Hey all - I'm thinking of acquiring a Bushmaster BA50.  I've heard that the huge, brick-looking muzzle brakes they used to use were extremely effective, though I understand why they started using the AAC Cyclops mount instead.

Call me crazy - but could it be that displacing all the oxygen in a 30-foot radius with a pull of the trigger is part of .50BMG magic?  Furthermore, that big old brake is absolutely a thing of beauty to me.

Can anybody comment on how the AAC brake works on the newer BA50s?  AAC doesn't make crap but seems like it couldn't be nearly as effective as the old style brakes since it's got to be so much smaller to also be a can mount.

Thanks for the input!

There's no way the AAC brake will be as effective as the old style brake.
While I haven't used an AAC brake on a 50 cal, I've used them on other large caliber suppressed rifles and recoil was more noticeable.
Hopefully Bushmaster will give their customers a choice of what brake they would like on their rifle.
SJC

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought. I think I prefer that glorious huge brake - makes it look like a shoulder-fired Sherman Firefly! Figured I could easily find a used one with the old brake, but Gunbroker was full of way overpriced new ones. Good thing Armslist has a bunch of older ones for sale!

Yours looks similar to the one on my Steyr 50.
Being designed as a military rifle though, the ports are angled much more towards the rear, meaning a nice blast to the face.
First time I shot it I was slowly pulling the 2 stage trigger and BOOM!
My first thought was that I made had a HUGE KABOOM and and catastrophic failure.
It is a pussy cat with Federal Ammo, the M2 and Barret ammo is is loaded hotter.

I had a armalite brake and replaced with acc.

Very noticable at least 2x-3x the recoil.

You can shoot all day long with the armalite but with just the aac problem 20_30 rut rounds and it starts to suck

Just what I was looking for - thx all!

I have the aac brake on my BA50 and recoil isn’t bad at all; the gun is heavy enough it doesn’t need a better brake.  The good part is it doesn’t blow everything off the bench like my M82 does