I don’t get paid to market anyone’s products anymore so I’m just tossing it out as an option. If I genuinely wanted to shoot suppressed, and I knew that was a requirement for me without dicking with gas block this, and gas system length that, a piston gun gets around many of the issues facing the end user wanting to run a muffler off their noise maker.
You can get much more of what you want with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone.
Piston guns only partially work around the problem; by default they're almost always overgassed and not a lot of them have suppressor settings. Not until recently, anyway. I had a Colt 6940P that I actually really liked until I put a can on it. It was already overgassed, and putting a can on it (albeit a high backpressure one from like 2015) did it ZERO favors. It just got really dirty, cycled really fast, and became objectively worse. Brass was pooping out straight forward.
Steyr AUGs also didn't work all that well, same reason; it really liked beating the crap out of itself, to the point where parts would bend or break (like the bolt sleeve, or cracking/breaking the plastic supports that the rods that the guide rods on the bolt carriers slide onto, etc). Steyr came out with (or at least, finally started selling in the US) a suppressor-specific gas plug a couple of years ago that "fixed" the issues with it. I can only guess more modern rifles with adjustable gas plugs actually work better. I know the FN SCAR was still overgassed even with the gas plug in "suppressed" setting (which the manual didn't actually remark on...it just said to keep the gas plug in the 12:00 setting - source, the manual that came with my SCAR 17) - I wound up having to re-jet my SCAR to try to prevent it from beating itself up with a can on it. Mine would cycle just fine in the "suppressed" setting until I re-jetted it; now it short strokes in the suppressed setting, and cycles fine in the normal setting.
I'm sure the HuxWrx and other blow through cans work better; I'm still not sold on their efficacy as actual silencers, but I've also never heard/shot one in person. Videos of them make them seem like shrieky deflating balloons so meh?
Anyway - point is, most piston guns don't really "solve" the problem, they just move the problem to a different set of parts, and possibly make it easier to solve if the right parts exist for it.
Thanks so much for posting this. I have an older M4-2000 that got loose and sustained an end cap strike that is a perfect candidate for this!Originally Posted by JSGlock34
I don't think any supprssor is going to be efficient as a silencer on an AR-15. Problem is noise escaping out the chamber with the fired case. That's the benefit of the flow through design.
Just for conversation, my Huxwrx Flow 556K is bearable but not hearing safe on my 11.5" Colt. Even more so on my 16" gun. But we each have our own wants, I didn't want to have to mess with tuning my 16" gun to run suppressed and then change it back to run unsuppressed.
Okay so how many people contributing to this thread run a 16" (or 14.5") AR always suppressed? My guess is not that many?
My goal is to protect my hearing as much as possible without going to a ridiculous extreme. Because let's face it, the damn things are loud. My current thinking is a 16" AR with a K or Mini suppressor installed for use all the time. Is that a dumb idea considering the weight, balance, and fouling issues it brings? If it is a dumb idea, I'll need to rethink this whole thing.
I highly recommend the use of a low backpressure suppressor for any semi-auto rifle.
The fallacy of pistons being better for suppressed use has be addressed numerous times in recent history.
The first thing you need to do is identify what you want out of a suppressor, and start looking at options that do those things.
If your goal is for a truly hearing safe rifle, you're not going to get there unless you're shooting subsonic ammunition.
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Knight's Armament Company
Not at all, it's a great idea. But if the gun will only ever be shot with a suppressor then if I were you I'd just go ahead and do a custom build with a gas port sized specifically for running suppressed. Or, at the very least, buy a Black River Tactical ported gas tube (the easy solution, you just put in your rifle, ammo, and suppressor and they pick the size for you).
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Understood.
My goal is to protect my hearing as much as I can while shooting at the range, since most of it will be indoors. And because I know how obnoxious non-suppressed ARs can be to people in the next lane.
If I ever need to fire my rifle without hearing protection, so be it. But my hope is that suppressed will cause less permanent hearing damage than non-suppressed. My hearing and tinnitus are bad enough as it is.
@JSGlock34 @EvilEd @LittleLebowski
Any idea if ECCO can turn a Gen 2 YHM Turbo K into a Turbo K-RB? It seems like the only real difference is some extra holes in the baffles that need to be drilled out.
I'm still thinking about grabbing my work buddy's AAC 556SD just to send to ECCO or the AAC resto program. My line of thinking is whether or not the Ranger 5 is on the same quality level as the Surefire RC3. One of the reasons I don't invest in the Surefire line is because of the proprietary mounts. But if the AAC 556SD>Ranger 5 gives basically gives me a Surefire RC3 with the advantage of HUB mounting so I can put a YHM sRx on it, then that'd kind of make sense (while being able to help out my buddy). I really like the YHM cans, but it wouldn't hurt to have something that is considered duty quality in terms of durability, IR signature, flash suppression, etc.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
That’s why I was so shocked at SilencerCo’s claim of 130dB shooting 5.56 out of their can.
It seems almost impossibly quiet for an AR.
When I tested outdoors at the ear I was getting closer to 140-142dB from the M4-2000.
Currently I’m using an 11.5” MCX with an Omega 9k for some sound and blast mitigation knowing that I’ll get some erosion over the lifespan.
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