Ok, Who Shot My Silencer? No, Seriously.
Ever have one of those kind of days? You know, when everything starts out great and then somehow ends up in a pile of garbage? Well, a frequent poster in the silencer section of AR15.com can relate. He recently had two serious suppressor malfunctions on a single range trip. Seriously.
This particular shooter started off with some bolt action work using his Remington 700 and SilencerCo Specwar 762. After one trigger pull, he was blasted in the face with powder and the silencer was launched down range. The cause and result was both baffle and encap strikes.
After a short break, he picked up his Ruger American mounted with a SilencerCo Spectre II and proceeded to have a catastrophic failure. As you can see from the images, this wasn’t a “normal” baffle strike: this was an “I’m lucky to have all my fingers” type of kaboom.
Or was it? Let’s take a look.
So, any guesses as to what’s going on here? I’ll give you a hint, this wasn’t a structural failure.
Turns out, this silencer’s owner left his rifle sitting on the bench when he went to grab a drink of water. HIs buddy decides to do some pistol work, braced on the bench. With his sight picture over the bore line, he evidently didn’t realize the path of his bullet would impact items on the shooting bench. Such as his friend’s rifle with a silencer attached.
Not noticing the damage when he returned from his refreshment, he sat behind his rifle and squeezed off a round, experiencing what he thought was a kaboom.
Lessons learned:
- Know an practice all the rules of gun safety.
- Police your shooting position, making sure it’s free of debris and obstacles.
- Height over bore. It’s a real thing.
- Lecture, warn or otherwise get better friends.
- Drinking water kills .22LR Silencers.
SilencerCo, known for excellent customer service, is examining both suppressors to determine repair or replacement strategies.
The fate of the “friend” remains unknown.
Be safe everyone.
Silencers - Science Pete@thefirearmblog.com
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6. Check your guns before pulling the trigger to ensure some doofus hasn't put a bullet through them.
From the article description, this could only have happened if either the rifle owner violated safety guidelines & left his rifle [w silencer attached] lying *across* the bench instead of pointed w/ the muzzle down-range, or the friend was working at an extreme angle on other people's targets instead of the one in front of him. Either way, they're both doofi [that's the plural of "doofus," in case you wondered... ;-) ]