Area 419 Muzzle Brake Maintenance

Maintenance on any muzzle brake is essential. Just like your barrel, muzzle brakes need cleaned. Over time carbon will build up in the ports, mainly the last port as the first two are semi-self cleaning from the muzzle blast. When this carbon builds up, it will eventually get to the point that bullets can actually strike it. Depending on your shooting regimen you may not notice this, you might just call it a flier. But in a competition when you need every round to impact, this is critical. Carbon bullet strikes are a worst case scenario, but the buildup can also cause accuracy or POI issues just due to airflow changes in the brake ports.

NOTE: The use of Lemishine (or any citric-acid cleaner) or CLR to clean your brake will likely discolor the black nitride, and will void the lifetime warranty of your product. Don’t do this. Seriously. It’ll turn pink and you’ll feel like an idiot.

The best cleaning method for any muzzle brake is PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE. If you clean the brake every time you clean the barrel (200-400 round intervals, shorter for 6mm rounds) it will make your life much much easier. With that being said, just soak the brake in a carbon cleaner like Boretech C4 and all the carbon should come right out, especially if you have a Black Nitride brake. Raw stainless brakes can be more challenging to clean because the surface is more porous. If necessary, you can use any kind of cleaning brush to aid in the removal of carbon from the ports. Black Nitride is harder than any material they attach to a brush, so you will not scratch the surface. Raw stainless may scratch if you use a stainless or other harder bristle brush.
If you decide to wait until 1000 rounds or more, you will have a lot of carbon buildup in the 2nd and 3rd port which will take some effort to remove. Best method here is probably to soak for a day or two in C4 and use a pick to get the big chunks out. Then follow the above method to get the remainder off.
You should also clean your Universal Adapter with the same care. Every time you clean your barrel, let the carbon cleaner from patching the barrel soak on the muzzle for a few minutes and use a q-tip to wipe any carbon from the barrel crown and inside the end of the adapter. Soak a patch in carbon cleaner and wipe the taper surface of the adapter off. If there is persistent carbon on the surface, use steel wool to remove, it will not damage the surface.