Homemade Muzzle Brake

[poorcountrypreacher]

I've been fooling with Contenders for the past 20 years or so, and have learned a lot and forgotten a lot. I wonder if any of you were on the old "TC List" back in the 90s that allowed us to communicate by email? If you asked a question, everybody on the list got the email and the answer. It was a rather primitive way to communicate, but we thought it was high tech at the time.


Anyway, I've got a cousin who is trying to put together a deer gun for his 7 yr old, and I recommended a Contender Youth Carbine. I haven't checked on them in years, and was shocked to see how much Contender stuff costs now. I wish I had held on to a lot of the stuff I sold way too cheap.


I told him to go with a .223 in Super 16, and get a chamber adapter so that he could shoot .22 rimfire for practice, and then shoot the .223 at deer. I know it isn't an ideal deer caliber, but a well-placed shot will kill one and this kid probably weights 50 lbs. A 7TCU would be a better choice, but a legal barrel in that caliber doesn't seem to exist. And then he'd have to buy a .22 barrel and scope and spend a lot more money. I looked for a Super 16 .223, and they are hard to find and over $200 if you do.


But then I happened to remember some posts from the old TC List. Guys were making their own muzzle brakes out of sheet metal and soldering them to Super 14 barrels to make them over 16" long, and thus a "rifle" barrel in the eyes of the ATF. They punched a few holes in them to make them qualify as a brake, blued them with some cold bluing, then soldered them on. Cost was next to nothing, and the far more plentiful Super 14 could now become a carbine barrel.


Anybody here ever done this, or have any knowledge of it? I've got a Super 14 barrel I would give him, and he has another family member who is a welder and could easily make the brake. Money is something of an issue here. Any advice would be appreciated!

[Lonegun1894]

It makes sense to me, but I want to say ATF may get a bit upset if the barrel isn't pinned with a blind pin also to make it "permanent".  At least that's what they do with a lot of ARs

[poorcountrypreacher]

Thanks for the reply! I hadn't thought about the possibility that soldering might not be considered permanent. I've owned only one barrel that had a brake, and didn't keep it but a short time, and that was many years ago. How do gunsmiths usually attach after-market brakes to Contender barrels?

[Lonegun1894]

If this is something you want to tackle yourself, look up the techniques used by a lot of the AR-15 crowd to modify their toys.  I know their guns and your Contender have almost nothing in common, but the techniques involved in this project are exactly the same.

[poorcountrypreacher]

Thanks for the info, Lonegun! I'll pass it on to them; I'm just donating the barrel. The other guy will have to make the conversion of they decide to do it.


I'm surprised that nobody here has mentioned being on the old TC List. There were a lot of the TCA officers on it, and I would have thought that some of them were still around and hanging out here. I learned a lot about not only Contenders, but handloading from those guys.


Thanks for the help.