hole pattern on K baffle design

[ECCO Machine]

your comment of "I don't consider carbon, manganese or nickel steels for suppressors" doesn't jive, when those you listed have exponentially more content of C & Mn than that of C350.

I refer to those alloys that way not because of what's in them, but because of what's not. Has nothing to do with the specific content of C, Ni or Mn, but the lack of Cr that differentiates them from stainless. When I say "carbon steel" without referencing a specific alloy, I mean everything that's not a stainless grade. I sometimes further differentiate by their AISI classification.

Why I don't consider carbon steels, nickel steels, nickel-chrome steels, molybdenum steels, chrome steels, chrome-vanadium steels, tungsten steels, nickel-chrome-vanadium steels or silicon-manganese steels is the lack of corrosion resistance in a harsh environment where they may be left to corrode with moisture & caustic substances for considerable periods. I have made internals out of 8620, 9310, 4150, 4340-300M; without surface treatments like nitriding, they will corrode & pit inside a suppressor.

Furnaces & boilers no doubt expose some materials to some pretty harsh conditions, too, but there are some substantial differences, especially in the use & neglect department, the amount of time between uses that moisture & caustic agents are attacking the parts. Think about it; plain old low carbon sheet metal has worked fine for fuel tanks as long as vehicles are in use, but let one sit for months or years, you get horrible corrosion inside.

That said, if anyone feels like donating some maraging steel bar to have it experimented with, I'm certainly game to make a can partially or completely from it! But that stuff makes Ti and Inconel look cheap. Not quite as outrageous as tungsten, but it's up there.

[Capt. Link.]

With the right design you could get very thin walls on the baffles and very light weights.
I was very lucky to pick up a piece of 2" x 24" 300C maraging bar for $100 delivered. It will be used for the blast baffle on a friends M60.

I have never used 300C before but have made belt fed rated suppressors.The temp ratings are important but the structural design plus support of baffles is even more important to prevent "SAG". Its that semi fluid condition that happens just before a can barfs its life out.
A inconel multi hole flat baffle with ribs milled like a spokes featuring a wide rim works.The design is more important than the material in belt fed weapons.I melted several blast baffles and would hate to see you do the same.
-CL

[ECCO Machine]

With the right design you could get very thin walls on the baffles and very light weights.
I was very lucky to pick up a piece of 2" x 24" 300C maraging bar for $100 delivered. It will be used for the blast baffle on a friends M60.

I have never used 300C before but have made belt fed rated suppressors.The temp ratings are important but the structural design plus support of baffles is even more important to prevent "SAG". Its that semi fluid condition that happens just before a can barfs its life out.
A inconel multi hole flat baffle with ribs milled like a spokes featuring a wide rim works.The design is more important than the material in belt fed weapons.I melted several blast baffles and would hate to see you do the same.
-CL

That's an application I'd one day like to try a tungsten carbide blast baffle in. But I don't have EDM capability right now, and I'm not really interested in wearing & breathing $100 worth of green wheel dust to attempt it that way.

[Zero99z]

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but for clipping should the clips line up? Or does it matter?

[a_canadian]

I've seen many over the years suggesting they should be flipped in an alternating pattern, and many others saying they should all line up on the same side. The newer notion of the DHC works around the question by using a pair of symmetrical clips... but then I suppose one could ask should they alternate at 90 degrees from baffle to baffle or all line up? No idea. I flip my rimfire K baffles, and rotate my dual-clipped shallow cones for 9mm subs. Just what I go with, having tried both and found no difference but figuring that alternating might be slightly better for accuracy. Commercially produced suppressors do it either way, no particular rule evident.

[Zero99z]

I might stack mine in randomly. I still got time to decide

[T-Rex]

I might stack mine in randomly. I still got time to decide

There's nothing that says you can't try different orientations.

[rtv900]

yeah I was wondering the same thing about the clips. To orient them the skirts then need a milling operation to index them properly and I was surprised it was worth all that extra work.

[a_canadian]

Seems more of an OCD thing, those tabs and matching cuts for maintaining alignment. Of course who wouldn't want them if they were easy? Seems to offer a bit of a professional touch. I've just not heard any difference in orientations, good baffles seem vastly more important.

[ECCO Machine]

yeah I was wondering the same thing about the clips. To orient them the skirts then need a milling operation to index them properly and I was surprised it was worth all that extra work.

I do exactly that with the serviceable cores I build. It's a pain, but it matters. B&K 2209 says so.

[T-Rex]

@ECCO Machine
You do yours on the rotary, right?
I've have good luck with simple straight milling. Just set the bit into the baffle OD .003 greater than the skirt thk.
A jig makes it go relatively quickly. Yeah, you have to swap the parts in and out a lot, but get into a rhythm and it's not bad.

[Zero99z]

Seems more of an OCD thing, those tabs and matching cuts for maintaining alignment. Of course who wouldn't want them if they were easy? Seems to offer a bit of a professional touch. I've just not heard any difference in orientations, good baffles seem vastly more important.

My baffles are gonna be welded in cuz it's for my 50bmg.

[ECCO Machine]

@ECCO Machine
You do yours on the rotary, right?

Yes. My rotary is a fairly permanent fixture on the mill, and the 3-jaw lives on the rotary most of the time these days. So it's pretty quick for me. This is an older photo, but not much has changed on the mill. With most of the work I do being smaller parts, the 6" swivel vise and rotary table are able to live on it in harmony, just move the table over to use one or the other.



I make fixtures for each baffle size. These are some of them:



I indicate one of the jaws to X, and those fixtures are a snug fit to the jaws. First operation, of course, is the tabs on the front, which is done like you do yours, except held in the 3 jaw. I use a spring loaded plunger and a counterbored piece that sits atop the jaws (visible above the tab locating fixtures) to get consistent, repeatable height in the 3 jaw. After doing that to every baffle, I switch to a 3/32 stub end mill and make the notches using the above fixtures to align the baffles



It takes a minute to figure out how many degrees of rotation, but I make notes of that for each diameter, and mark the table with red sharpie so I can see when I'm coming up on them and then start paying attention to the minute divisions on the crank dial.



Clipping is last, alignment made easy with the same tab locating fixtures.

My table is a Troyke DMT-12, pretty substantial unit, so there are no issues with repeatability & rigidity. I have center saved in the DRO, too, but I still touch off the sides of the first baffle before I start cutting to be sure.

I just prefer to do it this way because the tabs are more robust, and the baffles can't slide off each other during assembly into the tube. Since these are going in other people's cans, I want to ensure that there will be no issues, that they'll last a lifetime, even if the owner likes to aggressively torque end caps, or starts cranking the cap down with a tab misaligned.

[T-Rex]

I love to make jigs and fixtures. I should've been a T&D Maker.

[rtv900]

I do exactly that with the serviceable cores I build. It's a pain, but it matters. B&K 2209 says so.

So do your baffled have progressively longer skirts as you go along the length of the suppressor in that first picture? Or does it just look like from the picture angle?
I thought longer skirts were used on the first few baffles and then they shorten up a bit and let the cone section get a little longer toward the end?

[ECCO Machine]

So do your baffled have progressively longer skirts as you go along the length of the suppressor in that first picture? Or does it just look like from the picture angle?
I thought longer skirts were used on the first few baffles and then they shorten up a bit and let the cone section get a little longer toward the end?

I use 50° single radius clipped baffles with progressive spacing for high velocity rifle cores, 60° double clipped with uniform spacing for low pressure/subsonic applications.

[T-Rex]

So do your baffled have progressively longer skirts as you go along the length of the suppressor in that first picture?

That's exactly what the pic shows. The top baffles are closest to the muzzle and have longer skirts.

and let the cone section get a little longer toward the end?

Do you have a specific design in mind, that you saw this from?

[paco ramirez]

Be careful of collapse.

[rtv900]

when milling the clips does it work best to hold the piece sideways and use the side of an endmill to come in?
Or hold it upright and use a radius endmill and feed across it?
I'm guessing 1/4" endmill on baffles in a 1.5" tube?
am I in the ballpark?