Getting started...

[cdhknives]

I paid for my eForm 1 yesterday, time to get serious about my first build. I've been watching and thinking for over a year, and have a couple of ideas. I plan to have dimensional drawings ready for when the approval comes, so I have a few more months to think this out.

Looking to build for a 22LR for critter popping at the deer lease...both pistol and rifle 22's. I have a bolt action Ruger American already threaded, and will rebarrel my Browning Buckmark with a 1:7 AR barrel drop for Aguila SSS ammo.

I'm trying to decide the basics. K baffle or monocore. I think both are within my abilities and equipment, though my 'mill' is a milling attachment on an Atlas Lathe. I've used it a bit on 1018 steel and AL, and have the bugs (mostly chatter) worked out, but heavy milling is not going to happen. Light duty milling only. The lathe is tight and well equipped. I have built a couple of linear muzzle brakes, for example, that work well, so a suppressor mount is not a big step up. I could start with a square bar, drill cloverleafs or similar to strip out the bulk, mill the finer parts, and turn to round for a monocore. Boring at the end is a little intimidating but I think I can get it done. k-baffles would be tedious and I'll probably ruin a few, but present less challenge overall...but I am still very much a hobbyist.

First question: What does the board think about a hybrid baffle/monocore design? I thought about building a blast chamber oversize with a cone, both from alloy steel (4140 or similar) and thread the monocore tube inside for strength. It would look a little funny, but I get the benefit of an alloy steel (or SS) baffle for the blast chamber plus a little extra volume, and minimize the weakest joint at the highest pressure end.

[quiettime]

I've wondered the same thing about the hybrid design but me personally, I would go all K's. Once you get your setup to make one it should be easy to repeat the process. K's perform well with .22lr

[Capt. Link.]

You can cut 416ss on that Atlas with HSS tooling.K baffles will most likely perform best but honestly it takes little to quiet a .22LR.Keeping the FRP low is another challenge.

[quietoldfart]

My goal with suppressing a .22lr pistol is to find the sound with CCI SV or Remington Subsonic as pleasant on naked ears as possible, while shooting indoors in a room with no carpeting nor upholstery. When I have managed that, as it is with my current K baffle set, I'm happy. And of course outdoors seems much quieter still. My ears are excessively sensitive to high intensity noise, especially at higher frequencies, so that makes me a harsh judge. I've found K baffles alone to be tolerable, but a stack of 7 K baffles preceded by a short blast baffle and about a 15mm blast chamber is quieter, more comfortable. Especially so when the (double concave toroid shaped) blast baffle has a 1/16" Dater hole and the initial K has a 1/32" Dater hole 180° from the first. I recently tried switching to a smaller K (8th in the stack) tucked into the blast chamber space with only 1/8" between it and the muzzle, eliminating the blast baffle. The increase in volume was dramatic. Returning to the blast chamber volume and blast baffle restored the pleasant popping sound.

My experiments with variously configured monocores showed inferior suppression in this calibre, even when approaching double the total air volume and with various blast chamber volumes and baffle face counts and shapes. My 5" of short K baffles 0.870" in diameter plus chamber and blast baffle are quieter than my best results with a 10" long monocore with a 1.3" OD. No contest. While my monocore experiments were far from exhaustive (only about 15 of them), I found the learning curve with K baffled much shorter and less frustrating. If you really wish to pursue a hybrid, I'd suggest half monocore and half K baffles, with the K baffles closest to the barrel.