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Rimfire silencerco knowledge help

Simonsza1

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Feb 27, 2014
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Posted here since rimfire specific. Would the performance of the switchback 22 or the sparrow be better for precision 22lr shooting. Only curious about silencerco brand no others. Hoping for some factual knowledge on this and not opinions. Thanks.
 
Tuners change the POI of 22lr rounds. Silencers become a fluctuating weight on the end of your gun. As much as I have tried to shoot suppressed and get good results; the suppressor seems to always make my groups less consistent. Sico or other brand cans too. Test and good luck....
 
I’d take the sparrow over the switch back. Sparrow monocore doesn’t dump as much crap back down the barrel and bolt when you rack it between stages. If you’re not shooting in matches where you have to rack your rifle vertically between stages, then being able to “maybe” positively change tune by varying the switchbacks weight configuration “might” be beneficial. Lot of ifs there as every barrel reacts different and you have to do the testing to find out. About half the guys I shoot with that used suppressors in rimfire have since quit using them for matches.

I’ve given up running rimfire cans with conical baffles for the previously stated reason. Once in a while I will use my sparrow, but ANY weight on your barrel changes harmonics and thus your tune. It is just easier to stay consistent without the can in my particular case. If I was going to use a can then I would use it all the time without fail to remain consistent. I just get tired of cleaning them, they do fill up with a lot of carbon and that is constantly changing it’s weight if you are lazy like me and don’t clean often.

Tuners work. I shot ARA benchrest for years and was able to tune my anschutz into the high zero’s at an indoor range at 50 yards off a one piece rest setup. Too bad I could never get those results outdoors for sanctioned matches. Tried playing with 3 different suppressors with a vudoo at the same indoor range and setup and results were all over the place. Only one of the three did good groups as good as or better than bare barrel, all the others were worse to ok in varying degrees. I’ll see if I can dig up that info.

Spectre II internals at around 1800-2000 rounds. This was a bitch to clean and pissed me off enough to fabricate some hand held mirror image aluminum scrapers and holders for future cleanings. I am not a believer in the “dip” or boiling in vinegar as lead acetate is a toxic hazard I don’t want to be exposed to.
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Tuned anschutz 1710 results at 50 yards indoor shot off one piece rest setup, final tune. Documented in @jbell 6x5 rimfire thread. Groups are 5 round groups and took about 3 hours and around 350 rounds of testing as I did neither the purdy or hopewell methods and just ran every setting on the tuner. Amazing what moving the tuner weight .030” will do to group size.

Suppressor tests off same rest and indoor range but with a kukri contour vudoo. Groups are 10 rounds. As in the previous picture the measuring calipers are set with a .220” zero. Thread protector, bare muzzle, and 3 different can results grouped by color. Not a particularly good batch of center x ammo for that rifle, but was what I had at the time. That rifle liked eley force a lot better. However, you can draw your own conclusions.
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Apparently I’m in a yappy mood tonight. A couple more pictures of the one piece rest used for these tests for both the anschutz and vudoo. And a couple more of just how much crap accumulates in a rimfire suppressor and the tools I made to hold and scrape the spectre baffles. These are to show the precision used and just how much your can is going to change in weight. If .030” of an inch made that big of a difference in the previous post, imagine what all this lead carbon crap is doing to your harmonics.
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Those are some fancy tools! Ever thought about selling a set? I have switchback and sprectre 2 I use most often. Usually after a couple hundred rounds I put them in the wet tumbler with ss pins. It cleans them up pretty good but I don't let them get that bad. I have quit wet cleaning aluminum baffles in the tumbler with pins as it removes aluminum too.
 
I have a Switchback and love it - love the versatility - use it with my Vudoo, and handguns and it has been great - no POI shift on my Vudoo or noticeable loss of accuracy... but I am not weighing my ammo or anything for extreme accuracy - just shooting nice groups at 100 and 200 yards.

I do clean mine, and I don't wait for thousands of rounds - if you clean it every 3-5 hundred it is easy as you don't have a ton of build up.

I bought it because of the multiple configs but most of the time I just leave it full size... so I guess that is a feature I have not used but given the cost of the stamp and the wait I would rather have something more versatile.
 
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