Gunsmithing Removing a Brake

[Runamuk]

Purchased a new rifle from the Remington Custom shop that had a brake already installed. Long story short, it's getting a little bit dirty, actually a lot dirty. Running rags with cleaner on them isn't getting it done. My question is....

1. What is the best way to clean a brake?
2. When reinstalling a brake is there any considerations I need to know about? i.e. torque specs when reinstalling, I read something about timing.

This is my first rifle with a brake and I'm just not sure, FWIW the rifle is a Remington TDR in 308. Tks in advance for the help.

 

[jonaddis84]

Re: Removing a Brake

It definitely makes it easier to clean a rifle without the brake on there, actually its almost impossible to do it right with it on there.

Take it off, soak it in some parts cleaner, spray it down with brakeclean, whatever youve got really, youre not going to hurt the brake unless it has a sprayed finish on it, and even then Id hope it has something pretty resilient on it.

Putting it back on, if you have access to some anti-seize I would suggest lightly coating the threads on the bbl before you thread it on if you want to get it back off easy. Other than that just tighten it as tight as you can short of using a barrel vise to hold the barrel. You cant possibly overtighten it unless you use some kind of barrel vise to hold it.

The timing was done by the gunsmith who installed the brake, it should line back up just fine when you torque it down.

 

[salmonaxe]

Re: Removing a Brake

Don't remove the brake. Who cares if it carbons up. Carbon will never actually stick to the crown.

When cleaning, your brake will act like a muzzle cap. It will help keep the cleaning rod jag from touching the crown when retracting your cleaning rod. Use a jag that only pushes patches out the bore from breach to muzzle, never drag them back through.

Excessive removing of the brake for cleaning will just fuck things up. I have several firearms that have thread protectors that I pull on and off for suppressor use. Stuff that is hand tight likes to come undone during fire. The loose thread protector fucks up my accuracy. On the stuff with flats, over time the timing has changed.

Just some math. 24 threads per inch. That's 1/24th of an inch per 360 degrees of rotation. So for every degree of rotation the shoulder of the barrel to muzzle device shoulder only has to move 1/8640" or .000116" Compression of the threads and wear is enough to throw the timing off. Eventually if you keep pulling that muzzle device on and off it will time differently AND each time you put it back it will torque differently.

It just seems to me to be a terrible idea.

The best brake for removing on and off again is the Badger FTE since it doesn't time on a shoulder but instead uses a single split clamping mechanism to compress evenly around the bbl. (It is also threaded.) A perfect solution for people removing brakes in order to add a thread on suppressor.