Muzzle breaks and velocity and such

by Hoot , Diversityville, Liberal-sota, Monday, June 04, 2012, 07:41 (4352 days ago)

Never having owned one and also never reading much about them, I never gave much thought to muzzle breaks. My understanding is they were mainly used to redirect some of the recoil forces and annoy others at the range.

So, if a portion of the gases are being shunted off through the ports, that portion is not being used to push the projectile. This would mean that a 26" barrel with 2" of porting **should** be a lot closer in velocity to a plain 24" barrel than to the apparent 26" length. Is this correct thinking?

The reasons for asking is, let's say a feller ended up with a Super-Mega Blaster with a 26" ported barrel and he decided after shooting for a bit it really was just too obnoxious. If he were to cut the barrel back, my theory is he really wouldn't lose much velocity-wise.