The Sound of Silence
SOF Likes it Dark and Quiet, Weapons
Suppressors Help Keep Them Happy.
by Michael Burnett, SOTECH Correspondent
Some non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in a Reserve unit associated with USSOCOM participated in a study with their command and Gemtech of Boise, Idaho. The NCOs, who were considered poor shooters, each received a Gemtech suppressor and went to their practice range to test their skills.
The company found that the use of suppressors improved the shooting of the NCOs significantly. They wasted about 50 percent less ammo and cut their training time by two-thirds, estimated Kel Whelan, Gemtech government and industry liaison.
“These guys could suddenly shoot when they weren’t flinching from the flash. That has nothing to do with being spooky special forces; it’s just a good training tool,” Whelan told Special Operations Technology.
Suppressors, once thought of as something allotted only for stealth missions for special forces, have become widely used in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—and often for reasons other than sneaking up on the enemy. Modern suppressors muzzle the sound of a shot and hide the flash of bullet from the enemy, true, but they also protect the hearing of the troops and facilitate communications among warfighters, Whelan declared.
“They are excellent for hearing protection. If you are going to be shooting at people in caves in Afghanistan, you might want to muffle the gun. You are going to deafen yourself and the rest of your team,” he explained. “If you are teaching shooters how to shoot, you might have a muffler on the weapon so that you can instruct them without yelling yourself hoarse.”
For many active duty troops, Gemtech supplies suppressors for M4s and M16s. The company also supplies suppressors for pistols, but those still remain largely the domain of special operators, Whelan noted.
“As far as what they want out of a suppressor, everybody always asks for the same things. They want a lot of flash reduction and a lot of signature reduction. Sound isn’t all of it. They may be more concerned with making certain they don’t have a visible signature,” he said.
Gemtech manufactures suppressor for a range of rifles. It generally makes two different versions of its suppressors. One is a quick-disconnect model that fits on a proprietary flash hider. Military units can mount the anti-flash on their barrels and connect the sound suppressor to it. Once the proprietary flash hider is attached, the sound suppressor comes off and on quickly and easily.
However, many troops prefer the Gemtech Halo suppressor, which universally connects to the standard NATO flash hider. Although it is slower to attach, more warfighters prefer it because it has greater interoperability with other guns.
“The Halo is more popular because you don’t have to switch from gun to gun or you don’t have to switch the gun with the special mount,” Whelan stated. “There are advantages to having a special mount, but when you have 19-year-old Marines swapping rifles around and taking them out of the armory, you just want something that is going to fit every gun coming out of the armory without modification.”
Interestingly, many improvements in suppressor technology were introduced into the U.S. military through the activation of Reserve soldiers and Marines who had been serving in law enforcement prior to 9/11, Whelan remarked. Special operators mostly had used larger and less effective suppressors in the 1990s. But law enforcement agencies, with more flexibility to buy advanced suppressors in smaller quantities, had obtained improved suppressors for their units as the technology had improved.
So police officers and the like who returned to active duty found that the suppressors fielded by the military weren’t necessarily as good as those they had used back home.
“We have seen it come from the bottom up over the last five years,” Whelan said. “A lot of law enforcement agents entered the military around 9/11 and they had seen a lot of improvements in suppressor design. The military still had the older, heavier ones that weren’t as quiet. Reserve units and guys using unit funds with small contracts purchased advanced suppressors better than some of the special operations guys had.”
EVALUATING SUPPRESSORS
Surefire LLC., Fountain Valley, Calif., is the world’s largest manufacturer of sound suppressors. SOTECH recently chatted with SureFire’s director of military sales, Jamie Wiedeman, about the characteristics of a good suppressor.
“USSOCOM leads the way with evaluating suppressors and adopting new technology. Some of the current suppressors in use by special operations forces are literally built on technology that is more than 20 years old,” Wiedeman stated. “We have been able to improve the performance, improve the durability, and reduce the weight. These improvements make suppressors a convenience rather than a liability.”
A good suppressor will usually increase accuracy of a weapon. For example, the SureFire FA556-212 suppressor enhances the accuracy of a projectile by stripping the propellant gas from around the projectile as it exits the suppressor. This performance comes in a relatively small compact size, adding only 4.3 inches to the length of an M4.
“One of the SureFire suppressors currently under contract with U.S. Army Special Operations Command is eight ounces lighter than the suppressor it replaced,” Wiedeman reported. That is a significant weight savings appreciated by the operators.
High performance suppressors have more characteristics than just being lightweight. Durability, accuracy, repeatability, and point of impact shift should be evaluated. The suppressor should be able to endure the weapon manufacturer’s maximum rate of fire without a loss in performance. A task that is easier said than accomplished. Any suppressor intended for military use must be able to survive a worst case scenario because that is how the military tests weapons.
“We use a high-temperature alloy in the construction of our suppressors. Each suppressor component is built with a specific alloy for the intended application. We have tested and selected the best material for each part of our suppressors, so they can take the heat,” Wiedeman commented.
In addition, suppressors must maintain a minimal point of impact shift when installed. In the past, many warfighters using suppressors were required to compensate for the impact shift caused by their suppressor because the point of impact shift is not consistent with all suppressors. Operators were required to constantly check their point of impact before each mission.
“SureFire has a very slight impact shift, if any, from suppressed to unsuppressed,” Wiedeman revealed. “No matter how many times you take the suppressor on and off, it is going to return to zero. That comes from the high tolerances that we maintain during the manufacturing process.”
Of course, in the final scrutiny, suppressors must minimize sound and flash. According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, hearing damage begins to occur at 140 dB, so Sure- Fire aims to make suppressors that attenuate sound below that level. The company’s M4 carbine suppressors reduce the sound of gunfire to 134-136 dB, or low enough to avoid the hearing damage sustained from unsuppressed fire.
What’s more, some suppressors actually enhance the flash as they heat up, causing secondary eruptions that equate to an increased flash signature. Flash reduction is a primary concern when designing a suppressor at SureFire. A suppressor’s ability to hide flash is not only important so that U.S. warfighters can conceal their locations from enemy forces but it also benefits their fellow soldiers.
“On the battlefield at night, it is hard to tell where a shot is coming from. But if you have that visual flash signature to key on, it immediately allows the enemy to pinpoint the firing positions,” Wiedeman said. “Similarly, during the daytime the muzzle blast can create a cloud of dust that gives away the position. With the suppressor you have a reduced sound at the shooters position, but the enemy hears the supersonic shock wave (crack of the bullet) as it travels faster than the speed of sound. When there is no visible flash, the crack of the bullet can be confusing to the enemy. They will look to where the bullet passed them, and that could be 90 degrees off from the shooter’s location. Without a visible signature to key on, it is extremely difficult to find out where the fire came from at night.” The modern military is very interested in signature reduction.
All of these characteristics mentioned are individually addressed and extensively researched by SureFire. Every product that comes out of the company’s Suppressor Division gets rounds put through it and is held to the highest quality standards. Any product that does not meet the strictest of tolerances is destroyed.
SUPPRESSOR EVOLUTION
Soon after USSOCOM started up at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., it awarded its very first contract to Knight’s Armament Co., based in Titusville, Fla. Since that time, Knight’s Armament has been a steadfast supplier for USSOCOM. It’s first suppressor contract came from a competition between Knight’s Armament and H&K, Knight’s Armament CEO C. Reed Knight told SOTECH.
“We teamed with a group at that time, which used a Colt gun, and we built the silencer for the Colt contender. And H&K built a silencer for their contender. At the first down-select, they chose the H&K gun and they chose our suppressor. Then we teamed with H&K and built the suppressor for their gun,” Knight recalled. “That became the Mark 23 offensive handgun and suppressor. It pushed the state of the art at that point to a level that has not really changed since then,” Knight stated.”
With that contract win, suppressors changed dramatically. Knight’s Armament got into the business of making suppressors when it offered Navy SEALs an alternative to Smith and Wesson Hush Puppy silencers in the 1970s.
“We improved that technology and put it on a Beretta frame. The Beretta had a stronger, more reliable extractor that improved that technology,” Knight remarked. “The Hush Puppy had a rubber wipe system. You would use a package about the size of a roll of quarters. It had rubber spacers in it, and you would shoot the bullet through that rubber. It would close up behind the bullet, and it would keep the gases within the silencer.”
Improvements were necessary, however, as the suppressors had a short shelf life and couldn’t use all kinds of ammunition. They also altered the trajectory of bullets that passed through the rubber of the silencer. Beginning in 1982, Knight’s Armament built more advanced suppressors when it met a requirement from the U.S. Navy to make suppressors for M16s.
Knight has also won the suppressor contract for USSOCOM’s M4 rifles. Over the past 15 years, the compnay has delivered perhaps 50,000 M4 suppressors to USSOCOM.
“Our claim to fame is that we really know how to manufacture them,” Knight declared. “We’ve built 50,000 suppressors and received less than a dozen back that had any problems. Our manufacturing methods are phenomenal.”
“We build them to be very durable,” he continued. “That’s the main thing. You can build them lighter and build them smaller, but you cannot build them lighter and smaller and more durable, so that’s kind of a tradeoff from what the customer wants.”
And although customers want lighter and smaller suppressors, manufacturers must consider that a suppressor acts as a heat sink, Knight noted. It becomes impossible to dissipate the heat without enough surface area.
QUIET RIFLES
Special operators also make use of special weapons. FN Herstal, for instance, manufactures the Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle (SCAR), which comes in specialized light (5.56x44 mm ammunition) and heavy (7.62x51 mm) versions for warfighters. Advanced Armament Corp.,based in Norcross, Ga., produces suppressors for both models.
The company’s SCAR-SD silencer provides reliably repeatable zero shift for the point of impact when firing SCAR rifles, according to Advanced Armament. Warfighters can attach the SCAR-SD quickly. It is lightweight and durable, manufactured of a high-pressure aerospace alloy via fusion welding.
The SCAR-H SD, designed for the heavy SCAR, uses the company’s MITER System (multi-indexing for targeting at extended Range), an adjustable zero-shift fast-attach silencer mounting system. The system’s Blackout flash eliminator enables operators to fire undetected, according to Advanced Armament.
The famous North Hollywood shootout inspired law enforcement agencies to move toward military-grade weaponry, Rob Silvers, a research and development specialist at Advanced Armament, told SOTECH. In the course of the 1997 shootout, the Los Angeles Police Department confronted two heavily armed robbers whose firepower significantly outmatched their own.
“There has been a change from pistol caliber things like MP5s to things more like the M4 rifles used by the military,” Silvers commented. “After the North Hollywood bank robber shootout, there has been a concern that sometimes the bad guys wear body armor.
The downside to switching to a rifle caliber is that they are far louder,” he continued. “If you were to discharge an M4 rifle in a building, then the officer as well as the criminals or the hostages or bystanders could suffer hearing damage. After the first shot, you might not be able to hear someone surrender. You might not be able to issue commands to the suspect you are pursuing. They might not understand you.”
So military and law enforcement personnel alike seek out appropriate suppressors as a means of facilitating communication while not disrupting operations. Military customers have been seeking suppressors for AR15 and M16 rifles lately, Silvers reported.
“What’s been very popular has been quick detach models that mount to a special flash suppressor. So you replace your flash suppressor with a dedicated one that incorporates a sound suppressor mount in it. Then you can quickly attach or detach it,” Silvers said.
“Even if it is not important for you to do it quickly, there are additional benefits to that type of mount because screw-on thread mounts tend to unscrew when you shoot. That’s very unnerving. It’s the last thing you want to worry about. The quick detach mount is very positive and it cannot unscrew. The evolution has been in the reliability of mounting system more so than simply making it quieter.”
The Blackout flash suppressor mount is the most efficient flash suppressor ever made, Silvers asserted. The suppressor allows virtually no flash signature even with a barrel as long as 10 inches and even when using ammunition with no flash retardant powder.
As for the future, suppressor manufacturers will continue to seek ways to make their suppressors even lighter weight than they currently are. They also will seek to minimize suppressor impact on the balance and length of rifles.
“On the technical side, we want to have no effect on the viability of the rifle, especially semi or fully automatic ones. You have to pay special attention on how it affects the cyclic rate. We are conscious of that and we have designed our products to be as reliable as possible,” Silvers said. ♦