suppresor ratings or comparisons?

[shrapmetal]

heres a question for the can nuts? why can't i seem to find a can for my 50? it seems like they don't want to sell them unless im a LEO.

[TactAdv]

heres a question for the can nuts? why can't i seem to find a can for my 50? it seems like they don't want to sell them unless im a LEO.

Let me establish some bona fides here by giving a bit of full disclosure before I answer your question.

Prior to establishing my own armaments design company I was an integral part of Gemtech for over a decade. Significant elements of my patent-pending designs for both internal suppression structures and for suppressor mounting systems are prominently used in several of the current Gemtech catalog offerings including the Blackside, UMP, HVT, G5 and also the Stormfront supppressor for .50BMG caliber Barrett applications.

To answer your specific question, the majority of mfgrs do not wish to expose themselves to the potential liabilities for the uncontrolled end uses of such products. It's pretty simple. The particular cartridge you are talking about can be lethally dangerous if not properly employed. There are not likely to be any "minor" incidents or accidents if something goes wrong.

Additionally, there are too varied a range of commercial offerings in the host weapons alone. Not all these gun designs are, shall we say, reassuring in their displayed engineering elements for starters. To attempt to offer a "universal" suppressor for adapting to a wide range of host guns again brings up the liability discussion due to the observed problems with many of the guns themselves. There is no industry-standard muzzle threading pattern, just as one instance of problem for starters. The competent suppressor manufacturers in the industry have made their own decisions by way of establishing some de factor baseline standards of acceptable host weapons, with the Barrett M107(M82A1) being the most accepted for various technical and business reasons, not the least of which is that host weapons system represents about the only really financially viable outlet for recouping the extensive costs of development of such products. Without a clearly visible end market, there is simply no sound business reasons to attempt to offer such products where the potentially suitable applications are so minimal in numbers when compared to the militarily standarized Barrett gun.

Technically, even the Barret is a challenging application for various reasons, but the inherent design there at least affords a suitable starting point. One of the more serious issues with these large cartridge guns is one of recoil, obviously. Normally speaking a suppressor makes a tremendous counter to recoil, assuming it is properly designed and manufactured in concert with a proper mounting system used. When you get to .50BMG though, all that begins to go out the window as virtually ALL these gun designs rely almost completely upon massive gas mass deflections via an effective muzzle brake to allow safe operation at the users shoulder. Bolt action designs, especially, are a rather large bitch to try to deal with from the recoil enhancements in particular. If you remove the brake, the designs become unsafe to fire in the man-portable role. Eye retina detachments and fractured collar and shoulder bones are quite common as a result; it's not a joking matter. Substituting a suppressor does not always equal the effectiveness of the former brake, either. NO suppressor design can deal with the same mass of propellant gasses as do the brakes, it's simply an issue of basic physics, at least no design that would not be so physically large as to cumbersome and undesired. In order to effectively deal with the same mass of gasses, a suppressor would need so large an internal working volume as to be rendered many feet long and weigh accordingly. The best current suppressors are viable for use only with the understanding that in relation to the original muzzle brake, felt recoil will be increased by several levels of magnitude at the users shoulder. There are other devices which in combination can result in a restored balance of felt recoil.

Not many suppressor manufacturers are interested as a result, and those that are have undergone a competent risk assessment of the market value of open commercial sales and have largely concluded that potential sales benefits of a few units sold do not outweigh the potential loss risks with so many significant factors involved. True too, the pure production costs of suppressors of this design magnitude mitigate against any serious thoughts of "stocking them on the shelf" to see who wants one, almost all MIL grade units of this caliber are built to order with significant minimum order quantities with required upfront payments in order to begin a production run.

-TomH