Lots of opinions are gonna fly around about a lot of different cans. I'd suggest literally making a list of what you want in a suppressor, in order of importance and then doing a pro/con list list on the suppressors you're interested in.
When someone says that they really like the supressor they got, I'd really like to know why. Is it flash signature, sound signature, weight, ease of cleaning, etc.
I don't know of any suppressor that does it all equally well. Actually liking one suppressor over another is very subjective.
One thing that I want to note about suppressor sound reduction is that it isn't always just about decibel level. What I've found to be more important is the tone of the sound signature. I think that most find lower tones to be more pleasing to the ear.
As I mentioned above, I really like my Fat Cat for its sound reduction, flash reduction and size. If you're considering something like a Polonium, at least try to check out the Fat Cat. The difference between the two for me was the tone. The Fat Cat had a more pleasing tone, to me.
As for all of the flow through cans, is anyone aware of any sort of comparison between any 2, after a lot of rounds? Is there a decrease in effectiveness as the round count rises?
I'd like to see something like a "life with an XYZ can" video that examines long term performance. My experience with cleaning the baffle stack cans that I have, after several thousand rounds, leads me to wonder if there could be a long term problem with flow through cans, due to the small duct work within those cans. Do they get clogged? If so, how hard is it to get them unclogged?
Will a $1500 flow through can that was great out of the box perform the same after 5k rounds?
I think these are good points/ questions.
Even as everyone's ears are different, the why a person likes their suppressor is important. For me and my ARs, not having stuff belch out the ejection port is the most important thing; so for me, its (very) low back pressure cans. Short of a windy day with a tail wind, It doesn't take many quick shots to be in a cloud of gas.
HUX-then-OSS was the first/ one of the first to do it well and I jumped into their muzzle devises. Call it "informed Kool-Aid drinking." From my experience and web-watching, they still do the low back pressure *very* well. But it is true, I had to take the cons with the pros.
Their HUB adaptor has allowed me to branch out and try other options.
As to the lifespan of a flow through/printed can... maybe it's like shooting a 2011. It has more quirks and just takes a little more TLC, and if one isn't inclined toward that, stick with convention baffle cans and deal with their cons.
Of the high flow cans, most recommend cleaning well before the 5k round count (which I assume you randomly picked for the point of that question of longevity. ) But there are so many soak-only cleaning options now that cleaning seems an easier and safer process than it used to be. It may have been on Reddit a few years back when the FLOWs just came out and I kept seeing a HUX rep constantly reply that their cans didn't have a life span of 10,000 rounds when cleaned properly; everyone was posting their disappointment that these fans new expensive cans had such a short life.
A few weeks ago, before a ~1000 round weekend, I preemptively soaked the FLOW 762 Ti for 9 hours (It was likely well short of HUX's recommended ~2500 rounds. Gunk came out. Gunk shot out the first dozen rounds and then it was fine and with no noticeable sparking during one of the night shoots with IR.
If I'm recalling the manual correctly, PTR's instructions say to soak the muzzle end every 500 rounds or so to keep the printed porous "sponge" stuff clear in addition to a full cleaning at the next interval. I wonder how missing that low-count cleaning might mess with the suppression.
I agree a controlled experiment with 2 identical flow thru suppressors would be awesome. But not awesome enough to volunteer.
Sunday afternoon ramblings...
