SLANT TYPE AK-47 MUZZLE BRAKE FROM SOUTHWINDS TACTICAL ENGINEERING

AK Style Slant Type Brake from Southwinds Tactical Engineering

Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, the face of the enemy was personified by the jack booted Soviet infantryman, with his steel helmet and AKM, inexorably advancing westward.  The AKM always looked particularly evil, with its long curved magazine, and fearsome pointed muzzle device.  Those days have changed, and most of the Soviet infantryman's equipment has found its way into surplus stores and warehouses in the US and UK.  Magazines and self loading AK style rifles (many of them made on the same machinery as the originals) are also plentiful.  However, many, if not most of these rifles, have been made socially acceptable by removing the features that make them so dangerous.  The evil features removed included foreign made fire control parts, foreign made gas pistons, foreign made pistol grips and furniture, and threaded muzzles.  As it turned out, rifle parts are about the only things one can legally discriminate against on the basis of national origin, for by replacing the "bad" foreign parts with functionally, dimensionally, qualitatively, and aesthetically similar ones made domestically, the affected rifles suddenly became fine, upstanding members of the firearms community.  Never mind the fact that there were no functional or aesthetic differences between the originals and their "American" cousins - the public had been protected from the scourge of foreign made hammers, triggers, sears and

Removing our tongue from its firmly from its firmly implanted position within our cheek, the only feature that domestic manufacturers have not readily reproduced are the variety of AK muzzle attachments that affix to the muzzle, including the classic "slant" muzzle brake found on the .  This is generally due to the fact that the method of attachment requires a threaded muzzle, something specifically prohibited by US law.  (Note:  While a military style self-loader's muzzle can be threaded in the manufacturing stages, whatever device is affixed to it must be permanently welded or blind pinned in place.)  As a result, the majority of AK style self loading rifles available have plain, unthreaded and unadorned muzzles, that, while not affecting performance at all, look rather stark, and, well, just wrong.  One only need look at the brisk trade in "pre-ban" rifles to see evidence of the intense desire for all the banned features.   The flame of desire for pre-ban style AK features has only been fanned with the recent influx of reasonably priced Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Polish, and Russian AK style rifles.  One company that has heeded the public's call for these items is Southwinds Tactical Engineering.

Based in Rainbow City, Alabama, Southwinds Tactical Engineering is the brainchild of Maxey G. Lee. Maxey G. Lee.  Maxey has been involved with guns and gunsmithing for most of his forty-four years.  It certainly didn't hurt to be the son of a professional machinist who was also an avid hunter and shooter.  Always interested in his father's activities, Maxey spent a lot of time in the shop, and by the time Maxey was ten, he was operating a lathe and milling machine.  Around the age of twelve Maxey completed his first "custom gun work” the result was a badly hacked up single shot .410 shotgun, but the, everyone has to start somewhere!  For the next decade, Maxey  learned all he could, both in theory and practice, from both his father and a family friend master gunsmith.  Maxey showed a great aptitude for the work, and began to service locals with simple re-stocks and bedding, rebarreling, headspacing.  Given his location and the demographics of his customers, the overwhelming majority of Maxey's work was done on on hunting rifles.  His foray into "evil black rifles" began at age nineteen with an CAR-15 variant.  So impressed was Maxey with the possibilities offered by the different self loading designs, that three months later he picked up a full AR and began studying the basics of those rifles, obtaining as much armorer’s info as he could.  It wasn't very long before he was working on military style self loaders.

Over the years Maxey developed an impressive expertise with machine tools, and is currently the technical services manager for the US operations of a German automated machine tool company, and is responsible for design, manufacture and marketing core production machinery for the worldwide foundry industry.  At the same time, he established his gunsmithing business, Southwinds Tactical Engineering, using his old family machine shop.  Today Maxey specializes in enhancing and repairing military style self loading rifles, including AK's, AR's, H&K, and FN.  However, Maxey also continues to work on hunting rifles and shotguns.  Recently, Maxey has begun to offer aftermarket parts and accessories (made in the old family machine shop!) for AK rifles.  Among these is a slant type muzzle brake for the non-threaded muzzle AK rifles.

AK SLANT BRAKES
Southwind's brakes are constructed from seamless carbon steel tubing.  The first hundred units or so, were made using metric tubing.  Later production models are made using standard (inch measurement) tubing, as it is significantly easier to obtain.  Both inch and metric pattern brakes are designed to function on AK barrels with a 14mm outside diameter.  The inch tubing is a a tiny bit larger in outside diameter than the metric tubing, but does not impede the removal of the cleaning rod.  After the basic machining is done, a purely aesthetic groove is milled into the brake, and a final finishing and polishing is done by hand.  The brakes are blued and oiled for final finish.  Southwinds' brakes are about a half inch longer than the original slant style brakes, because, as Maxey says, "I think it looks better!"

The brakes are pierced at the rear with four threaded holes at the twelve, three, six, and nine o'clock positions.  A small set screw with a 1/16th inch hex head is installed in each of the holes.  Installation is simple - loosen the set screws and slip the brake over the muzzle.  Adjust to position, and then tighten.  A 1/16th inch allen wrench is needed (not supplied) and and Southwinds strongly suggests that red Loktite be used on the screws.  Additionally, when the rifle is fired the first time after installation, especially if the barrel is really heated, the screws should be retightened. The best installation method, however, is to mount the brake and then tighten it to mark the muzzle. Remove the brake, center punch the contact point and with a 1/8-inch drill bit “dimple” the muzzle 1/16 inch deep.  This permits the set screws to mount flush with the outside of the brake and ensures a more positive mounting. Alternatively, the brakes can be silver soldered on to provide a permanent mounting.   For those who want to silver solder a brake onto their AK, Southwinds will provide a brake without the screw holes.

PRODUCT REVIEW
The Southwinds brake we received was well made and very nicely finished.  The set screws moved smoothly

with finger pressure, and without any hint of play or binding.  We installed the brake on a Hungarian AK variant (a FEG SA-85M) and took it to the range.  We went through seven magazines in about fifteen minutes with the intent of rapidly heating the barrel and brake to see if the brake would fly off.  In the event it didn't, remaining as tight at the end of the session as it had at the beginning.  It must be emphasized that the Southwinds brake is a purely cosmetic device.  Both it and the original were never intended to, and do not affect the felt recoil of the rifle in any way.  The design was intended to help keep the rifle's muzzle from rising during fully automatic fire.  Since the rifles that will use this brake are semi-automatic anyway, there should be no real effect on muzzle rise.  This was borne out during our testing.

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And now, our Buy-O-Meter rating for the slant style AK brake from Southwinds Tactical Engineering:
 
 

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