Dead Air Armament is a Utah based company that makes a number of suppressors for a variety of platforms to include rifles, handguns, and shotguns. We’re written some posts about the company but haven’t been able to get this in-depth with one of their suppressors. Along with SilencerCo (based in the same state), they are part of a growing industry of smaller companies going after a market once only populated by the big leagues of Gemtech, AAC, and Surefire to identify a few. Although Dead Air Armament has a huge variety of suppressors, at Red Oktober they were showcasing their Wolverine PBS-1 for the Kalashnikov platform. The claim to fame is that this is the first rack grade ready suppressor for the rifle platform. Your standard ComBloc Kalashnikov rifles although very reliable weren’t manufactured to standards necessary to suppressor operation. As an example many barrels are not concentric, in addition the muzzle threads on the actual barrel probably aren’t concentric either. This means that if you had a suppressor with 14.5mm threads, even if you screwed it on the rifle, you are running a very high risk of a baffle strike because the actual position of the muzzle within the barrel might not be centered, and even if it is, the threads on the muzzle might also not be centered. Thus, a baffle strike will occur.

With the Wolverine PBS-1, the company has alleviated this issue, by designing an attachment system that firmly locks the suppressor onto the muzzle, in addition to having an inner system of baffles that actually open up like a cone towards the suppressor end. This way, even with a non-concentric barrel or threading, a round is not going to strike anything within the suppressor on its way downrange. The PBS-1 nomenclature is in homage to the Soviet PBS-1 suppressors that are the original suppressors designed and used with the Kalashnikov. The way the Soviets alleviated the problem with non concentric barrels was through a system of wipes. These wipes were a 2 inch long material that the bullet actually physically passed through. After a number of rounds, the wipes would have to be replaced because the suppressor would essentially be “shot out” to the point where it wasn’t suppressing anything, and the sound from the muzzle would be as if there wasn’t any PSB-1 to begin with.

Dead Air Armament’s product will not make your Kalashnikov the quietest on the market. In order for this to happen, some serious tuning needs to be done on the actual rifle, using different gas tubes, bolts, etc… However, with the Wolverine PBS-1, if you have any stock Kalashnikov with 14.5mm or 24mm threads, you will be able to fit a suppressor on it from the box.