Manticore Arms AR-15 (Sig 556 & others) NightBrake Review (HD)

On deck for review today is the Manticore Arms Nightbrake. This here is going to be the AR version, you guys have already seen I did the Yugo version of this. We're going to go ahead and put it through its paces and see how it performs here on the AR. Testing muzzle brakes and comps is always relatively difficult because I don't have access to any high speed cameras or any engineering equipment where I can measure pressure and things like that. So what I'm going to do for this review is I'm going to compare it to the Battle Comp which is a very well known entity, a lot of people have seen it, shot it, and you guys have probably seen my previous review on it. It's a very good comp and we're going to go ahead and compare the Nightbrake to that throughout the rest of the review. So I got the shot timer on my hip, I'm going to go ahead and see how many shots I can put on that piece of paper for 15 yards. There's already 3 shots in it, just to let you know because I was already shooting at it just to make sure I was good to go. Anyway, we're going to hit the shot timer and see what we get. Let's go check the targets. I accidentally reset my shot timer but the total time was 1.3 seconds. Let's take a look at the target here, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, which makes sense because I said there's 3 already on there. So we had all shots on there in 1.3 seconds for 5 shots at the Battle Comp. Alright, we're going to do the same test, this time we've got the Manticore on there. We're going to see how it stacks up. This one, this rifle does have a vertical foregrip but I'm not going to use it to try to make the test as similar as possible. But we'll go ahead and hit the shot timer and now there's 8 shots on that target so we're going to see what we get. Total time was 1.28 seconds. Let's go ahead and count the number of holes. We've got 1 here, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. All 5 on target and the times were pretty much exactly the same. It was 1.3 versus 1.28 with the Manticore so actually a slight edge to the Manticore. Still getting all the rounds on target. We've got the Battle Comp out here and the rounds we're using are just 55 grain silver bear so there's no flash retardant in it there. We're going to see what kind of flash signature we get with the Battle Comp. We switched out to the Manticore break and as you see here we're still running the same 55 grain silver bear ammo. We'll see what the signature looks like on this one. Let's go ahead and take a closer look here at the break. The first thing you're going to notice when you look at it are the ports going around the outside of the break. There are 6 rows, 3 ports each for a total of 18 ports. And there are no ports on the bottom 90 degrees. So the ports encompass 270 degrees of the break and the bottom 90 degrees are left filled in and the reason for that is two-fold. Number one when you're firing, the gases escaping through the top and sides will help keep that muzzle down and the bottom not having the ports in it is going to prevent dust and things like that from kicking up in your face when you're firing from the prone. It does come with the crush washer as you see here and just to do a quick size comparison the standard A2 birdcage flash hider is right here. You can see that the night break is slightly longer, maybe an eighth of an inch just looking at it with the naked eye. I'm just going to cover a few things about the night break that I haven't covered so far. First off what it's made from, it's made from 8620 steel bar stock. It is heat treated, so the finish is heat treated for durability and as you see here it is finished in a black oxide finish as you can see there. It matches up pretty well with most AR components so it's not going to look crazy on your gun as you guys have seen throughout the video so far on my rifle. It does accommodate up to .30 caliber bullets so while it's designed obviously for ARs, SIG 5.56s, it does take larger bullets as it does have a .311 diameter here at the end of the muzzle. Basically the price that this is going to come for, I think the list price is $57, I'm hoping on that, but most places are going to be selling it for around $50 give or take $5. If you go to a few places it's available at Ratworks and also Apex Gun Parts, the shirt I'm wearing today. It is available there as well. Probably a couple other distributors, but those are the two I know of where you can definitely find it, but that's going to be what I think about it. As you guys have seen here throughout the testing, in terms of being able to keep your muzzle on target, fire rapidly, things like that, the Nightbreak does a very good job at that. Like I said earlier in the video, the Battle Comp's an excellent, excellent comp. You guys have heard my review on it before, I like it, it's a good comp. The Nightbreak does a very good job right alongside it. As you saw there, the split time is nearly identical on the same rifles, those are both 16-inch mid-length rifles. Very, very good job at that. In terms of muzzle flash, it has slightly more as you guys saw there in the test, but it's not a big difference. It is slightly more. According to the owner over there at Manticore, this was designed as a break primarily, so any sort of flash-hiding properties that it has is sort of a bonus. So it does do a decent job of that. I did fire that rifle with no muzzle device on there and it was definitely getting more of a muzzle flash. So, it is reducing it somewhat, and again, that's just an added bonus of it from what the owner there at Manticore was saying. So, it does a good job of that. In terms of blast, the other thing that you always look for in a break, it is much better than what you see out there with your typical side-ported breaks. There's a few of those out there on the market, the Surefire, several others. Those are going to give you a lot of muzzle blast. This is slightly more than the Battle Comp, I mean slightly. If you're giving it on a scale of 100 and your Battle Comp is 50, this is 55 or 60. You're going to see up here at the end my wife firing the rifle. I was standing to the side of her actually filming that, so I was right there as she was firing. It's not bad at all. It's slightly more than the A2, slightly more than the Battle Comp, which are right about even, but not bad. Compared to most breaks on the market, it does a good job of minimizing blast. All in all, it's a good product, and for the price that it's coming in at, that's key there. For the price that it's coming in at, it's an excellent break for the money. As you saw here, it does a good job. A lot of the more high-end breaks that are performing similarly to this on your rifles are going to be coming in from anywhere from $100, $150, maybe even $200. For the money, it's definitely a good option. It also looks decent, too, so it's not going to look crazy on the end of your rifle like some of the breaks out there. As always, guys, if you have any questions about this product, anything else I reviewed here, guns, gear, whatever, some of the instructional videos I have. If you have questions about those, you can post here in the comments section. You can also post over on my Facebook page, but as always, thanks for watching, thanks for subscribing, and I will see you guys in the next video.