Where is the silencer industry headed? This is something that I get asked fairly often. I have thought about it from time to time, and the real answer is not so cut and dried.

First of all ,we have to look at the silencer industry as a whole first and foremost. The industry is strong with growth in many sectors like new companies are coming into the space and even large brands like Smith and Wesson and Ruger have even gotten on the band wagon.

What I see with most of this though is that people still feel that there is room for new ideas and want to share those ideas with the world. This is good as this means that innovation is not stagnate and that there will be newer and better designs come to market. This means there will be new technology used in the making of the suppressor and this leads to designs not previously feasible due to manufacturing costs. The easy one here is powdered metal 3D printing. This technology has evolved rapidly and even Daniel Defense is on this train. Another neat technology is the new idea of using a mig welder to build in 3D like they are using to make the Space X rocket tanks. This is possibly a type of manufacturing that would work well in the silencer world. Time will tell, but this seems like a perfect way to make complex silencer designs.

As for Liberty, we dont have a metal 3D printer at this time, but that is not to say we won’t get something in this space. We are intrigued with the idea of 3D printing as it “takes the gloves off” of traditional silencer making. We have drawn concepts that were only possible in the past through complex setup processes and were completely non-feasible to produce. This is why we make very specific designs and have to stick to those design parameters, cost to change manufacturing techniques is very high and usually involved a lot of time as well.

What does the future look like for Liberty Suppressors specifically? Well for now we will still be making some of the worlds best silencer designs. The next thing we will be looking at is 3D printing as well as more advanced stack baffle designs as we feel there is room in both of these arenas to improve and we want to try some ideas we have there… this will probably take a few years to produce something that is ready for the masses, but you dont get to the point of releasing something unless you start your prototyping now… I hope you enjoyed my view into the abyss of the US silencer scene and hope to see you soon!

Until next time, keep your powder dry.

When we make an AR15 Recoil Buffer we make it to solve many common problems associated with this rifle platform.

When we set out to make our AR15 recoil buffer, we knew that people would be using them with our Leonidas integrally suppressed upper assembly as well as the mate to it, the Zulu integral 5.56mm AR15 upper assembly. Knowing this led us to figure out what weight serves these users the best and it turned out to be 4 ounces. This is about 50% more than a “stock” buffer of 2 3/4 ounces but is enough more than stock to help with feeding of subsonic ammunition as well as dampening excessive bolt velocity on supersonic rounds as well.

One of the things we noticed right away was that it make ejection of spent brass more consistent as well. This comes from the extra mass of the buffer slowing down the velocity of the bolt carrier assembly slightly. Another benifit from this is that it reduces battering of the receiver extension because almost all 16″ carbines are way over gassed. The gas system on these builds are typically used from the 14.5″ builds and the shorter dwell time of these guns. By using this gas system we are great increasing the gas delivered to the carrier as there is significantly more dwell with an extra 1.5″ of barrel. The time is very short here, but the pressure is so high that any increase in dwell time will result in significantly increased back pressure.

The next time you are at the range, take a few minutes to watch how far the AR15 rifles eject their spent brass and if it is more than 8 or 10 feet, it is way over gassed. Most should be about 10 feet from the rifle is gassed correctly, this will clear the brass from the weapon system and not over work the rifle action to cause premature wear on the system. So until next time, keep your powder dry!

…that we can offer to the first time buyer. When a person decides to get into the NFA pool so to speak, they are inundated with choices for silencers out there on the market. Driving this point home, we offer 20 different models on our website alone! This gives people purchase paralysis and a lot of people simply just won’t buy one for fear of choosing the wrong one to start with.

When we started out in the silencer market, we would recommend a different type of silencer for the first time buyer. A rimfire suppressor would be what we would call the “gateway” to more specialized suppressors later on. This worked really well for about 4 years or so, then Obama was elected president and the gun community collectively lost its mind for almost ten years with ammo hoarding and price gouging becoming the norm for … you guessed it… rimfire ammo. In particular, 22LR was the most hoarded ammunition of he period with record numbers of it being manufactured but no one was willing to goto the range like they once did and burn through 1000 rounds in a Saturday.

With this paradigm shift came a new caliber enthusiast, the 9mm shooter. We also saw a resurgence in cast lead use as resourceful people fell back on making projectiles out of wheel weights and other such metals. This raised a new need in the silencer world. A “take apart” 9mm suppressor so the people shooting cast lead bullets could clean them. Enter the Mystic silencer, it was a revolution in the game when released, being monolithic core and a simple design that you can not reassemble wrong, this was an immediate hit with the reloading community as well as the 9mm AR crowd.

As time marched on we refined the design and moved to stronger metals to improve on the Mystic suppressor, this led to the Mystic X and it is our current offering as of this writing. This silencer has it all, light weight, strong material choice, incredible caliber list. tons of attachments to allow use on an incredible amount of firearms and mounts. It is literally the perfect first time buyer’s silencer. It gives the first time buyer enough options to explore suppressing many different host firearms with a single silencer so that they can better determine what guns they want dedicated silencers for and what guns they simply want to put mounts of and things like that. It is almost like getting to test drive other silencers without the need to buy them first.

Some people take this one step further and simply just use the one silencer for all the different guns by buying the mounts for those guns and leaving the mounts on the guns and just adding the FBA thread protectors to the adapters to keep from damaging the threads. This way you simply screw the suppressor module off of one host weapon adapter and right onto the next one.

So if you are looking to get into the NFA game and get a silencer, but you have paralysis through analysis because there are so many choices, just get the Mystic X and use it for a while to see what you think you will need going forward and you cant go wrong…

The simple reason is cost. The cost to setup to make welded core silencers is pretty high once the process for a machined silencers is established or should I say, the cost is really high to add it to our current system… let me explain.

Let’s take a look at some of the factors that go into making this design change. There is the cost of adding on to the building to make room for the needed machinery to make these new silencers. We currently dont have the room we would need for a stamping press or the bridge crane needed to handle the tooling and metal to make these designs with. We would also have considerable expense in specialized tooling to go in the stamping press as each component in the design has to have a set of tools (these are called dies: form die, draw die, trim die, ect.) for it. These can be quite expensive and time consuming to make, plus they require significant maintenance to operate properly and none of this is cheap. So how these pay off are in HUGE volumes. Your margin per part is a lot lower so you need to make a lot more of them and this is why stamped designs seem to be cheaper, they are spreading the cost of manufacture over a much larger batch of parts as to where we machine our silencers from bar stock, allows us to make smaller runs, but the cost per part is higher for us. This gives us flexibility in what we make as our machines can be repurposed almost instantly, but it makes our “per part” costs higher. This is what makes mass production so desirable for everyone. It lowers the “per part” costs due to incredible volume of manufacture.

Since we do not have the three primary machines (stamping press, special welding fixture/cnc welding machine, wire EDM to cut bores) to make stamped/welded core silencers, you dont see us offering them. So if you have ever wondered why Liberty has not gotten into making stamped baffle silencers ,these are the main reasons why. Another problem with these designs is that you can not easily make design changes to the product. It requires modifying the tools when you want to add or remove a feature, this also is very expensive to have done by die makers. It is pretty common to see stamping dies with interchangeable parts to change models and such, but if you are tinkering with the design and find something that improves performance a little, it costs too much to implement it in a stamping die to where with our CNC mills and lathes, it is a simple program change and the new feature is now integrated into the very next run cycle. We are about continuous improvement here and want our users to have the best possible device available. A great example of this is our Mystic X suppressor as it has went through several revisions over the years to be better and better.

Now the next question that comes up is why dont we outsource the making of the baffles or the welding/edm work? Well, to be quite honest with you, people just dont care about quality anymore (or so it seems). We tried this several years ago and it was nothing but problems. We had to reject so many parts and be late on deliveries so many times with our silencers that we simply decided to internalize all of our manufacturing and not to use subcontractors ever again. It is just too painful to get good parts delivered on time from third party suppliers…period.

Those are the two main reasons for not jumping into the stamped/welded core designs at this point. So when you are ready for a high quality fully machined silencer for your firearm, we are here to serve you. Until next time, keep your powder dry!

Today we take a look at why the Quick Attach silencer is so popular in the american suppressor scene.

It seems there is no shortage of makers who have their own take on the QA silencer design. Many of them work really well, while some do not. Still it seems that even the bad QA designs are more popular than direct thread suppressors. Why is this? Well…

First let’s look at some comparison specs:

1. Are QA suppressors lighter? – Nope. The QA mount always adds to the weight of the suppressor and adding a mount to the host firearm also adds even more weight.
2. Are QA suppressors smaller? – Nope. The length added to the back of the silencer by the QA mount makes it longer as well. Now some will argue ” over all added length” because they have also added a mount that the suppressor telescopes over, but in reality, this is misleading as the direct thread screws over the barrel and and QA mount will never telescope to the same point on the barrel as the mount will move the silencer forward somewhat almost every time.
3. Are QA suppressors quieter? – Nope. They are the exact same model with a QA mount screwed into it. Also rifle silencers are not known for their “movie gun” suppression due to super sonic bullet flight noise, so even if it some how measures a dB or 2 better, it is still going to be in the 130dB range. This is still really loud so that is out.
4. Are the cheaper? – Nope-a-roo… Adding the QA mount always adds to the cost of a design over a direct thread end-cap. This is basic economics, it simply costs more to make all the QA mount parts and the weapon mount that the silencer fits over than it does to make a simple end-cap.
5. Do they have “Cool factor”? – Yep. This is where the magic begins to happens for the QA silencer. You see it looks more complex so it has this appeal to men as men typically like complex mechanisms for some reason.
6. Do they have longer service lives? – Yep… usually. You see with the muzzle brake mount designs, the weapon mounted muzzle brake will act as a sacrificial blast baffle that takes the beating from unburnt powder granules and hot gasses so as to make the silencer baffles last much longer. Plus if you burn the bore out of your brake, simply replace the worn out brake with a new one and you are basically right back to the beginning of the service life cycle.
7. Do they add versatility? – Not really. You see, some people will also argue that they can put the same mount of multiple weapons and simply move the can from one rifle to the next. They fail to mention that a direct thread silencer can do the exact same thing. The only real differences are that the direct thread takes longer since it takes more time to unscrew the silencer and screw it onto another rifle. (something like one minute) and the direct thread design leaves the muzzle threads of your rifles unprotected so you need to either be more careful with them or use some thread protectors on the threads.
8. Secret sauce… People are free to choose what ever they want. This is why we sell both kinds of silencers, some people want mounts, some people dont. We are all free to choose what ever we want for our rifles, but just know that slick marketing will try to tell you that the QA designs are the ones to get as they cost more which in turn increases the monthly sales numbers for your favorite silencer company…not because they are better…

This is all my personal opinion on why silencers with QA mounts outperform direct thread suppressor in sales for the most part. We have long felt that direct thread silencers were better and been very slow to adopt QA designs. We finally have done a few but we still recommend our Amendment and Constitution suppressors regularly over our more expense QA designs like the Sovereign and Agent.

Food for thought, hope you have a great day and keep your powder dry!

In a nutshell, yes and no. Silencers aid in protecting your hearing but are not the end all of the task.

When silencers began to become more mainstream some 20 years ago there was all this hype about “hearing safe” silencers and how they had to be under this level or that level to “protect” your hearing. What this is based on is the OSHA threshold of 140dB and to be honest about it, this is still too high…

This seems to be some arbitrary number to use but you see this is not the whole story. The level also has a time factor also. So if you have 140dB for say some short time like 5 milliseconds then after that it is too much…straight guessing here, I am not a OSHA regulation specialist. Continuing on, that level combined with some sort of time limit are what equal the maximum permissible exposure level, not just the dB number alone.

So for guns like the 22LR this means the exposure can be much longer with a high quality rimfire suppressor than say a 300 win mag with a suppressor installed. Simply because the rimfire silencer is suppressed to 113dB and the 30 WinMag in sitting at 138dB… So here is the rub, 113dB is still high. The difference is that is can be exposed for longer periods of time since it is a lower level.

Armed with this information, I always recommend additional hearing protection for anyone shooting a firearm, whether it has a silencer or not. The additional protection of the ear pro added to that of the silencers lowers the level even more and thereby lengthening the exposure time longer. This reduces the risk of permemant hearing loss, but again, I am no audiologist so take it for what you paid for it. This is just what I have learned over the years.

So when you see you tubers like MrGunsNGear wearing ear pro while shooting suppressed, that isnt because the silencer is bad, it is because the suppressor alone is not enough…especially on a rifle. What a silencer does that ear pro doesnt do is that it protects the hearing of literally everyone in the area instead of the one person wearing ear pro. This simply makes everyone’s ear pro that much more effective. I hope this helps someone protect their hearing and makes life better for everyone.

Until next time, keep your powder dry!

When you think of Liberty Suppressors, you dont normally think of AR-15 parts, but we do offer a couple of things that apply to our suppressors and help our users get the most out of there guns. This buffer is one of those items.

When we set out to make our own buffer, it was from a need to have one that was heavier than stock but not overly complicated with a ton of interchangeable parts or things that can get lost easily. We also wanted it to be completely reliable as well. This meant that we could not make it to where it could be altered by the end user and needed to fit into the existing buffer footprint perfectly.

We also wanted it to have a sort of “signature” of our making, so we chose to make it out of stainless steel, the same that we have used is some of our silencers in fact, and it needed to look good to boot. We achieved both of these with room left over. This buffer comes in at 4 ounces which is about 50% heavier than stock and this slows down the action somewhat to reduce the effects of over gassing. We documented the results in video and it is noticeable in that the ejection angle is modified when the heavier buffer is used. This also smooths out the recoil cycle in the firearm making it easier to control and faster follow up shots and such…

This design is a simple drop in modification that simply requires the end user to remove the old buffer from the carbine and just insert the new one in its place. It is literally that simple. No muss or fuss, just drop it in and have better performance. What could be simpler?

The extra weight makes it easier on the user when it comes to excess gasses as well since it delays the unlocking of the rifle making more of the gasses go out the muzzle instead of the ejection port. There you have it, some simple reasons to add the Liberty Suppressors carbine buffer to your AR15 style rifle. Till next time, keep your powder dry!

When looking for an integrally suppressed AR, there is only one true option to choose. The Zulu is literally designed around the 5.56 NATO cartridge and is optimized for the AR15 platform. We made the decision to build the silencer into the upper as an integral part of the rifle to see just how good we could get the build.

We made several design decisions that we felt incorporated the gas impingement design. Things like putting the gas block inside the silencer module to capture the gas that leaks out of the gas block in the areas when it meets the gas tube and barrel. This done another thing, we were able to extend the back of the silencer module past the gas block which allows for a significant amount of volume to be added to the blast chamber. This added volume allows us to lower the initial blast pressure dramatically before entering he subsequent baffle chambers. This lowers overall tone and reduced gas spitting to some degree.

Another innovative feature of the Zulu integrally suppressed AR upper receiver assembly is the peripherally ported front cap. This allows pressure to bleed off at a controlled pace to further lower internal pressure and to also reduce back pressure even more.

The next trick we employed was the use of all that titanium in the construction of the suppressor module. We figured that this would do several things at once for our idea of the perfect integrally suppressed AR upper assembly. The first thing is the most obvious though in that it makes the fact that there is a silencer on the rifle not even noticed, it is incredibly lightweight and points very easily. The next thing that the titanium does is to help with heat dissipation where it will lot hold the heat very well, there by reducing the amount of stored heat from shot to shot a lot less than what we would have had with stainless steel. Dont get me wrong, this girl can get feisty! But with just a short period of time to cool, it can have decent manners much faster than if we have used other metals.

So when you are looking for integrally suppressed AR builds, we feel this is the best you can find.

So until next time, keep your powder dry!