FN Herstal Firearms banner

FNAR Muzzle Brake

12K views 22 replies 12 participants last post by  Whitesheep 
#1 ·
:hearingprotection: What's the lastest experience with installing a muzzle brake on an FNAR? I can only find one reference to a bad experience. Is it ill advised? Or, do general installations work fine? What brakes work best? PWS? JP? Before someone asks me, I'm 64 (soon to be 65) and have some shoulder issues. I have a brand new FNAR with 16" barrel. Thanks!
 
#7 ·
Having been on the shooting line in the near vicinity with a .308 equipped with a brake, I would say it pretty much sucks. Maybe it was the brand....but I've been near a few and they all created a nasty pressure wave to the sides. I've yet to find anyone that will stand next to a .308 rifle without hearing protection...at least, not someone that still has hearing.

I can see it on the big rifles....I can't appreciate it on the small ones....unless you shoot alone which makes it a non-issue.

Just sayin'.....
 
#12 ·
Quiet Brake

Having been beside .223's at the range with clam shell brakes, I can only imagine what a .50 BMG would do. Someone I know put out the windshield of his truck shooting a Barret off the hood, so it probably isn't good.

As a hunter I generally eschew brakes because they are so LOUD and I don't always remember to put in hearing protection before shooting at game. There is one "quiet brake" as installed by Accuracy Systems, that does tame recoil some without directing noise back to the shooter.

Tool accessory Cylinder Hardware accessory


This is probably not as effective as a true brake, but it helps some while looking pretty cool as well.
 

Attachments

#20 ·
Having been beside .223's at the range with clam shell brakes, I can only imagine what a .50 BMG would do. Someone I know put out the windshield of his truck shooting a Barret off the hood, so it probably isn't good.
At my range, we have a regular .50 shooter, and all .50s have brakes. He usually gives a warning before firing, but not always, and only shoots maybe 5 rounds on the 300yd lane. Also, he would never shoot with someone closer than 3 or 4 lanes away.

It's pretty bad, gotta hold hands on muffs with back towards him. I dont like my young son near that kind of noise.

On the other hand, some guys have some massive magnums with no brakes and huge flashes and blasts that are almost as bad.

To the OP, a good brake like the JPrifles one would be awesome to stop the FNAR muzzle jump on the bench off a bipod. I dont like the huge size, but they are the best. At this point you probably wont be getting any JP brakes as they are reserved for their rifle builds and they are not accepting customer rifles for modification right now.
 
#18 ·
Here's a Saturday afternoon Rant for ya....

The M14 didn't need replacing. What happened is that there was a generational shift in our soldiers. In WWII/Korea the "parents" of the baby boomers had come from the depression era. The culture of most people of that generation was totally different. Conserving ammunition was something ingrained in marksmanship; ammunition was expensive, and you didn't waste a bullet on something you couldn't kill. A lot of people grew up in rural, undeveloped areas... because most areas WERE IN FACT, rural and undeveloped in this country. Thus most people were used to shooting at we would consider long ranges to kill game, or defend their land, their livestock, or whatever necessitated the use of a rifle. As a result, .30 caliber and larger repeating rifles were mainstream due to their utility and practicality. In other words, THEY WORKED IN THE REAL WORLD, and as a result, that is what drove the products brought to market. People were also better shots, better marksmen, as a result of shooting at longer ranges which took more skill to master.

When the baby boomers went to fight in Vietnam, a paradyme shift in culture and progressivism was in place. A good amount of soldiers didn't come from shanty farm houses, they came from urban and suburban neighborhoods, with two cars in the garaged and a TV antenna on the roof. The discipline of marksmanship was in far less quantity than it had been 40 years prior. Technology was also pressuring "guns" to change. Social changes in American culture were also on the rise, and plenty of youth fell in love with the idea of counter-culture rather than embracing the ideas and skills of their ancestors.

The result is that they wanted to find a way to stuff MORE ROUNDS on a soldier. They had to go down to a smaller cartridge in order to get it done. The Armalite rifle looked cool and futuristic, and they wound up making the military buy off on it. Now these military brass and political acquisitions trolls didn't buy-off on a .22 caliber lightweight rifle because it had been tested through decades of warfare, or practical use by farmers, settlers, and law enforcement officers... NO, they bought off on this entirely new concept because it simply looked good on paper. It was all pure theory.

The M14, a vastly superior weapon in almost every aspect, fell victim to a generation of Americans who could no longer shoot, was replaced the poorest direct-impingement battle rifle design ever fathomed short of the French sho-sho. The newly christened M-16 rifle was utter garbage. It quickly got a reputation for malfunctioning under field conditions. The lightweight bullets were very unstable when shooting through foliage and cover and rarely held their intended trajectories. Effective range had been reduced to crap. Armor penetration was neutered. It couldn't out-range the modest AK47 rounds, and accuracy was only marginally better. The lack of a piston, "space age" stock and fore-grip material, and aluminum receiver made it extremely lightweight, again, in keeping with the "less weight, more bullets philosophy"; however, the gun's underperforming in every other aspect just couldn't make up for the gap.

Today we are still suffering from the same insanity-flavored Kool-aid that the baby boomers drank. We have a generation of kids growing up playing video games that think dumping mags and large volumes of suppressive fire is the only way to win a battle. Nobody ever gives a fleeting though, except maybe the Marines, of building a corps of TRUE marksmen, actually hitting what you are aiming at, at a range the enemy cannot match. The M16 being the one-size-shoe that government has chosen to fit all of our soldiers, has filtered back into the civilian world and created a Billion dollar industry around one of the worst forward-assist-wearing, small-caliber carbines ever to ride out the ass end of a CNC machine. Every new company that comes along trying to make a buck has "fixed" the AR15; that their ultra tactical-looking, "operator approved", LASER-forged version of the EXACT SAME RIFLE is supposed to **** magical bullets, for a mere 10x the cost of the other guys. Its nothing but a massive marketing ploy built around a **** gun. And unfortunately the M16 and all of its variants are the STATUS QUO, dug-in like an Alabama tick until something comes along and dislodges it. I mean seriously, how many of these phony "government weapons trials" do we have to pretend are happening every year before we actually replace the M4? I know the acquisitions world, and its not set up AT ALL to replace the M16. These idiot commands are run by 2 and 3-star generals, who have a budget, who put on these dog and pony shows for new weapons every year. They generate a report that comes out like 4 years AFTER the acquisitions trials, gets lost in Congress and is DOA when it hits the desk of SECDEF sometime in the next decade. Its a show... 100% a show. If you ever showed the OSD comptroller the bill for how much it would cost to replace every M4 in the US inventory with a SCAR16, or something even better, they'd look like Daffy Duck running through the Marsh on the way to the Capitol Building. Its just NOT going to happen until we get outgunned by the Chinese.

Back to the evolution of the AR15....

Now I will grant you that by adding all of these (modern upgraded) components which were never supposed to go on these types of rifles in the first place, match barrels, competition-style accessories, etc, the weapon has been substantially upgraded, but its like putting a corvette engine in a 1978 Pinto... underneath all the added speed and handling, you're still driving a Pinto... so whats the damn point of the vette engine?

So yes.. the M14 didn't need replacing, it was the soldier that changed.
 
#15 ·
Thanks to all you commentors! I plan to move ahead with a muzzle brake....either PWS or JP. And, just for kicks, I'll mention that I plan to put some primo optics on mine (Vortex), use a chrony to get some accurate velocity info on ammo and use some of the ballistics & trajectory software out their for smart phones (like Shooter) to "tune my FNAR in." Plan to use mine for target practice and big game hunting!
 
#16 ·
Back then, bolt action rifles were in demand. Not so much for a auto-loader and most not willing to pay the price at that time.

Now, though, I can see the FNAR (with the folding and adjustible stock) filling the role of DMR. AND for MOA out of the box preformance, it gets the job done at a lower cost than a tuned M14/M1A. I know there is a lot of requests for iron sights. But again, in our most recent military engagments, most troops are using some kind of glass.
I know, Murphy is lurking.
 
#17 ·
There's just something magical about going to an indoor rifle range with a 10" SBR 5.56 that's got an AAC Brake on the end of it. Makes a wimply .223 sound like a .458 mag, lol. Even all the guys shooting .44 mags stop to look. :lol:
 
#23 ·
Wow Seahawk, now I know what to have my wife read the next time she tells me I am too passionate about guns:greatpostsignsj1:. I have never been impressed with the DI AR or the 5.56 NATO round either. The 7.62 NATO is my idea of an ideal social round, but there are others that I think would fit the bill such as the 7.62X39 or the 6.8. The AR and M16 M4 are "guns to fit the times." As much as you might want to go back to depression area outdoor skills, it ain't gonna happen. The 5.56 NATO allows troops without a history of marksmanship to leverage the USA's ability to produce prodigious amounts of ammunition so they can send a lot of fast moving stuff down range 55 grains at a time. If you put a DM carrying an M1A or, might I add, an FNAR in each platoon, when a bad guy sticks his head up, someone's going to get hit.

Even so, I like AR's as they don't recoil much, you can watch what you are shooting through the scope, ammo is light and cheap, and they can be accurate if the appropriate amount of $ are applied. A piston AR solves some of the major problems, but they do seem to weigh more. I think the FNAR is a better firearm out of the box since it is more accurate, needs less cleaning than a DI and is much less expensive except for the magazines. If FNAR's were as popular as AR's, maybe Magpul would make some magazines for us to.

When the Chinese come, I am sure we will do fine as long as we don't pass an AWB or get ourselves disarmed by our own government.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top