Muzzlebreak

[Steverino]

I know that there was a recent thread on this with respect to rifles-was wondering folks thoughts on a muzzlebreak model rifled slug barrell on a pump gun to help with recoil.

Noise, obviously has to be a consideration.

As always, your thoughts on the subject are appreciated.;)

[skeet]

I don't know about muzzlebrakes on shotguns. I've seen ported shotgun bbls and worked on a ported bolt action slug gun this year. That Da*n thing still kicked. To be really honest I don't think a MB would do too much on a shotgun. I've shot(and have )Cutts comp bbled guns and they seem to work ok but they are loud. Rifles are louder than shotguns because of the higher pressures and the projectile doing much better than the speed of sound. Lots of noise factors there for certain. Not as many with a shotgun. Porting does seem to help shotguns somewhat....not so much with recoil attenuation but with muzzle jump...especially between shots on doubles. Can you imagine how a mb would look on a shotgun?? Think a Cutts looks bad??!!

[Steverino]

Well...after doing some research online and visiting a few other sites, and of course, plenty of hemming and hawing:rolleyes: , I opted to throw a Hastings fully rifled barrel with an integrated muzzlebreak unto my BPS. I'm glad that I went with my gut instinct.

I took my new slug gun to the rifle range over the weekend to get her sighted in at 100 yards along with some expandable sabot offerings in Lightfields, (Hybrid, Low-Recoil, Magnum) and Winchester (Magnums and Fail Safe) in both 2-3/4" and 3" offerings.

The shotgun is topped with a Leupold 2x7 VXII in Leupold Rifleman low rings, which gives plenty of eye relief while allowing rapid target acquisition.(Something that I'm sure I will apreciate come deer season)

The integral muzzlebreak, totaling 24" in length, has a total of twelve radial milled exhaust ports that did an awesome job of keeping the muzzle down and recoil very managable. Since I have not fired an un-ported Hastings slug barrel on a BPS, I cannot honestly attest as to whether the porting is an improvement. I can say that I shot thirtysomething slugs in three shot groups over a two hour period and found that I could manage the recoil rather well. (With that said, it was cold and I was bundled up on Saturday morning) A Winchester .300 magnum is about the high end of my "comfortable ballistic handling" ability. I found the BPS to be well below this range.

I was able to successfully hit 2" groups at 100 yards fairly consistently from a rest. The 3" Magnum loads strayed a little farther but found the 2-3/4" Lightfield Hybrids, the most accurate for my set-up so far.

I was very pleased with the overall results and would not hesitate to recommend this barrel to others looking for an accurate rifled barrel.

[fabsroman]

I have a BPS with the unported Hastings barrel on it. I also have a Ruger 77MKII in .300 Win Mag and I would prefer to shoot the .300 Win Mag before the BPS. Granted, that is after I added some weight to the .300 via a new stock with a full bedding block and a bi-pod. I used to hate shooting the .300 Win Mag. I hate shooting the BPS so much that I bought an ER Shaw slug barrel for my Benelli SBE and two recoil reducerts for the SBE. Now, that slug gun I can shoot all day long.

[Steverino]

While I certainly could not testify to shooting my new ported BPS slug gun "all day long," I could say that given the choice, I would rather shoot the my BPS set-up than my brothers .300 Win Mag any day of the week.

I wanted a dedicated slug gun and could not justify the expense of another shotgun with my Browning relegated to the gunsafe. I sold off some other equipment not being used to offset the expenses of the ported barrel. I am glad that I got it.

While certainly not something that you are going to want to shoot multiple groups in a t-shirt during the summer months, to shoot in fall to check zero prior to hunting season and in the field, it does what it said that it would do and does it very accurately.

Naturally an auto would be the best way to go for those that can but to those that are looking to use a pump, the ported Hasting barrels might be something to look at! (The noise was negligable, BTW);)