Owning a Suppressor – Many are surprised to learn American citizens can legally own suppressors. So-called silencers are heavily regulated in the United States due to regulations enacted by the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) by anti-gun Democrats—including an enhanced NICS background check and $200 “tax stamp” fee (added to the retail price of an already expensive suppressor). The $200 fee was added to monetarily curb Prohibition-era gangland carnage (representing about $3,900 when adjusted to 2022 inflation), which ironically allowed only bootleggers and organized-crime figures to afford them.
There is more involved, of course, because bureaucrats invented tedium. It’s not something you really need to worry about, as your dealer will walk you through every step, in some cases summitting paperwork for you. You must first purchase your suppressor from a federally-licensed dealer, and pay in full, as the suppressor’s serial numbers are required to complete federal paperwork. The suppressor then remains in the dealer’s procession pending approval. Paperwork includes Form 3 filled out in triplicate, three passport photos, official fingerprint cards (produced by your county sheriff) and a check for $200, payable to FBATF. You then wait for federal approval. By any reasonable measure in a computerized world this would require a month to complete. In a federal bureaucracy universe nine to 14 months is required. Suppressors can also be placed in trust, allowing suppressor use and transfer between assigned trustees (who must also pass background checks).
Suppressors are currently legal in 42 states. The nine states excluded from the list are predictably dominated by “progressives” inclined to restricting Constitutional rights.
There were recent rumblings of making suppressor ownership no more difficult than passing a gun-purchase NICS check. Sadly, bill-friendly congressional RINOs developed cold feet following the infamous Las Vegas mass shooting and the mainstream media’s labeling the legislation “The Assassin’s Bill” (in the same way ARs become “assault weapons” or “weapons of war”). There weren’t enough votes to justify moving the bill forward and it died in committee. The hassle and long waits come to seem intentional.
Suppressors aren’t truly silencers but mufflers, invented in 1909 by the same fellow who invented auto mufflers, Hiram Percy Maxim. Don’t expect James Bond/John Wick level silencing, though subsonic ammo comes close. A suppressor’s internal chambers/baffles muffle powder combustion but have no influence over the distinctive crack caused when a bullet leaves the muzzle and breaks the sound barrier. Though, this noise normally occurs well away from the shooter, making it less irritating. The real-world implications is shooting even big boomers requires nothing more than plug-in “foamies,” instead of full-blown ear muffs or expensive gel plugs.
Traditionally my varmint rifles wore muzzle brakes due to my preference for high-magnification scopes. The smallest degree of muzzle jump made marking missed shots difficult. Brakes tame scope movement, but come at the price of obnoxious muzzle blast. My long-range 6mm rockchuck rifles and bottle-neck-cartridge T/C pistols, for instance, induced migraines after too many rounds. Suppressors provide muzzle-brake action (about 65-75 percent effect of best-quality brakes) while eliminating head-crushing muzzle blast. Wielding my 6mm Creedmoor, for instance, becomes as pleasant as shooting a .22 Hornet.
Owning a Suppressor – Before purchasing a suppressor consider its serviceability, bulk/weight and effective noise reduction. The ability to disassemble suppressors for cleaning is vital with rimfire cans, as .22 LR powders are downright dirty. Even with centerfire cans I prefer segmented designs or removable baffles/mono-cores to better facilitate eventual cleaning.
Bulk and weight are sometimes synonymous with noise reduction, but not always, especially with milder varmint cartridges. Aluminum is lightweight, for instance, but more care is required to avoid galling threads (I apply choke-tube grease to aluminum threads for this reason). Titanium includes similar mass and is obviously stronger, but also more expensive, while steel automatically adds weight but proves indestructible. While .224 to 6.5mm caliber-specific cans are offered (sometimes more affordably), .308 options prove more versatile. My 30-cal SOS Hunter, for instance, muffles varmint rifles exceptionally, but is rated for .300 Win Mag, should I find the need.
Owning a Suppressor – One of the things I noticed immediately after a friend and I purchased suppressors is not all are created equal. The friend who shared our first trip to varmint fields owns a titanium suppressor retailing for twice as much as my aluminum model, but mine was conspicuously quieter, even when traded between various rifles. Unfortunately, without the ability to test fire various models, you will not know for certain until after you take possession, making word of mouth important.
Sound is measured in decibels (dB) of course, but the decibel scale can prove a bit confusing. It’s based on orders of magnitude on a logarithmic scale and decidedly nonlinear. For instance, if total silence is 0 dB, a sound 10 times louder is 10 dB, a sound 100 times louder is 20 dB and a sound 1,000 times more powerful is 30 dB, and so on. So by this metric human conversation, at 60 dB, and a jet fighter taking off 100 feet away, about 130 dB, are separated by only 70 dB, though the latter is 1,000s of times louder. From the shooter’s position behind an unsuppressed rifle an average .22 LR round, shot from an 18.5-inch barrel, produces around 85 dB, or only 5 dB louder than a busy restaurant. This also means the difference between an unsuppressed 85-86 dB rifle report and an 80-81 dB suppressed shot is more significant than would appear on paper.
Owning a Suppressor – I have not found that adding a suppressor affects velocity in any significant way, all variations noted being well within standard extreme-velocity-spread deviations. Regarding resulting accuracy, differences in group size are sometimes observed between unsuppressed and various cans, sometimes fairly substantial—at least in relation to varmint round expectations. That said, in many cases adding a suppressor actually improved accuracy.
Regarding noise reduction I found that with .22 LRs, the difference between a Little Crow Boom Tube (essentially a $50 muzzle-blast “funnel and requiring no NFA paperwork ) and a suppressor was insignificant—at least when measured from the shooting position behind the stock. The Boom Tube difference was also apparent with moderate centerfire rifles—when recorded from the shooting position. A quality suppressor really shows the most benefit when dealing with high-pressure centerfire rifles, reducing, for instance, the muzzle blast of a .22-250 Remington or 6mm Creedmoor to around 85 to 86 dB and making all the effort and cost well worthwhile.
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