Viability of suppressor only gas ports?

[SmElly]

Is there any reason your average tactical Timmy would want/need to retain non suppressed functionality on an SBR? I'm struggling to come up with a reason. Are suppressor failures common enough to reasonably consider?

I'd also be curious to know yall's thoughts on suppressor driven rifles for duty.

 

[Chriscanbreach]

My personal opinion is that all police rifles should be equipped with and only shot with suppressors.

I guess choice of suppressor would determine how it’s tuned and whether it functions unsuppressed reliably but tuning it to the bleeding edge of functioning doesn’t really seem necessary and the suppressed functionality would be primary.

Acceptable barrel lengths and weight for your mission and environment can be controlled by choice as well so nothing changes there.

What’s an average tactical Timmy? I guess if we define that we can better figure it out.

 

[SmElly]

My personal opinion is that all police rifles should be equipped with and only shot with suppressors.

I guess choice of suppressor would determine how it’s tuned and whether it functions unsuppressed reliably but tuning it to the bleeding edge of functioning doesn’t really seem necessary and the suppressed functionality would be primary.

Acceptable barrel lengths and weight for your mission and environment can be controlled by choice as well so nothing changes there.

What’s an average tactical Timmy? I guess if we define that we can better figure it out.

Thank you for the response.

Assuming the port was tuned to the suppressor to have an acceptable reliability envelope, do you see any disadvantage to the idea of having a rifle that will be taken outside that envelope without the suppressor?

"Whats an average tactical timmy?"
Lets say the average P&S forum goer who isnt LE or military personnel, who's mission for their rifle would be regular training, defense of their property under extreme circumstances at most, and simple bump in the night at least. Hopefully Im making sense.

 

[Chriscanbreach]

I’d call myself an experienced end user and not an expert on setting up ARs to run suppressed.

Guns that run reliably unsuppressed tend to run fine suppressed in my experience even if they are gassy and that’s just an unfortunate side effect. It seems the easiest fix to slowing down the bolt is a buffer swap.

Our team guns have OSS cans and there’s really no change from how they shoot with the can on or off and that was a big reason in our choice to use them a few years ago.

Another local agency has suppressors on every rifle from swat to patrol.

I think if I had only one rifle I’d prefer the option to shoot it without the can and not have to worry about reliability, but in any self defense case I’d want the suppressor without question.
Modern cans are built quite well so I wouldn’t worry about wearing it out and proper maintenance should have it last a lifetime for the average shooter.

I don’t think I’ve given the best answer you’re going to get here but I’ll finish with this opinion. The only downside I can see to having a port that’s very specific to being suppressed only is the likely malfunctions you’ll deal with while training unsuppressed. But outside of specific training I’m assuming you’d have it suppressed the rest of the time.

 

[SmElly]

I’d call myself an experienced end user and not an expert on setting up ARs to run suppressed.

Guns that run reliably unsuppressed tend to run fine suppressed in my experience even if they are gassy and that’s just an unfortunate side effect. It seems the easiest fix to slowing down the bolt is a buffer swap.

Our team guns have OSS cans and there’s really no change from how they shoot with the can on or off and that was a big reason in our choice to use them a few years ago.

Another local agency has suppressors on every rifle from swat to patrol.

I think if I had only one rifle I’d prefer the option to shoot it without the can and not have to worry about reliability, but in any self defense case I’d want the suppressor without question.
Modern cans are built quite well so I wouldn’t worry about wearing it out and proper maintenance should have it last a lifetime for the average shooter.

I don’t think I’ve given the best answer you’re going to get here but I’ll finish with this opinion. The only downside I can see to having a port that’s very specific to being suppressed only is the likely malfunctions you’ll deal with while training unsuppressed. But outside of specific training I’m assuming you’d have it suppressed the rest of the time.

Makes sense, much appreciated!

If you dont mind, why the strong preference for a suppressor while fighting? The benefit to one's health is obvious, but I'm curious if you've observed any other advantages.

 

[Chriscanbreach]

Benefits to my health/ hearing as well as hostages and teammates. The benefit of not having other shooters flinch. And the ability to tell it’s us shooting and not the bad guy.

I’ve got pretty good hearing damage from an incident in a car and wish I was suppressed at the time.

Just my opinion and experience.

 

[Greg "Sully" Sullivan]

Making a dedicated suppressed rifle with small port has been done for decades. What has been done many times to make a dedicated suppressed rifle with a small gas port (without going to a custom made barrel), is to cut down a 14.5" or 16" barrel that has a .063" gas port, then attach a suppressor. If this is what you are thinking, this will work but you may find that there are variables that come into play that may cause you to have to readjust things.

How a rifle and ammunition performs is based on many things like the three types of ballistic considerations of internal, external, and terminal performance. The type of ammunition used will need to be taken into account, as there is a huge difference between .233 and 5.56 when timing a rifle. There is also a difference between manufacturers, and specific loads. A suppressed rifle if being used for LE/MIL duty purposes should be tuned and zeroed for their duty ammunition and not training ammunition if they are different, and done so in the environment they are being used.

The environment that the rifle and ammunition is being used in will also come into play, as there are things like cold and hot weather that effects ammunition performance, and altitude as well. Take a look at many of the competition shooters that have race guns that are specifically built to run light loads, so they get almost no recoil. Then you see that same shooter and race gun on a range where the weather has changed, or the range is at a different altitude, and they are experiencing a gun that is now become unreliable in cycling.

So if you live and shoot in a place where the weather is the same year round, and you shoot the same ammunition always, you would be fine with a dedicated smaller gas port. If you live where you see snow in the winter, and hot summers, then a small dedicated gas port may not be the best option imho.

My personal preference is to keep with stock sizes of gas ports like .081" on a 11.5" barrel, then if needed I can always change out buffers or action springs to retune if needed. The traditional baffle stack type suppressors keep chamber pressures swelled longer, so you often times have to slow the unlocking cycle. When using the flow through type suppressors like the OSS, we find that we don't need to adjust timing cycles as we are not experiencing back pressure like on the baffle stack type suppressors.


CY6
Greg Sullivan "Sully"
SLR15 Rifles
TheDefensiveEdge.com
(763) 712-0123

 

[SmElly]

Making a dedicated suppressed rifle with small port has been done for decades. What has been done many times to make a dedicated suppressed rifle with a small gas port (without going to a custom made barrel), is to cut down a 14.5" or 16" barrel that has a .063" gas port, then attach a suppressor. If this is what you are thinking, this will work but you may find that there are variables that come into play that may cause you to have to readjust things.

How a rifle and ammunition performs is based on many things like the three types of ballistic considerations of internal, external, and terminal performance. The type of ammunition used will need to be taken into account, as there is a huge difference between .233 and 5.56 when timing a rifle. There is also a difference between manufacturers, and specific loads. A suppressed rifle if being used for LE/MIL duty purposes should be tuned and zeroed for their duty ammunition and not training ammunition if they are different, and done so in the environment they are being used.

The environment that the rifle and ammunition is being used in will also come into play, as there are things like cold and hot weather that effects ammunition performance, and altitude as well. Take a look at many of the competition shooters that have race guns that are specifically built to run light loads, so they get almost no recoil. Then you see that same shooter and race gun on a range where the weather has changed, or the range is at a different altitude, and they are experiencing a gun that is now become unreliable in cycling.

So if you live and shoot in a place where the weather is the same year round, and you shoot the same ammunition always, you would be fine with a dedicated smaller gas port. If you live where you see snow in the winter, and hot summers, then a small dedicated gas port may not be the best option imho.

My personal preference is to keep with stock sizes of gas ports like .081" on a 11.5" barrel, then if needed I can always change out buffers or action springs to retune if needed. The traditional baffle stack type suppressors keep chamber pressures swelled longer, so you often times have to slow the unlocking cycle. When using the flow through type suppressors like the OSS, we find that we don't need to adjust timing cycles as we are not experiencing back pressure like on the baffle stack type suppressors.


CY6
Greg Sullivan "Sully"
SLR15 Rifles
TheDefensiveEdge.com
(763) 712-0123

Great response. Thank you for your time!

 

[Tropleo]

To piggyback on what Sully just said, cuz frankly nothing much else really needs to be said, with current ammo availability the more finicky you build a rifle (or any firearms for that matter) the less wiggle room you have in regard to what ammo it likes to eat. Personally, I would rather have a gun that will reliability shoot damn near any ammo I am able to get my hands on, both suppressed and unsuppresed.