hpgb

[mtbugle]

has anyone here seen this.  Called high performance gun barrel.  by ASA 'american safe arms'.  seems to be a barrel length tube outside the barrel with the barrel having gas ports about 2 inches from muzzle.  gas vented to tube lessens recoil by about 40 to 50 percent.  doesn't increase report and definitely not to the shooter. for about $250 this would seem to be a sweet ticket to reduce recoil on some of the harder kickers. I was wondering if anyone is familiar with this.  Thanks don.

[KN]

Don't see how that will accomplish any thing. Porting relies on the velocity of the ported gas to counter act the recoil. Vent the gas into another tube and you have no exterior force with which to offset recoil. It's a hoax to sell crap in my opinion.           KN

[mtbugle]

wouldn't the jet of gasses out the laterally open ports act same as laterally open ports on current muzzle breaks?  even if arrested in part on an inch to diffuse into rest of tube.  the jet affect is still not at muzzle and as this is a large portion of recoil be reduced. Then the gases release back into barrel and out muzzle at much less velocity.  Seems to make sense to me but i suppose a fairly good theory to practice would be a round shield around an already installed muzzle break, like can with out both ends or tubing of maybe 1/4 inch larger in diameter than brake.  If i had a rifle with a brake i would try it with a baffle also installed between this and shooter.  I had hoped that someone would have already heard of this and know if it does in fact work as advertised. Thanks don.

[John Traveler]

That tube over the gun barrel does sound hokey to me.  I know of no medium caliber military cannons that use the tube-over-barrel-and-muzzle brake arrangement.

My extensive field experience servicing military medium caliber automatic cannons supports KN's view.  The high velocity gas exiting the side ports at the muzzle brake must vent freely and be directed to "pull" the barrel in a direction opposite to the recoil impulse for recoil reduction.  As I recall, in working with the 25mm M242 Bushmaster automatic cannon, the difference in recoil impulse between firing with the muzzle brake and without is some 40% recoil reduction.  End users were advised that continued firing without the muzzle brake would cause damage to the gun's hydraulic recoil damping mechanism.   And that is with APDS-T ammunition with a muzzle velocity over 4,200 fps!

I suspect that for small arms, any percieved recoil reduction from using the barrel tube is simply from the increased weight of the tube itself.

[gunnut69]

The reduction a brake provides is very dependent on the amount and velocity of the gases that are available to be redirected. If firing in a tube would produce a reduced reduction, would the tube size matter? I suspect it would. The pressure at the port is what matters as far as recoil reduction and as long as the tube didn't slow gas dispersal to the point of affecting the port pressures it likely wouldn't diminish the brakes effectiveness. Remember that the gases effect on the gun ceases as soon as contact is lost. If the port pressure and gas velocity aren't affected then the brakes effectiveness shouldn't be either. Caution would be appropriate though as gas tapped off a barrel and contained can reduce the sound of the muzzle blast and 'silencers' are heavily restricted.

[KN]

I kind of follow what gunnut69 is saying but I believe the redirected gasses must be influenced by forces external to the gun. In this case that would simply be the out side atmosphere. Releasing gasses into a tube that is part of the barrel and not to the out side doesn't seem to me like it would accomplish any thing.   KN

[gunnut69]

A jet of gas will produce thrust in the vacuum of space.. The mass of the escaping gasses and their velocity are what generates the thrust... Only if the velocity of the escaping gas is slowed will its thrust be reduced.

[KN]

If that's true then wouldn't the thrust of the gas pushing upward on the inside of the tube negate any benefit it had in the first place?

[mtbugle]

thrust in radial direction would not be contributing to recoil, right?

[trotterlg]

I would say that if you vented pressure into a closed tube around the barrel and the vent was closer to the muzzel than to the breach then the pressure wave would reach the closed muzzel end before it reached the closed breach end.  This would push forward on the muzzel end reducing the recoil until the pressure equalized in the tube and exited back out the vents in the barrel.  Makes sence to me.  Larry

[Skeezix]

And if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its butt every time it hopped. 

That tube around the barrel works just the same as the Jacobs tube around the plasma conduits, in that it moderates the matter/anti-matter reaction, thereby creating a more stable sub-space damping field.  Plus it increases the muzzle velocity of the photon torpedo tubes by 3.0587436 furlongs per fortnight, while at the same time reducing the load on the forward stabilizer bank by 42.0000375 micro-joules.

[KN]

I'll accept Skeezix's explanation for now. But I'll have to see it work before I believe it does.

[Keith L]

Yes, but what do the Klingons think of it?

[Skeezix]

The Klingons don't really mind it because it majorly ticks off the Romulans, due to it raising havoc with the quantum singularity that powers their warp drives.  Also, the Klingons tried a used one they bought from the Ferengi, that was found drifting in space following the destruction of the "Death Star".  It didn't have the trans-sector accuracy the Klingons wanted so they sold it on E-bay, cleverly disguised as a high performance muffler for an F-250 diesel.