A few months ago, I sold off two cans - my Griffin Explorr taper mount, and my Ecco Machine Phoenix TL. Why? I found myself basically flush with 3D printed titanium suppressors that, with the exception of the B&T Tiger, are all high flow, low backpressure designs, and these two cans were wildly outperformed by other stuff I owned to the point where they just weren't getting used and probably never would be. I kept my Polonium because it was my very first can, is a stellar beater, and will work nicely as a loaner on range days with the uninitiated who don't have one. But I don't want to tune a rifle for one, so it just sits in the safe, looking like an old junkyard dog. Pic because why not? Also... I need to get this Plan A mount off and get a Plan B on it.


Subsequent unscientific testing out in the desert with a few friends who also nerd out pretty hard on this stuff have led me to a few conclusions.

1) For basically all practical shooting, titanium is tits. It's light, and cans of quality design printed with it can, and mostly do, outperform everything else I've tried.

2) Low backpressure to the shooter's ear also tends to mean quieter to the shooter's ear. I own three Stealth Additive Works 9mm Shivs. It just kind of worked out that way with helping the company demo stuff, and I have a small selection now that live on my favorite pistol hosts. The short version is, they perform like a yesteryear full size can in terms of noise reduction and FRP, but at a fraction of the size and weight, and completely eliminating peppering to the face. Instead of feeling like a pistol wearing a heavy can, they change the balance point so little that it's usually the first thing people trying one out say: "It doesn't feel like there's a can on it." I've handed hundreds of people a host wearing a Shiv for the first time, and that was the experience that got me very interested. Trying them out on my pistols vs my cans and some friend's cans had me hooked. There are bigger pistol cans that are quieter to the bystander, but that's not why I use suppressors - I use them because I want it to be quieter for me. That's not even touching on the rifle cans for the sake of brevity, but it's the same experience there. Pic because, again, why not?


3) 3D printed titanium means ultra-light, but it also means cans that will start glowing in short order with higher pressure rounds like 5.56. I have a picture one of the guys took of me at a night shoot using my 5.56 Ekron as a lantern to light my face up from about a foot away after a 30rd mag dump at speed. It's also comparatively sparky even after it seasons-in, and will always be flashier than the same design in something like Haynes or Inconel. One of my suppressor nerd friends got ahold of one of the first Inconel 5.56 Tishas and it is super quiet and very low backpressure, but it feels heavy, especially compared to the titanium version. Upside: He can run FRT mag dumps through it basically forever without a care, that can in that material shrugs off the abuse like a masochist.

4) High backpressure still has a place. That same friend is also a Specterscat (CAT? Never know which it actually is) fiend, and owns a number of their cans. They are basically never lighter, smaller, or lower backpressure than the SAW stuff we get our hands on, but... they're almost always quieter. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, as in the case of the Shiv vs. the Street Crack.

Where am I going with all that? Well, not here, but elsewhere, I've been accused of being a shill for Stealth Additive Works. The truth is, I met the guys a year and a half ago at an EVT range day when nobody had heard of them and was beyond impressed with their stuff, and asked if they had any 9mm cans in the works. It turned into some communications with their sales guy, which turned into a friendship with the company, which turned into helping them run demo events, which turned into getting some pretty good deals on cans. I am still a fan. That said, I try to intellectually honest, and what they do best has, for the time being, clarified into a "absolute best suppression for the size" kind of thing. The Tisha, Shiv, and Klik are fantastic cans for the size. Nothing similar in size or smaller beats any of those currently, period. Nothing comes close. But I found there was an obvious hole in my "collection," as it were: a super-quiet 9mm can.

To say the suppressor industry has progressed at an astonishing rate in the last 3-5 years feels like a comical understatement. Guys who only have experience with traditional, fully user-serviceable cans with 60 degree baffles don't really have a frame of reference for exactly what I'm saying here. DMLS 3D printing has essentially relegated those designs almost completely to the dustbin of history, worthwhile only as budget design offerings in cheaper materials by newer companies looking to get in on the new NFA feeding frenzy. If you haven't been to a range day with a selection of some of the newest 3D printed cans, you just cannot appreciate how different they are. The old stuff doesn't compete, and that's not just marketing and sales, it's my opinion after trying out more cans than most shooters have or will. Arizona is a hotspot for shooters, particularly owners and fans of NFA stuff. That, plus getting into the back end of things with a suppressor company and going to events has given me a lot to draw on. It really is amazing how much it has changed in recent years.

Anyways, suppressors and night vision have been my "thing" for the last 4 years solid, and if I have drawn one universal conclusion about either that actually applies to both, it's this: There is no perfect solution that does it all perfectly, everything has a downside. Pick the upsides you want that has the downsides you can live with in your budget, and rock on with your bad self, right?

Well... maybe wrong. I think we're approaching a convergence point at least with suppressors where you'll be able to have your cake and eat it, too. Or at least, with the materials available, guys are figuring out how to 3D design around some of those limitations. To wit: this morning, I ordered a BOE Incolite 9M for $550, shipped. So you don't have to look up the stats: It's a modular printed Inconel HUB can that is their full size 5" offering in the "short config," but with an additional 2.5" module. The feedback and videos I've seen on this thing are super compelling, and I like that the "short config" is not the former suppressor industry standard ploy where it's an ultra-compact can that's also loud as shit so nobody ever switches it down from the long config. I'm looking at you, Rugged. The Incolite 9 is pretty damned quiet, but the 9M gives some flexibility I would actually use and appreciate in being able to go even quieter. Again, I got that "it's really, really quiet for being so small" thing covered already, I want to take it the other direction and now get stupid quiet for being light weight. Oh yeah, the weight: short config is 8oz without a mount (my SAW 9mm prototype that lives on my Stribog is 7.77oz of titanium without a mount), long config is 10oz assembled. The standard Incolite 9 is 6.5oz without a mount, but has some tighter restrictions on it than the 9M, which is rated for a 10.5" 5.56 with limited full auto. That's nuts. Honestly, I won't be using it with rifle calibers because I don't want or need to. Also comes with a 3/4oz titanium direct thread mount, but I have a Comstock Arsenal titanium recessed Plan B HUB mount about that weight in my SAW 9mm prototype that I'll throw in there, and that'll be that. I'll probably use the prototype as a full size pistol can, or see how it does on my 3.08 Bergara, seeing as it's a fully rifle rated, unrestricted can.

"But Smudge," I hear you say, "I thought you want suppressors that are quieter for you and not the bystander?" I also like just super silly quiet suppressed 9mm PCC's... and I also have a 9mm Tisha on the way when my guy at SAW can fit me in the shipping schedule. The 9mm Tisha is the most comfortable 9mm PCC can I've tried yet, but also... I wanted something a bit more traditional size and shape that I can use on both pistols and PCC's. So here we are.

BOE is apparently Duramag's suppressor brand, and yes, I'm taking a gamble on this, but last year around this time, I had a chance to buy a Ridgeback Defense Rhino S for about the same price, and passed. Now they're twice that or more, and the company is doing really well and I wish I would've snagged one. Apparently their customer support involves letting guys keep cans that've suffered a baffle strike and thrown a new Rhodie 6J their way and they get both for that initial cash outlay. Not a bad deal, but you just never know when you get in on the ground floor. I'll be using this pretty much exclusively with subsonic 9mm, and I'm not particularly worried about a 9mm shredding printed Inconel with a baffle strike, so if Duramag somehow goes tits up, which I doubt happening any time soon, me betting on a long life of service from this can for $550... well, I've done dumber and riskier things with higher dollar amounts. Also, it looks like as of this morning or so, they've introduced their first rifle cans, which are both printed and fully user-serviceable, so you get a titanium body and a printed core, similar to some of the Hux Flows, but in your choice of Inconel or titanium. MSRP of an RCH over a grand, 15oz without a mount for the full titanium versions is not bad at all for a user serviceable can. That's heavier than the one piece titanium rifle cans I own, but for something you can take apart and replace the core if needed? Again, pick your upsides.

Anyway, there's not a hell of a lot out there on these cans at the moment, but here are a few videos I found interesting. Embedded for the curious. The 9S is like their version of the Shiv, which I obviously have no need of, but the performance is still impressive for the size. HUB compatible vs direct thread 1/2x28 only, to boot!








This last one is sheer abuse, and a use case I will almost certainly never subject it to. Shit like this is more for stuff like the Polonium, and it straight up kills titanium rifle cans.

After handling suppressed AR's for the first time I made my first can a titanium one. The Q cans were new at the time and so I have a Trash Panda. I still really like it on my 300BO bolt action SBR, but I'll admit I am less than willing to submit it to any kind of heavy firing schedule in 556/308 even though I know it can take it - I'd rather have it in good condition for a lot longer and use cheaper/better suppressors for the purpose.

But I agree, the leap forward in design and technology has been pretty crazy. I have a friend at Front Of Rifle (FOR) Systems doing similar stuff with the boosterless 9mm pistol cans and different material prints. I have one of their titanium 556 cans, and a tiny <2oz Ti .22, both are printed flow designs.

The barrier to entry keeps getting lower on all fronts. Learning CAD design, refinement and modeling through CFD packages, DMLS shops with an FFL that can make you 1 as easily as 20 for a couple hundred dollars total per prototype. More can be put into testing and R&D and finding new ways to solve old problems of controlling gas expansion and finding the balance with getting it out fast enough to not still have positive pressure when the breech opens, and incorporation of internal eductor geometry and other fun stuff to help promote low-pressure flow.

Yeah, I think in particular, we're going to probably see more boosterless pistol cans come out. The Shiv has been wildly popular, and for good reason. The Incolite 9S is absolutely meant to compete with it, and if one wanted to prioritize decibel reduction over the overall size of the can, then it's a winner there. I'd be interested to see what FOR Systems comes out with, there's some buzz about those guys and I haven't looked into it much, but I know Jljones has one of their cans and had good things to say about it. I'm sure there are others worth mentioning, but I know there are a lot that aren't. I called it last year with roller delayed 9mm subgun/PCC types and now we have a roller delayed Extar and a roller delayed Taurus of all things. Guys are starting to see the benefit of small pistol cans and that's probably going to be one of the next big trends in the industry.

Between the developments in the technology and the zero cost to file for a tax stamp, this is a rather amazing time for the suppressor community. Lots of people coming in at the ground level both as first time consumers and manufacturers alike. The industry needed this shakeup. Too many manufacturers sitting on their ass for too long cranking out the same sleeve and 60° baffle stack bullshit for too many decades and acting as if changing things like thread pitch are revolutionary. Competition is healthy, and they've all been put on notice to get fit or die.

If 2023 was the beginning of the 3D print revolution then I think the SAW Tisha is the first 2nd generation 3D low back pressure can. CAT ST might fit in that 2nd gen category also.

There's some special magic going on with that 2 stage pressure relief in the Tisha. I do follow Pew Science, I don't hang on his every word, I go to in person demo days for real world experience. I do look at the measured data in PEW, and the Tisha is better at cutting down that nasty spike at 30ms better than any other 5.56 can.



I'm showing a old school baffle can the Rugged Razor for comparison. You can see the spike is more than double the Tisha.



Yankee Hill Machine has been in business 20 or so years and hasn't even tried to embrace the new technology yet. Rugged hasn't done much in the way of new tech. Surefire's first printed attempt (RC3) was soundly rejected by the consumer market. Maybe the RC4 that came out this year shows some progress. Dead Air, SilencerCo, Griffin and Thunder Beast have been walking forward into embracing new tech. Otter Creek started 6 years ago with baffle cans and has quickly pivoted. The upstarts CAT, SAW and a few others never even played the old game just came out of nowhere with new tech.

We had baffle technology for about 100 years. This design revolution will level off at some point, but I'm enjoying watching where this development goes in the next few years also.