Building a 22/24 integral can

Yes, it can be legal to make a silencer. For everything Form-1, from silencer designs that are easily made, to filing forms with the BATF, to 3D modeling. Remember, you must have an approved BATF Form-1 to make a silencer. All NFA laws apply.

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unclemoak
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Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

I decided on a whim the other day I'm going to give this whole NFA Form 1 thing a whirl.

The plan is to build a integrally suppressed upper for a Ruger 22/45. I've kind of lusted over the Gemtech Oasis over the years and decided the other day that I wanted to build something better. So this thread is going to document my journey from purchasing the host gun, which happened all of an hour ago, through all the research, and finally to the manufacturing and subsequent testing of the finished product.

A little back ground on myself. I've loved firearms from a very young age and for some reason or another my parents were strangely okay with my older brothers and me buying guns. Fast forward a few years and I met two major influences on my mechanical aptitude, which over the years had matured after tearing apart nearly anything I could get my hands one, much to my mother and father's chagrin, two brothers that were leaders in my Scout troop were both engineers with a love for old Ford trucks. Between the two of them they probably had close to a dozen late-70s Ford pickups that they loved to tinker with and work on. They took me under their wing for a few years and I learned quite a lot.

Fast forward a few more years and I was getting an Engineering degree myself and met the next mentor that really put the gas to the fire when it came to my interest in designing and building. After pestering him with dozen's of questions of how to make this, that, or the other thing for two years, he offered me a job in a machine shop on campus teaching other engineering students metal working and generally how to make their class project not suck ass (you'd be surprised how many engineering students have ZERO mechanical skills and think hot glue is a perfectly acceptable means to fasten a plastic gear to a metal shafts).

So now here I am, professional engineer by day, machininst/tinkerer/designer/gunsmith by night. On to the project......


So a mere two hours ago I picked up this Ruger 22/45. It's a pretty basic, plane jane .22 pistol. Quite honestly, out of the box, it doesn't have much going for it other than the price, which is one of the two reasons I picked it. The second reason being the monolithic upper.


Pros to the 22/45 as a host for my integral suppressed upper project:
-Cheap
-Simple monolithic design to the upper
-barrel is removable from receiver

Cons:
-trigger sucks
-horribly front heavy
-magazine disconnect
-mag ejection isn't spring assisted like a buckmark


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When compared to my Buckmark 5.5 Target that I've had for about 16 years (wow I feel old, I bought it when I was in 3rd or 4th grade), the Ruger is real big POS, but the plan is to correct all my issues with the gun over the course of this project.
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In closing, I'll fully admit that I know nothing about suppressor design or even how I'm going to make this come to fruition, but that's half of the fun with a project like this.
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unclemoak
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

I don't really have a timeline for this project. So in no particular order, some things I need to or at least have intentions of looking into to along the way:

-Determine what length of barrel will keep everything subsonic, supported with math
-Determine a general design for the upper. Keep in mind I intend to make a monolithic upper much like on the Gemtech Oasis.
-Figure out a barrel for the monolithic upper
-Create CAD models of a few different baffle stack ideas
-Do some flow analysis of said baffle stack ideas
-Learn a thing or two about machining Titanium
-Submit a Form 1
-Do some sound testing with the finished product
-Fix the factory trigger
-See what kind of sights I can put on instead of the pesky Ruger ones.


There generally seems to be three designs or approaches when it comes to suppressing a Ruger .22 pistol.



1. The standard order a TacSol upper or now buy one with a threaded barrel from Ruger and throw a can on it. This is fine and dandy, but why take the easy way out?

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2. The second is what is understandably done for most integral cans because it's quick and simple. You thread the rear end of the barrel to screw on a sleeve. You can see this particular example has a ported barrel, which from what I've read helps immensely in reducing the noise.

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3. And finally, what I call the monolithic design, which I intend to do. The entire upper is one piece, unlike the previous where there is a separate tube that covers the barrel and baffle stack. The one downside to this is figuring out the barrel situation and the factory Gemtech version is not/unable to be ported, but I hope to solve that as well.

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The first order of business this afternoon, was to tear the gun I picked last night completely apart to see how everything worked. More from a curiosity standpoint. I will say, I did have to cheat on getting it back together by looking up instructions.


Image

Hopefully this weekend I can find some more .22 ammo and get out to the range and put a few rounds through it.
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Dr.K
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by Dr.K »

Why not just form 1 a screw on can, and chop the bbl down to 4" then thread it?

That is the route I'd take. Then, two years from now, when I was bored with it, I could screw it on something else.

I guess you might not realize what a curse/blessing NFA is. It's like losing your virginity, you just never really do go back. :)
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unclemoak
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

Dr.K wrote:Why not just form 1 a screw on can, and chop the bbl down to 4" then thread it?

That is the route I'd take. Then, two years from now, when I was bored with it, I could screw it on something else.

I guess you might not realize what a curse/blessing NFA is. It's like losing your virginity, you just never really do go back. :)
Because that's way too easy and is commonly done by lots of people. Plenty of people have made integral cans before too, but I don't think I've seen anyone make a monolithic integral can before similar to the Gemtech Oasis and when you're young, single, and have way too much time on your hands, why not?
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by rancilio »

Dr.K wrote:
I guess you might not realize what a curse/blessing NFA is. It's like losing your virginity, you just never really do go back. :)
That's the truth. This stuff is addicting beyond just about anything else I have had fun with.
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Bendersquint
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by Bendersquint »

unclemoak wrote:
Dr.K wrote:Plenty of people have made integral cans before too, but I don't think I've seen anyone make a monolithic integral can before similar to the Gemtech Oasis and when you're young, single, and have way too much time on your hands, why not?
There have been a few of them built. I recall seeing one in all 3 flavors......aluminum, titanium and stainless steel. The Ti one even had a ported barrel!
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unclemoak
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

Bendersquint wrote:
unclemoak wrote:
Dr.K wrote:Plenty of people have made integral cans before too, but I don't think I've seen anyone make a monolithic integral can before similar to the Gemtech Oasis and when you're young, single, and have way too much time on your hands, why not?
There have been a few of them built. I recall seeing one in all 3 flavors......aluminum, titanium and stainless steel. The Ti one even had a ported barrel!

Do you by chance have any pictures or links to the projects?
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unclemoak
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

I managed to find some .22 ammo this morning at a local shop and headed to the range earlier today. I must say that while I do think that the 22/45 is incredibly lacking in quality, I did find myself quite surprised with accuracy.


This was about an 80 shot group at 15yds using CCI Mini-mags.
Image



I did have a few problems though. The first couple mags I shot, the bolt didn't seem to want to go into battery right away. I'll chalk that up to the loaded chamber indicator and the gun being brand new. The other thing I noticed is that the bolt did not lock back after the last round was fired. I'm not sure if that's normal with Ruger's or just something that was conditional on my grip or what, but I'll have to look into that a little further. Other than that, it was smooth sailing. No jams or misfeeds and it was more accurate than I thought it would be.
Last edited by unclemoak on Sun Aug 25, 2013 2:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by paul463 »

Put a VQ sear, a hammer bushing (to kill off the mag disconnect), and adjustable trigger in that gun and you'll like it better. A LOT better.
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

Did a little work last night drawing up the receiver. I was kind of surprised how simple it was, basically just a 1" OD x 0.75" ID tube with a few cuts in it. The ejector is riveted in place and the feed ramp is part of the barrel. Obviously I still have some work to do with the bottom cuts and threads where the barrel screws in, but that will come in due time.

I did though however run into my first hurdle. I can't seem to find 1.0" O.D. x 0.75" I.D. titanium tubing anywhere. It's my plan to use that as a starting point for the monolithic tube for the upper, so if I'm unsuccessful at sourcing some, I might have drill and ream some barstock.


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Dr.K
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by Dr.K »

Or you could design it in such a way that it would incorporate what tube is available!

After all it is the design phase! In my opinion it would be worth designing it based on material availability as well as the other variables.
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by Bendersquint »

unclemoak wrote: I did though however run into my first hurdle. I can't seem to find 1.0" O.D. x 0.75" I.D. titanium tubing anywhere. It's my plan to use that as a starting point for the monolithic tube for the upper, so if I'm unsuccessful at sourcing some, I might have drill and ream some barstock.
I have never seen tubing in the dimensions you are seeking.
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unclemoak
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

Bendersquint wrote:
unclemoak wrote: I did though however run into my first hurdle. I can't seem to find 1.0" O.D. x 0.75" I.D. titanium tubing anywhere. It's my plan to use that as a starting point for the monolithic tube for the upper, so if I'm unsuccessful at sourcing some, I might have drill and ream some barstock.
I have never seen tubing in the dimensions you are seeking.

hmmmmm

I did find a list of titanium tubing vendors, so I'll have to start making calls to see if I can dig up what I need. http://industrialtubingresource.com/cat ... ubing.html


The closest thing I've been able to find so far is Grade 2 3/4" schedule 80 titanium piping:
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by Bendersquint »

unclemoak wrote:
Bendersquint wrote:
unclemoak wrote: I did though however run into my first hurdle. I can't seem to find 1.0" O.D. x 0.75" I.D. titanium tubing anywhere. It's my plan to use that as a starting point for the monolithic tube for the upper, so if I'm unsuccessful at sourcing some, I might have drill and ream some barstock.
I have never seen tubing in the dimensions you are seeking.

hmmmmm

I did find a list of titanium tubing vendors, so I'll have to start making calls to see if I can dig up what I need. http://industrialtubingresource.com/cat ... ubing.html

The closest thing I've been able to find so far is Grade 2 3/4" schedule 80 titanium piping:
Image
Grade2 is pretty soft titanium, I wouldn't even consider building a can with it let alone using it to build a pistol.

You want Grade9 for tubing and Grade5 for barstock
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by gunny50 »

+1

Or make tube form Grade 5 / Gr 23 Barstock
also see the following

http://www.titaniumengineers.com/productsforms.html - and in the US, so easy to obtain.
http://www.titaniumengineers.com/ti-6246.html
http://www.titaniumengineers.com/ti-beta-c.html


http://www.titaniumengineers.com/mp35n.html (might be an interesting blast baffle material as well.)

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unclemoak
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

Pending I can dig up some titanium tubing of the size I need, this is my initial thought for my design. Unlike the Gemtech design that is solid between the breech and the muzzle, I want to go with a removable barrel design that will allow me to port the barrel and have all that addition volume to reduce the noise signature and eliminate the need to do some crazy pressing in of a barrel liner.

Obviously this is just a preliminary design and I'll have to make adjustments as I discover what length barrel I'd like to go with, the thickness of the tube, and my baffle design.

My considerations so far are a hex on the outside of the barrel so I can tighten it with some sort of tool down into the receiver threads as well as have a baffle stop on the end of the barrel that has ports in it for both tightening it into place and allowing the gases to flow out into the baffle stack.

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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by MCKNBRD »

unclemoak wrote:I did have a few problems though. The first couple mags I shot, the bolt didn't seem to want to go into battery right away. I'll chalk that up to the loaded chamber indicator and the gun being brand new. The other thing I noticed is that the bolt did not lock back after the last round was fired. I'm not sure if that's normal with Ruger's or just something that was conditional on my grip or what, but I'll have to look into that a little further. Other than that, it was smooth sailing. No jams or misfeeds and it was more accurate than I thought it would be.
Double check how well the mag seats; the disconnect makes it a PITA to get it to seat properly, yet still provides enough tension to keep it high enough to feed properly. I've seen it happen with my own 22/45; I fixed it, though. Cut the disconnect down, stoned the sear/hammer faces, and took a little off the hammer spring, and its a DREAM to shoot now. Mags fall free just like my Buckmark, and the trigger is tons better. Keep a little thin oil on the LCI, fix the mag disconnect, and you'll have a great piece.

Regarding your end goal, you are a far braver man than I. I'm planning on cutting my barrel down to about 2" and threading it. Should do everything I want it to at that point, and I'll be able to do it with a muzzle can.

Have fun, and keep us posted!
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

I talked to my parents today to see if they could start buying any .22 ammo in their respective locations so I have plenty when I start doing my barrel testing. Of course my mother inquired what I needed all this ammo for, so I sent her a link to this thread explaining that I was bored and needed a project to keep me intellectually stimulated and all she replied back was "oh my, I hope you are careful young man....I happen to like you. I understand the boredom but isn't this a bit over the edge?" Got to love moms.


Otherwise, since I had a day to kill I start working a little on my baffle stack design. Turns out it's a but more of a challenge then anticipated.

I added a couple ports to the barrel. I obviously haven't started any of my ammo/barrel length testing, so it's just a SWAG on their position and number of them for now.

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The baffle stack from the side. I sized them to fit 8 baffles in there for now, but again, this is all open to change as I learn more about this whole baffle design voodoo.

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After looking at a section view, there are a few glaring issues. Most noticeably is the transition from baffle to baffle, so I'll have to tweak things a bit to get them lined up. Also, I'll have to either change up the first baffle or make a spacer for it to sit on. The latter might effect the number of baffles I can squeeze in there.

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Again, like the baffle to baffle transition, I'll have to iron out the details between the baffle stop and baffle #1 so the gases flow through the ports in the stop into the first baffle.

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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

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Yesterday afternoon I was able to sneak out of the office a little early and get some work done. After about two weeks of dry firing and countless times taking the Ruger apart, I decided it was time to ditch the magazine safety. Although I'm sure the device has its merits, I find it makes the pistol quiet frustrating to dry fire, it prevents the magazines from dropping free, and it turns disassembly into a whole magazine in and out hokey pokey song and dance.

You can see the magazine safety just to the left of the hammer

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Torn out of the gun, you can see the three pieces that make up the magazine safety. The bushing, the little arm, and a spring.

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In order to remove the safety, it requires a special bushing to take up the void left by removing them. You can see in comparison to a dime, it's a pretty small piece. I was fortunate enough for my friend to let me abuse his CNC lathe operator for a little while to make me the bushing after we got done chatting about some of the forthcoming machining challenges related to making the receiver.

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You can see how the bushing just slides into the hammer. Eventually I'll probably replace this hammer with an MK II style hammer that doesn't have the notch out of the side for the magazine safety, but this works for now.

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Installed and working like a charm. I will say this is a huge improvement for the pistol. All the previously mentioned items with dry firing, magazines dropping free, and disassembly are all cured, so I'm quite pleased.

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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by McLarenross »

I would replace that first baffle and possibly the second one too with a spacer to allow for expansion. The baffles as you have them now but right up to the crown of the barrel and will not allow any gasses to flow into the area behind over the barrel.
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by Bendersquint »

Put a small spacer between the coaxial bleed off area and the first baffle, around .25 should do the trick if not shorter.
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

A small update. My apologizes for not having much to share lately. I recently took on a part time job (30-40 hrs a week on top of my normal 9-5 engineering job ) with a local gun parts wholesaler, so my evenings have been spent putting together 100's of 5.56 and 7.62 BCG's. This evening for example, I put together ~400 5.56 AR bolts.

On the project side of things, I gave the nice folks at Clark Custom Guns a call earlier in the week because I had heard they are a good source of take off Ruger MK barrels. They managed to have one 5.5 stainless bull barrel on the shelf and are going to call me as more come in. The thought is that I'll machine 5 receivers and barrel them with factory barrels, then use them for my barrel length testing to speed things up a bit and to dial in my receiver specs.


The barrel ran me $85 plus $5 shipping

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It's kind of interesting that the feed ramp is part of the barrel.

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You can see that the barrel does go a decent way back into the receiver. I'm sure when I get around to installing it, it's going to take some work to get to clocked correctly, so when it's threaded in, the feed ramp is at the 6 o'clock position.

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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by twodollarbill »

Extend your forward internal support to include the needed "spacer" as your expansion chamber, mine is 1/2".
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Somewhere (here) I read your drilled ports should be in groups of 3. Total of 3, 6, 9, etc....for best performance.
I've been using THREE 1/8" ports with very good results.
For anyone wondering....barrel length is 4.35"
Velocities of CCI Subs and Standard are right around 900fps, others stayed under 1050fps.

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1/8" ports vent very well.
The crud buildup on the inside of the of the tube can become heavy after a couple hundred rounds.
So I've used an internal wall spacer .025" thick to ease in dissassembly of the suppressor.

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I plan on posting a "complete build" on this MKII Integral soon, just need to finish the K's.
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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by unclemoak »

Sorry I haven't had much progress to document lately. I've just been working on scrounging up more barrels and ammo for the up-coming testing period. The kind folks at Clarks Custom Guns gave me a call the other day to let me know another take-off barrel came in.

Besides that, I was fortunate a couple months ago to become involved in manufacturing BCG's for a couple big name retailers, which not only has opened up a huge network of people within the gun industry, but also help in funding this project.

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Re: Building a 22/24 integral can

Post by Historian »

Dr.K wrote:Why not just form 1 a screw on can, and chop the bbl down to 4" then thread it?

That is the route I'd take. Then, two years from now, when I was bored with it, I could screw it on something else.

I guess you might not realize what a curse/blessing NFA is. It's like losing your virginity, you just never really do go back. :)
Unless you can get the NFA Division of the Vatican to grant an annulment to your 'oversight' and then all parts become 'like new' ...
even if after you had a few kids. :) :)
[ Actually happened for a classmate's second wife many years ago. ]
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