I’m between the direct mount and blast shield options (breek or the new replacement). If it’s not going to be moved hosts very often, is it still worth doing the blast shield? Curious to hear thoughts on which one is the best and why.
For rifle calibers the blast shield can help reduce blast chamber erosion and prolong the life of the suppressor. But I don’t think I’ve seen anyone quantify the difference.
It can also be difficult finding good quality thread adapters. The concentricity and material quality on some is really horrible. The blast shield is actually made to be firearm quality so less risk of it causing problems.
I much prefer the blast shield simply because it’s less twisting than a direct thread can, it feels stronger as the blast can is the first area taking all the muzzle pressure, and finally you get to have a nice muzzle device like a brake or flash hider. It feels like a more professional build.
to put to bed any hearsay discussion, the flash can mount is absolutely stronger than any other method if you are planning on getting close to the HDT of your base material. if you think about it in the real of simple machines, a directly mounted device has far less area to spread its weight across, reaching a kind of lever arm advantage on a very short threaded adapter or muzzle threads. the blast can triples or greater the area that your suppressor effectively has to hang on, and if epoxied in place then it has an even greater heat tolerance. all of the 2500+ round meltdowns that were performed on FTN3/4s used the flash can mount for good reason.
I would echo OKB_69’s comment exactly. The blast shield not only protects the portion of the suppressor that sees the most heat and energy from direct erosion, but also creates a much larger mating surface that will be less affected by heat. 1/2-28 threads are only 36 thousandths of an inch tall, so with direct mount you’ve got a very small amount of plastic between hot barrel threads, and which will soften and allow the suppressor to droop and incur baffle strikes much faster than a blast shield mount.
I haven’t been staying up-to-date with the FTN project after I built mine. Has a Breek replacement been settled on? If so, any chance that it is compatible with the breek muzzle devices I already have?
