Welcome everyone to the TFB Armorer’s Bench! As mentioned in the little blurb below, this series will focus on a lot of home armorer and gunsmith activities. I recently had the absolute pleasure of touring the Silencer Central headquarters in Sioux Falls South Dakota. Besides making kick-butt products they also have the distinction of being one of the most user-friendly and customer-focused silencer companies. One such way they show this off is that they offer a streamlined barrel threading service. Despite them having offered this for years (well before they took up the namesake of Silencer Central), most folks I talk to did not even know they offered this service. That being said, today I will share what I saw and my own experience getting a barrel threaded by the kind folks at Silencer Central. Let’s dive right in!

Silencer Central @ TFB:

• SILENCER SATURDAY #293: Silencer Central Summer – Banish Silencers -August Recap
• SILENCER SATURDAY #291: Pistoling with the Silencer Central Banish 46
• SILENCER SATURDAY #290: Universal Big Bore – Silencer Central Banish 46
• TFB Behind The Gun Podcast #73: SilencerCo & Silencer Central Talk Shop with Pete
• SILENCER SATURDAY #278: Silencer Central Banish 45

TFB Armorer’s Bench: Silencer Central Barrel Threading

Here, we at TFB hope to inform, entertain, and even inspire any would-be gunsmith or armorer out there. Ideally, with the information I provide and with the help of our sponsors, you can have some useful knowledge pertaining to the conservation and improvement of firearms technology while at the same time sharing experiences and teaching each other new tips and tricks along the way in the comments. Digging deep into what it is to be an armorer or gunsmith has significance but what is important is what those people do to show they’ve earned that title. I am happy to share my experiences and knowledge and hope it is informative!

Make your personal safety a priority:

1. Practice proper gun safety. Always make sure before the firearm hits your bench that it is unloaded and safe to be handled.
2. Wear the proper safety equipment. The main one would be safety glasses (decent ones) since parts are often under spring tension and you may work with high RPM tools. Other honorable mentions would be latex gloves or a respirator when working with potentially harmful solvents and oils. Also hearing protection when working with loud machinery or test-firing firearms.
3. Modifications, alterations, and customizations will void your firearm’s warranty 9.5 times out of 10. Please take that into consideration before attempting any at-home gunsmithing.
4. If you are unsure about proper safety practices, disassembly procedures, or warranty standards, stop, put down the tools, and consult a competent gunsmith.

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The Service: Silencer Central Barrel Threading

Silencer Central makes the barrel threading process incredibly convenient – you simply ship them your barreled rifle action and they take care of the rest. Their in-house machinists are experts at cutting threads precisely to match popular thread patterns. Turnaround is fast, as they thread barrels in high volumes each week. Best of all, Silencer Central’s threading service costs barely more than buying the tools and doing it yourself.

Silencer Central takes pride in doing top-notch barrel threading with attention to detail. They thread each barrel on their specialty CNC lathe right in their shop, carefully matching the threads to your chosen suppressor. Their gunsmiths are meticulous and experienced, having threaded MANY (~5000 a year) barrels over the years. You can trust Silencer Central to do quality, precision threading work and ensure your suppressor fits perfectly on your newly threaded barrel.

My Experience

Since I knew I was headed to Silencer Central HQ, fellow TFB writer Adam S and I coordinated ahead of time with the kind folks who would be hosting us to get some barrels threaded. I am sure Adam will be writing about his experience either here or over at Allloutdoor.com so I will not divulge too much conjecture on his experience. I will just say he brought a PKM barrel to be shortened and threaded while I brought a more mundane Savage MK II 22LR barreled action.

We dropped off our barrels the day we arrived and they were ready to go home basically the next day. During our HQ tour, we got to take a peek behind the scenes and see the magic happening in real time. Their spacious shop is full of benches and hand tools as well as a Grizzly mill and lathe. The real cherry on top is their CNC machine which does the bulk of their machining tasks. The Grizzly machines as I was informed were for pesky hard to rig jobs that need a more custom touch.

The crew there was a chipper bunch that did their jobs without any sweat. It was nice to see such a well-oiled crew go to work and get things done. We walked in as they were prepping a barrel to be threaded. It took them a few minutes to set it up in the CNC lathe and boom it was off to the races. That barrel looked like it was done (entering the shop to leaving the shop) in around 10 minutes. Overall everything was extremely impressive and it appeared well cared for all along the way.

Final Thoughts

All threaded barrels are fitted with a free thread protector and are shipped back to their owners in a plain black Silencer Central long gun case. I had the chance to see what appeared to be a stockpile of barrels getting ready to ship back to their homes. The bottom line here that I would like to get across, as a gunsmith I can thread a barrel, the tools to do so in my little shop (which lacks any large machines) would cost me around $200. The time it would take me to do that I would say costs the same.

That being said the service plus the care and free thread protector/case is well worth the $125 that it costs to get your barrel threaded. I would highly recommend going through them if you need a barrel threaded and if you have any questions, requests, or concerns EVERY Silencer Central employee I overheard talking to customers on the phone was extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and accommodating. Very impressed with the whole affair. More on my tour to come. Check them out!

As always, thank you for reading TFB! Be safe out there, have fun while shooting, and we will see you next time for the TFB Armorer’s Bench! Also, let us know what you think in the comments below! We always appreciate your feedback.