Who is the perfect silencer owner?

by libertyadmin

December 8, 2022

We look at the silencer owner in 2022 and what they look like now. This is a interesting subject that shows the variety of people that have learned how beneficial a silencer is and that we can all benefit from the use of silencers on our favorite firearm.

The group of people that use firearm silencers are as varied as the types of firearms that they use them on. We have the obvious tactical guy and the not-so-obvious girly girl, both benefitting from silencer use. Let’s take a look at the most common types I have observed:

Tactical training AR15 guy: You know the guy, he shows up to the range with a really nice carbine and a top tier suppressor on it, shoots Mozambique drills for an hour then packs up and goes home. These guys may seem like a bunch of posers to some, but what they really are is interested young people that want to enjoy the freedoms afforded to them by their fore fathers. I am glad to see them on the range. I hope that they continue to goto the range and practice, it may come in handy one day, you never know.

22 Timmy/ 22 Lily: these people love coming to the range with dad so they can shoot the 22 rifle with the Regulator Ti silencer on it. This has to be the highlight of the week! The steels at 50 yards never stood a chance! These will be our countries leaders in 25 years so it is important that they understand what the Constitution is and how we can participate in the process and knowing civics is a good part of that. This is part of that process.

The soccer mom: This segment is the sleeper cell of the gun community, you never expect this one as they dont normally look like the type that would enjoy coming to the range. When you see them step up to the line though, you know they are all business and love to shoot the Glock custom with the Centurion on it (and they like it even more if it has a little oil in it to help reduce first round pop). We are seeing an increasing amount of “mom” shooters who want a suppressor to make their favorite gun more fun to shoot.

The newly minted gun owner: These people are the 21 and 22 years olds who have just come of age and are well versed with the internet and have found that they can have a silencer because of youtube and the long list of companies making high quality silencers for them now. These are the next leaders of this country and we are glad to see them taking to this part of their birthright like they should. These people pick the multi caliber suppressor as their first foray into NFA as they are being frugal and this allows the most versatility for the cost involved. The Mystic X seems to be their silencer of choice and for good reason.

The grand dad of the newly minted gun owner: These are typically people who were born in the 70s, these people were accustomed to guns being fairly easy to get and have, but never really thought about owning silencers as no one really knew who to get them from. Plus add to this the problem of there being very few makers at the time as well and this just compounded the problem. With the machine-gun ban of 1986 still in their minds, they love having freedom and these silencers, which were reserved for the elite few that knew where to get them, are grabbing them up now to protect what little hearing they have left.

The immigrant: These people came into the country mostly after the iron curtain fell in the 90s and have lived under communist rule. They know full well how the world works when the populace is disarmed and do not have the ability to defend themselves from evil people intent on committing evil acts against them. They love the freedom that comes from living in the USA and want to participate in all of it. These people are awesome and I take my hat off to them.

Last but not least, a silencer is sometimes found on the gun of a veteran. These people know the price of freedom as they have seen it first hand. The cost is high and they don’t want to just toss it aside like some discarded piece of clothing. They also understand that governments can go bad and that it is up to the people to make course corrections when this happens and that the three boxes of liberty have to be cared for. They train, but hope they never need it. These people are the ones that will be there when you need them most.

This is my thoughts on what I have seen at the range in the past couple of years and the people I have observed using a silencer. I may be way off base, but that is what it looks like to me. Thank you for your time.

David Saylors

Bulletin Board, Newsletter

Multi Caliber Suppressor Perfection

by libertyadmin

December 2, 2022

OK, we all know about the Mystic X multi caliber suppressor and how it has the prestige of being the from the first true multi caliber suppressor, the Mystic. We have never stopped improving on this concept either. The next logical evolution in this genre is the Cosmic which turns out, is a really good multi caliber suppressor too. The Cosmic silencer was designed so that it maximized the pistol calibers for suppression and minimized weight by excluding the heavy rifle calibers from the caliber list. This is not a problem for most people though as it will still cover many rifle calibers on normal barrel lengths (read that as longer barrels) so the pressures wont damage the core in the Cosmic silencer. Seems that there was still a “hole” in the multi purpose suppressor lineup though so we started looking at customer feedback and came to realize that what people wanted was the Infiniti X silencer.

The Infiniti X is literally a Mystic X made of solid titanium…sans tube retaining ring… which brought the weight down to a feather like 7.7 ounces! It is so light that you literally dont know it is on the barrel. The magic here is that since it is titanium the heat is mitigated really well too, it cools down really fast and has a great tone as well. This is something that is often overlooked when people are shopping for suppressors…tone. The tone of the silencer will make the who system sound either sharp or dull, or if the tone is deep, it can measure higher on the sound meter, but will be perceived as quieter as low tones are felt by humans as quieter.

So now your asking yourself, “Which multi caliber suppressor is right for me?” The answer is not really simple either, you have to figure out what features are the most important for you and these include things like:

a. Sound
b. Weight
c. Cost
d. Tone
e. Versatility
f. Heat Dissipation
g. Size
h. Support

Let’s dive into these a little more…

a. Sound – This is obvious but it is the reason you are buying a silencer to start with. If you are not picking it for sound, then why get one at all? It should sound good on the calibers you plan to use it on with a pleasing tone.

b. Weight – This is sometimes a factor that is given up when choosing a multi caliber suppressor as it needs to withstand the punishment of the larger calibers, so this is another reason we feel the Mystic X is a great choice as it comes in at a great weight while still handling 95% of the calibers you will come in contact with.

c. Cost – This is one that gets most people. Silencers can get expensive, being made with costly materials and carrying tons of engineering costs to develop high sound suppression in a efficient package, combined with a small market makes them seem really costly. This is where we have to explain that the reason they cost som much in the USA is the NFA, if the feds were not involved, there would be disposable silencers that would be REALLY cheap all over the place. The fact that they are regulated so heavily has forced makers to spend significant resources on developing silencers that will last a lifetime in the harshest environment known to mankind, thereby making them practical to own.

d. Tone – This is one of those areas where a lot of people dont put much thought when choosing a silencer. The tone of the suppressor will determine whether it seems loud or not to the end user. A nice deep tone is the goal with all silencer makers and some designs work better than others. For instance, the Mystic X has a deeper tone than the Infiniti X due to the use of the stainless steel in the core material. This metal is less prone to ringing than the titanium used in the Infiniti X. So it sounds better even though they meter almost identical.

e. Versatility – When choosing a multi caliber suppressor, one must consider the options of mounting solutions. We here at Liberty have seen just about everything and have adapters to fit almost all of those options in stock. We stock so many choices for our multi caliber suppressors that sometimes it overwhelms the end user from all the choices. What we try to do it build out the user with a kit of mounts that is minimal in nature but still covers all the guns the end user wants to suppress. Sometimes we end up making custom mounts to fill in the holes, but that is what we are here for…

f. Heat Dissipation – This really only becomes a factor for a limited segment of the shooting community. The long range shooters and the hunters where there is significant round counts being fired. The silencer gets very hot during use and this heat has to go somewhere. It normally bleeds off into the atmosphere and then once cool, the shooter can see the sights once again to get an accurate shot. The heat that comes off the barrel will produce mirage and this mirage makes follow up shots more difficult and less accurate ,this is why we have thermal covers for our silencers, to prevent this problem for most shooters.

g. Size – The size comes in for many people but what makes a difference to most people is two pronged. Aesthetics and practicality. The aesthetic portion is for people that want the system to look a certain way, this is fine and we like this kind of thing ourselves, like our MP5 has a Centurion because it is cool. The other gourd is the hunter group where they want it to be compact or lightweight for a field carry. You know the saying… ounces equal pounds…

h. Support – This is where we feel the game ends. If you cant pick up the phone and talk to a human on the other end who can get you the answer you need, then what good is the product? Email is great too, because it is simple to use, but you need quality customer support that is here to help you if you have a problem and need assistance in solving it. We have always felt this is a priority with us and will continue to provide this to our users as long as we can. It isnt much good to have a can and no way to get information about it that isnt on the website in a pinch… We are here for you.

This is what we consider when choosing a multi caliber suppressor, what do you place priority on when choosing your silencers? We are curious to know…

Keep your powder dry.

Bulletin Board

What is the perfect pistol silencer?

by libertyadmin

December 1, 2022

The answer is … it depends. The perfect pistol silencer doesn’t currently exist to be honest. This is because there are many different jobs that a good pistol silencer would have to do well and there is no such thing as a one size fits all…

The closest thing we can think of though, is the Centurion pistol silencer. With this comes some positives as well as some negatives, but the positives are overwhelmingly more common.

We will start with weight. The Centurion pistol silencer is built to handle submachine gun use therefore the durability and weight have to compliment each other, make it too light and it will fail on PCC (pistol caliber carbines) make it too heavy and it will not work well on handguns due to recoil dampening. So we struck a balance where it can withstand a great deal of sub gun use and is still light enough for pistols too. The weight came out to 7.9 ounces with the 17-4PH stainless steel core and titanium tube. The weight goes up a little when you add a booster, but not a great deal. Booster installed weight is 12.5 ounces as our booster has a stainless steel body for long life as well…

Centurion 9mm pistol silencer — Dakota Tactical D54 with Centurion

The net thing you will notice is how small it is for what a pistol silencer like this can do. It is a mere 6.5″ overall length and just a paltry 5.3″ without the booster installed, like when you run it on that PCC…

We also wanted to look at some other options though for a perfect pistol silencer, so we grabbed the Infiniti X and the Cosmic as well to see how they could stack up against this can. Albiet longer by a full 3 inches, the Infiniti X using the titanium core is 7.7 ounces!!! Literally .2 ounces lighter! Now that is amazing for a pistol silencer! The magic comes in when you hear it though, it is insanely quiet with 9mm subsonic ammunition. This suppressor has to be heard in person to understand how good it sounds, it is next level. So comparing the Infiniti X to the Centurion on sound suppression would not really be fair, the Infiniti X will win that contest every time. But you have to remember that if you plan to make this a night stand rig, you probably want it to be smaller so the Centurion will be the better choice for this fact alone. A pistol silencer needs to be quiet enough to preserve your hearing during intense events, but a few decibels one way or the other wont make a huge difference here.

Now up to this point, there has only been 9mm cans in the race, so what happens when you bring in a 45 ACP silencer like the Cosmic? We get more caliber versatility of course, so now we can include the capability of a 10mm suppressor and a 45 ACP suppressor to the mix. Neither of the previous suppressors can do this at all. The Cosmic pistol silencer will be noisier than the others on 9mm calibers too since the bore is so much larger, but this is offset by the expanded caliber list it can use. Since the Cosmic also has a stainless steel core, it weighs in at 9.5ounces so it is somewhat heavier than it’s siblings here, but not by a significant amount. It is still 3″ longer than the Centurion and this might be your determining factor over caliber versatility. These are some of the considerations when choosing a pistol silencer for personal or range use. So now that you all this to chew on go on over to the website to see more about all of these suppressors and to pick one for yourself!

Until next time, keep your powder dry!

Bulletin Board

What is a “Neilson Device” or “Booster” needed for?

by libertyadmin

December 1, 2022

silencer booster assembly — A parade of silencer boosters showing the various revisions over the years.

The Neilson device has several names in the silencer industry. They go by Neilson device, for the person who invented it, they are also known as “Boosters”, Linear Decouplers, or LIDs (Linear Inertia Device), but the most common name by far is booster. Now we need to clarify something here too. These devices do not add recoil back to the system as the name implies. It is actually quite the opposite and I hope to explain that here.

Cutaway booster assembly — Cut-away view of a booster assembly showing how the internal parts are located.

The point of the booster is to allow the host firearm to work properly with the additional mass of the silencer to be on the end of the barrel. The pistol is not engineered with the mass in place so we have to figure out how to get it to work with the existing engineering. The early days solved this problem with silencers that were super lightweight. and then the gun was modified with extra lightweight springs to allow for cyclic operation even with the reduced recoil of the host weapon with the silencer attached. You see almost all pistol caliber handguns made in the modern era are made from what is known at the “Browning” design where the barrel moves back and down to unlock from the slide so the gun can self load the next round in the magazine.

pistol silencer booster — Here is the barrel is “locked” with the slide on the pistol creating a locked breech.

The problem with silencers is that they reduce the amount of recoil the pistol sees and most of the time will reduce it to the point that the pistol will not function properly on its own. The solution is two pronged, one is to not use a silencer, the other is to decouple the silencer somehow to allow the pistol to function properly. Option one is not great as the point is to have the silencer… So how do we solve this? Add a recoil “booster” to the equation.

pistol booster silencer barrel unlocked — Once the barrel moves back under recoil about 1/8″ with the slide, the barrel is moved down like this, unlocking the system.

What the silencer booster actually does is really quite simple when you see it. It momentarily decouples the mass of the suppressor from the gun to allow the gun to operate as it should during he firing cycle. Imagine the magician doing the trick with the table cloth on the dinner table covered in dishes and he pulls it off the table while leaving the dishes behind. This is the same principle that the booster operates at. The gun fires, the barrel/slide combo start to move back as they should and this pulls on the booster piston which compresses the spring. Once the barrel has moved back enough to unlock, the booster will start to reset via the booster spring and this prepares the silencer for the next shot.

It is clearly visible under high speed cameras where you see the silencer booster piston leaping to the rear with the barrel and the silencer module sitting almost perfectly still for a moment (during the pistol cycle). The reason we moved to this design of coupling over the earlier idea is that this requires no modifications to the host weapon other than adding a threaded barrel if it doesn’t already have on. It is simpler and it can be applied to almost any firearm. To use a booster, it is really simple too, just get the booster with the thread pitch that fits your host weapon, screw the silencer module on the side that fits the booster threads and screw the barrel onto the side where the pistol barrel threads fit the pistol silencer booster module. It is also recommended to oil your booster somewhat as you use it at the range, we oil our booster about every 50 rounds or so with a few drops of gun oil on the spring. Basically just remove the retainer cap and squirt in a few drops of oil on the spring so the parts are not dry and screw the cap back into place hand tight. It couldn’t be simpler.

The caveat of adding the booster is that it adds several high precision parts to the system and these are also wear parts that have to be replaced from time to time. This is because of the carbon and soot from the firing of cartridges wears the mating surfaces down over time making the part fitment loose. So don’t think on a booster as a once and done purchase but rather something that wears over time between the host weapon and the silencer that is easily replaced when worn out. We have done several things to our pistol silencer booster design over the years to make it last as long as possible for the end user though and we feel this makes our booster the best choice in the industry because of these features. Some of the things our current boosters use are a stainless steel nitrided housing to resist linear wear. A stainless steel piston that resists corrosion from the moisture in the booster from firing. Chemical resistant o-ring in the retaining cap to reduce damage from the gasses produced from the gunpowder. and so fourth.

If you have any questions about your host firearm and whether you need a booster or not with it, just give us a call and we will be happy to assist you in getting the answers you need. We can be found at 706-661-6911 or at support@libertycans.net

So until next time, keep your powder dry!

Bulletin Board

9mm Silencer Consideration in 2022

by libertyadmin

November 23, 2022

Today we are talking about the world of 9mm silencer considerations and how they apply to the end user. Well… the top five considerations at least…lol. There are a lot more but for the sanctity of keeping this blog to reasonable in length, we will just do five for now.

9mm multipurpose silencer suppressor 7.62 suppressor 9mm silencer — Mystic X 9mm silencer outfitted with adapters to couple it to a Krebs AK-47 variant.

The 9mm silencer is one of the most common silencers on the market and as such can be used for many things and come in many configurations.

Top five 9mm Silencer Considerations

The list of things that we look for in a 9mm silencer are as follows:

Sound Suppression – This seems obvious, but not everyone looks at this metric first. We want the best performance for our purchase dollar and to be honest… Isnt this the reason for getting a silencer to start with? Our Mystic X and Infiniti X silencers are some of the best performing 9mm silencers available and when combined with quality sub-sonic ammunition, the performance is stellar!
Weight – The next thing we look at here is weight. Nobody wants a brick screwed onto the end of their rifle, so when we design a 9mm silencer like the Mystic X we look at the cost in weight to add features versus the sound performance added. this is where solid models in CAD software save tons of time and expense, we model them up and run evaluations on them then cut out the top designs for head to head real world silencer comparison testing. No amount of simulation software can compete with the perception of the human ear. So we look at the weight during the design phase and work the designs based on the metals we choose.
Material – Since I just mentioned it in #2, let’s go ahead and talk about the material next. We have used all sorts of metal in the past to make our suppressors with, but over time we have slowly settled on just a few materials because of cost versus performance of each of the metals we use now. Titanium is our most costly metal we use at this time.,,well by volume at least. It is super strong, super rigid and super light weight. It doesn’t hold up to ablative abrasion as good as some others though. 17-4 PH Stainless Steel is the next metal and it takes weight for cost with titanium. more cost effective, but heavier is the biggest problem we are looking at most of time in the lab. The next metal is 300 series stainless steel, this choice is great where cost is a problem but it trades cost for weight AND strength, so if the solution doesnt require a light weight super strong design, this one is a great choice. Lots of silencers on the market are made from this grade of stainless steel. Next is aluminum alloys, these alloys are almost universally used in rimfire silencers and pistol caliber silencers as the pressures are low enough to not cause material failure in the aluminum. This metal is not really suitable for rifle use in the United States since the cost in money and time is so great here. There are other metals, but these are the most common for us.
Multi-role use – The 9mm silencer of today needs to be able to fill roles other than its namesake. Our Mystic X family of silencers are all rated for many calibers other than the native markings on the suppressor. This gives the end user the most diverse option list possible when it comes to platforms that the silencer is effective on. This metric is why we recommend people get one the Mystic X suppressors for their first silencer as it allows them to try it out on lots of host weapons for the cost of one unit. Then once they find a specific use case that rises to the top, so to speak, then we can work with the user in choosing a role specific model for that one job freeing up the Mystic X for other tasks.
Cost – We all know that silencers in the USA are costly to get in the form of time, money and peace of mind. These three factors contribute greatly to the decision on which suppressor to choose for the first one or even 2nd or 3rd addition at some point… So this is balanced with our cans by having the same model available in more than one metal choice. Like the Mystic X and the Infiniti X are essentially identical other than metal choice. This gives the user the choice of lighter weight at great monetary cost or heavier and less monetary expenditure.

mystic x 9mm silencer — The 9mm silencer of today is adaptable to many calibers and firearms.

As you can see, the thinking behind making a 9mm silencer is not so cut and dried. If you have a favorite host firearm like a Sig P226 or a 9mm AR1-15 Carbine or even a 357 lever gun, then give us a call we are here to help you keep those guns quiet!

If you want to know more, email us at support@libertycans.net or call us at 706-661-6911 and until next time, keep your powder dry…