What muzzle brakes does everybody like?

I don't. They are really hard on your hearing, even with hearing protection on. Also brutal on your buddies sitting next to you.  Some ranges have banned them.

There is a slow but growing trend to stop using them.

FPNI.

Please for the love of god, do not use a muzzle brake.

I've been to training classes where instructors have banned brakes.

Big caliber bolt action? go for it, youre shooting a couple rounds at a time and the recoil taming is important for bolt guns.

Semi-auto carbine/rifle? please, please don't do that.

I love brakes.


They help save the blast baffle of my suppressor on short barrels. Also the added benefit of pulling the can and driving away retards at the range.

I run dead air brakes.

I'm looking for the most recoil reduction brake possible.  I'm looking at the Arsenal AK-20 style muzzle brake.  It will be going on a Polish UF.

Slot brake like Tapco used to make, absolutely nothing tames muzzle rise like the simple slot brake. Cheap too.

Muzzle brakes freakin' rock, ignore the range-karens.

ALG Akula works well and retains a little bit of the slant brake aesthetic while adding some sideways venting; unfortunately it looks to be out of production.

Edit: It is fashionable now to hate muzzle brakes, I think it depends on your use case. For indoors shooting, classes, or other events where you are going to be on a fixed firing line then I can see it being annoying and detracting from the overall experience. For LARPing with friends, get friends who are comfortable with discomfort (if you think muzzle brakes are annoying, try taking fire.) However if you want to minimize signature, then the muzzle brake is not ideal. Dust, muzzle flash, and noise are far worse than a flash hider. Then again, AKs are built from the factory with brakes, so….They also absolutely help with both vertical and rearward recoil force.

Edit 2: Just get one of each - it’s an AK, you can swap out devices super easy by pressing in the detent pin and unscrewing.

I have been looking into the hybrid muzzle break/flash hiders on the market. It appears they are the jack of all trades but master of none. I'm going with flash hider.

I prefer hybrid brake/flash hiders.

Definitive Arms Fighter Brake, or even an A2 Flash Hider do both well enough. Concussion isn't bad at all.

People will give you shit about an A2 on an AK though, even if it works okay and is cheap as hell.

Hating muzzle brakes has nothing to do with being “fashionable” or not.

Loud, oppressive, blasty brakes are bullshit for 99% of rec-fire scenarios.

I threw the nitride one on my zpap m70 to run my hybrid 46 on

I played around with brakes for a bit, and I feel the extra sound is not worth the recoil reduction. Now I have several taking up space in my spare parts box, they look cool, but they are not for me personally.

Jmac RRD-4C is one of the best I’ve found so far. Really makes a big difference on the 7.62x39 rifles.

A2 Flash Hider, Definitive Arms Fighter Brake, or Jmacs Compensated Flash Hiders are nice hybrid devices imo.

For those in ban states the Fighter Brake is marketed as a Muzzle Brake FYI. Works ok for muzzle rise/flash/concussion as well



For a pure brake the Jmacs ones are nice, but kinda loud indoors imo.

Midwest Industries MI Two Chamber AK Muzzle Brake.
Works really well, and not to bad of a price.