I've just had surgery on my shoulder/clavicle, and the doctor told me that I won't be able to shoot my accurate Axis .243 for almost a year (to allow my bones to heal completely).

I thought I would look into installing a muzzle brake on my already soft-shooting .243, but from the research I've just done, it looks like that is impossible to do myself, and may not be even possible for a gunsmith. Here's what I've found...

The brake I'm tempted to install is the "Impact Precision" one, which received high marks for recoil reduction in several independent comparisons. However, this brake (like most of the others) requires a "5/8-24" thread, and from what I can find (I was ignorant about this kind of thing, so I'm going from my research), that threading requires a barrel of 0.625" to 0.645" o.d. barrels. From my measurements, my Axis (not a HB or an Axis II) has a tapered barrel with the muzzle measuring .595".

So...how do people get muzzle brakes on the tapered barrel Axis rifles? Do the barrels need to be cut back to their thicker diameter in order for that to work?