake flats, and no cup-shaped ports. This short little 5 port had decent performance but was a pain to machine with no flats.

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

By this point we had figured out a decent port design, and were testing performance by number of ports and muzzle brake diameter. We still had a flat crown on the end of the brake. This is one of 3 brakes we ever made in .760" OD with 5 ports. With the brake being longer and a small diameter it presented numerous machining challenges.

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

This was our first .990" brake. The wrench flats were a little short which made the brake look a little funky. Our thread relief, and distance to the first port from the banking surface of the back of the brake was too short for standard barrel threads. We were still struggling with getting a nice uniform port surface finish. After this set of brakes we added a finishing tool. This allowed us to run the roughing tool longer and leave a small amount of material for the final tool to leave a perfect finish.