I have rifle built around a 10.5" Noveske stainless barrel. The intent from the onset of the build was to use my SOCOM556 RC2 on the rifle, but I needed to move something, in order to afford another SF muzzle device. I had used a Griffin M4SDK on it, in the meantime. Even with the factory Griffin muzzle device, the gate latch mount system is prone to some rattle; I had a hunch that it may have been contributing to a degradation of accuracy. I got a FF handguard at the same time as the new muzzle device, but swapped only the muzzle device and silencer at first, and shot a 10rd group. Previous 10rd groups with the same ammo, and M4SDK, measured 4.5" and 5". A group with the RC2 measured 3.25". I then swapped the handguard as well, and shot another that measured 4". Coincidence? Maybe. Kind of interesting.

I have seen many reviews that suggest sometimes a suppressor improves accuracy (often by a lot but that testing is not a 10.5' AR), but I have not seen any that compare different suppressors to see what happens comparatively. I can say that personally (you know I use surefire on this type of gun) I have never seen a deterioration from a naked muzzle.

Quality suppressors often improve shooting accuracy over a bare muzzle by a small amount -- could be a 1/4 MOA, might be as little as 1/8 MOA, maybe 3/8 MOA at most. I have long considered this is the effects of reducing recoil and of spreading the recoil pulse out over a longer period. The higher the recoil of the gun, more likely the larger potential accuracy effect. For low recoiling rounds like a 223, I don't expect much difference between with a can and without a can.

Assuming your group sizes are for 100 yards, IMO there's too much variation in the shot patterns to isolate the small potential effects of a suppressor.

Brown Whelen at Colorado Precision Rifle totally changed my mind about what silencers do — they do all sorts of dark magic to normalize gasses around a bullet which isn’t a big deal until you’re trying to stretch the legs on a .308 past where it goes transsonic.. I don’t really know /how/ it works, but I know for sure it /does/ work and have not regretted putting a can on my rifle one bit.

quote:

Originally posted by Legal Beagle:
Brown Whelen at Colorado Precision Rifle totally changed my mind about what silencers do — they do all sorts of dark magic to normalize gasses around a bullet which isn’t a big deal until you’re trying to stretch the legs on a .308 past where it goes transsonic.

I've shot with and against Brian Whalen many times in competition. In the Raton 2-rifle match, we were regularly on the same squad.

Suppressors definitely help a person shoot a 308 with better results. But so does a good muzzle brake -- just with obnoxious noise levels. During a Rifles Only course in NE Colorado, students pushed our 308s to our accuracy limits on IPSC targets. That day the air density altitude was 7500 feet. I shot FGMM 175 and used both my Thunderbeast can and my APA Fat Bastard brake. I made impacts out to 1400 yards with both can & brake, but was slightly more accurate with the brake. JBM calculates the bullet at Mach .939 at the target, which is subsonic -- well below transonic.

One of the hazards of using my iPhone is the auto correct! >_< I owe Brian some Diet Cokes for jacking up his name. Thank you for helping me fix it! I took his PRS 1 and 2 over Father’s Day weekend a few years back and he’s a great American. I highly recommend his class to everybody and would love to shoot with him again.

Rimfire Benchrest rifle builders in most cases say that suppressors and muzzle brakes detract from accuracy. But they are not dealing with transsonic rounds or recoil to speak of. They also probably have as perfect a muzzle machining on the end of the barrel as is humanly possible. My general take from this is that if you are dealing with centerfire of any size a suppressor or muzzle brake can improve the accuracy and likely for most rimfire guns a suppressor is not going to hurt anything as they are not built to the standards of a Benchrest gun.

I know nothing about precision rimfire and suppressors, but in the (admittedly very few) precision rimfire matches I have observed the equipment lots of guns have "tuners" which seems to me to be a big weight on the end of the barrel. So if that helps then might sometimes tossing a different kind of weight accomplish the same thing?

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:
...I have observed the equipment lots of guns have "tuners" which seems to me to be a big weight on the end of the barrel. So if that helps then might sometimes tossing a different kind of weight accomplish the same thing?

Barrel tuners allow the weight to be moved fore and aft, to find the sweet spot in barrel harmonics. In theory, a suppressor that can be adjusted fore and aft in minute increments could accomplish the same thing. I don't know of suppressor mounts that allow fore/aft adjustments, but there might be such a system.

Google "how do barrel tuners work" for details, and a few opinions.