Has anyone on here actually "shot out" a silencer?

[Ecirp]

I'm new to the NFA world, I'm waiting on my first F4, but it seems like there's a lot of talk about suppressor durability. While I understand that these are lifetime purchases I have yet to hear of a suppressor actually wearing out through use. It's more often the case that endcap strikes retire the can. I'm curious to hear if durability is a legitimate concern or has material science progressed to the point where as long as you have a can constructed of modern materials (stellite, inconel, etc) you shouldn't have to worry about it wearing out.

[Bendersquint]

I'm new to the NFA world, I'm waiting on my first F4, but it seems like there's a lot of talk about suppressor durability. While I understand that these are lifetime purchases I have yet to hear of a suppressor actually wearing out through use. It's more often the case that endcap strikes retire the can. I'm curious to hear if durability is a legitimate concern or has material science progressed to the point where as long as you have a can constructed of modern materials (stellite, inconel, etc) you shouldn't have to worry about it wearing out.

Rifle cans? Seen a few that had bores over double the size designed. Not stellite though as thats a new thing and hasn't been enough time to have one shot out, the referenced ones were inconcel.

Pistol cans? Lots have been shots out, baffle features destroyed and massive bore erosion.

Rimfire cans? Absolutely.

[Ecirp]

I'm new to the NFA world, I'm waiting on my first F4, but it seems like there's a lot of talk about suppressor durability. While I understand that these are lifetime purchases I have yet to hear of a suppressor actually wearing out through use. It's more often the case that endcap strikes retire the can. I'm curious to hear if durability is a legitimate concern or has material science progressed to the point where as long as you have a can constructed of modern materials (stellite, inconel, etc) you shouldn't have to worry about it wearing out.

Rifle cans? Seen a few that had bores over double the size designed. Not stellite though as thats a new thing and hasn't been enough time to have one shot out, the referenced ones were inconcel.

Pistol cans? Lots have been shots out, baffle features destroyed and massive bore erosion.

Rimfire cans? Absolutely.

Thanks for the insight.

[silencertalk]

I saw a pistol can from a rental place that had 100k or so rounds on it and it was solid with gunk.

[Dieseljay]

There are photos from years back of some pistol cans with aluminum baffles that were worn out by a short number Winchester white box clean ammo. In a few the second baffle had additional holes in it and the main hole was 2x the size of the stainless steel hole.


As for filled up cans if you don't take apart a Spectre ii after a marathon run of 5-6k rounds. It will be completely full of lead. Funny part was that disassembly was just as easy as after 1k rounds. Bad part was the can sounded like crap after 4k rounds. I think I have shy of 24k through it now.

[Kramer]

There are photos from years back of some pistol cans with aluminum baffles that were worn out by a short number Winchester white box clean ammo. In a few the second baffle had additional holes in it and the main hole was 2x the size of the stainless steel hole.

I used some Winchester DCM ammo in my Pilot and that stuff "sand blasted" my blast baffle. They must use sand to alter the burn rate of the powder.

[Bradpierson26]

Rimfire cans? Absolutely.

Aluminum or SS?

[Bendersquint]

Rimfire cans? Absolutely.

Aluminum or SS?

Aluminum.

[ranb]

I have pictures of my mostly aluminum 223 can on this site. The K baffles are heavily eroded and the can is louder than it was 8000 rounds earlier.

Ranb

[aries14482]

A buddy's Ops Inc 5.56 can had some crazy looking erosion on the blast baffle after roughly 10k rounds mixed on 16" and 10" ARs. It was about 2x the size of what I'd expect the baffle aperture to be and was a strange irregular shape. It was louder than a newish AAC Ranger 2 and a Surefire 556-212 shot next to it. Interestingly, it still had better flash reduction at night than the Ranger 2. Smaller first round flash and subsequent rounds produced a thin jet a couple inches shorter than the one on the Ranger, which was around 3-4" as I recall.

[srs]

Back in the pre-Clinton days, I had a MAC11/380 with Sionics suppressor. I shot it enough that the suppressor got really loud and new wipes didn't help. Back in those days you could still get "silencer parts kits", so I got one and had a local SOT rebuild it.

I sold all of my NFA stuff between Clinton's election and inauguration (as I believed the ATF would soon be out of control) and only recently got back into the NFA game via a trust and form 1's.

-Steve