Sights Mounted on Pistol Silencers Themselves?

[darr3239]

Most pistol silencers prevent the use of the standard sights on a pistol. If you buy higher sights they don't have much eye appeal, when used without a silencer. Some guys have a dedicated silenced rifle, that they always shoot with a silencer, but who does that with a pistol?

I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this, but have any of the manufacturers considered some sort of sights, on metal rings, which could be mounted on the silencer itself. If you put them on, with the silencer fully seated, there should be decent repeatability when the silencer is removed and then remounted. They would have to be adjusted I'm sure, when moving the silencer from one pistol to another. I don't really think eye relief would be a big issue, if the width of the rear sight notch, and the width front sight blade are regulated well.

Of course, the manufacturers would have to make different diameter sight rings for different models, so maybe cost is an issue?

Just wondering.

[a_canadian]

You could just get an Alpha Dog silencer...



Built in sights, rails above and below (why didn't they put rails on both sides too, that'd be AWESOME!) so you can attach any number of accessories, even a bipod to your pistol silencer. Of course your pistol will be a bit, um, front-heavy, but so long as that's not a problem for your Popeye forearms you'll be fine. Here's a full review:

http://www.recoilweb.com/alpha-dog-9-re ... 86951.html

But seriously, I expect that sight posts sticking up on the front and possibly the rear of most silencers would look dorky as heck while interfering with holstering (already rather challenging with a can mounted without a special holster). Besides which isn't it easier just to install taller sights on the pistol?

[jlwilliams]

I've seen it on form 1 builds. Also the old OSS suppressed Hi Standards (IIRC) had sights on the tube.

[darr3239]

That's one heavy looking setup. It also has a mounting system which orients the silencer the same way every time. I'm mostly thinking of screw-on silencers.

I personally wouldn't carry a silenced pistol in a holster.

[cdrissel]

How about a small reflex sight?

[darr3239]

But, how to mount it on a round silencer?

[a_canadian]

No... I think he meant that a small reflex sight mounted on the pistol would let you see over most suppressors, enabling accurate aiming. It's quite common for pistol shooters to use small red dots these days, such as the Burris Fastfire III or other similarly small, low profile devices.

[darr3239]

I get it now. Are they really high enough though?

[a_canadian]

Well not if you're shooting through an oil filter can. But anything properly pistol sized, like 1.375" or smaller should be just fine. Not sure about 1.5" or larger. It'd come down to mounting method and the particular dot's geometry.

[darr3239]

Yep. I'd consider it if I was only going to shoot one pistol silenced all the time. Otherwise I prefer iron sights on the pistol itself, and the tall ones made for suppressors look too goofy for me to be shooting the pistol without the silencer 80% of the time.

[jlwilliams]

You only have one pistol? Go ahead and treat yourself to another and set it up to shoot suppressed. One gun sighted in for subsonic ammo and silencer, and one sighted in for whatever full speed loads you shoot.

I can tell you that a Glock with a Trigicon RMR that co witnesses with suppressor sights works fine for with a 1 3/8" od can screwed on. It's slicker than a greased fish.

[darr3239]

That's a thought JL.

I do have quite a number of pistols, just never really thought of picking one and only using it silenced all the time.

[a_canadian]

It's funny how differently folks think about this stuff. With the almost inevitable POI shift with any suppressor it seems better to me that any given gun should either be shot suppressed or not, never removing the suppressors from their hosts except for maintenance. That way I know where stuff is going to land, don't have to adjust or compensate when switching back and forth.

[darr3239]

Good point.

I've read about and experienced POI shift on rifles, since the silencer is way out on the end of the barrel. Is there really that much shift on pistol barrels?

[a_canadian]

It can be quite a bit in any direction depending on baffle porting and baffle-to-baffle orientation variation. A lot of pistol cans can be dialed in with a repeatable locking mechanism once the optimum (minimal) POI shift rotation has been found for a given ammunition batch. Some won't shift nearly so much, especially simple cone baffles with minimal porting and the right sort of symmetry from baffle to baffle for a given load. Proximity plays a significant role in this sort of variation, as more clearance in the baffle bore will render less effect on POI in most cases... at the cost of suppression efficiency of course.

[darr3239]

A guy informed me of this system, which is pretty much what I was imagining. It does not appear the company is totally up and running yet however.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017 ... precision/

[Joshua@CapitolArmory]

It seems like a solution to a non existent "problem with the firearm". It's more of a problem (and that's a strong word, probably not the correct one) with the shooter.

Let me start by saying to really shoot any firearm well, you have to know the gun and know the sight. There are very minute differences that can make things, some pistols just shoot differently. One may be a little higher than another one (same make/model). They all have personalities, like different ammo, etc. Short of it is that shooting well requires work with one specific gun.

Adding a can really isn't any different. One factor is you change the recoil and have something in front of the sights. So you have to train to ignore the change in recoil, as well as ignore anything in front of the sights. There's some bizarre mental block where people subconsciously try to line the top of the can up with sights, and do all kinds of strange other things.

25 and inside with a can and normal sights isn't a problem at all. Raised sights help when you're talking like 75-100 yard shots. If you're right eye dominant, you can get your right eye on the front sight, then shift focus to your left eye, and have a ghost image of the sight on the target. You can basically turn the can somewhat invisible and look through it. It's a new thing to learn and can practice to get the weird magic eye thing down easily, but I think personally it's a better solution then trying to add pieces into the mix.

That, and pistol cans frequently back off a bit, or could be slightly different making it hard to rely on a sight on the can... if it really comes down to it, I would say an RMR is the best option.

[darr3239]

Very good info. coming in. Thanks guys!