SureFire is best known for its high quality flashlights, with models for every purpose you can imagine and a few you probably never imagined. SureFire recently began offering a new product - a lightweight, compact, durable and highly efficient suppressor for the M4 and M16 rifles.

Suppressors (called "silencers," in movie/TV speak; "cans," by makers and users) only reduce the noise level of a shot. Suppressors cannot eliminate the loud "crack" of a supersonic missile.

I've had the opportunity to shoot some firearms which were really quiet. One was a High Standard .22 pistol with integral suppressor (identical to the one carried by pilot Francis Gary Powers when his U2 plane was shot down over the Soviet Union). Another was the darling of many SWAT teams, the HK MP5SD. Using subsonic ammunition, the loudest sound with either is the operation of the action and the brass hitting the concrete floor.

By contrast, a .223 centerfire rifle being fired with an efficient suppressor still sounds unmistakably like a shot and nothing else.

Why The Suppressed Rifle?

If it's not really silent, what's the point? After firing and seeing fired several thousand rounds through a Les Baer rifle fitted with a SureFire suppressor I've really had my eyes opened. I believe the day will come when every military and police rifle will wear a suppressor as a matter of course. Let's look at some of the advantages of suppressors, then discuss the SureFire model.

Advantage No. 1: A suppressor reduces the sound level of a rifle shot considerably. We'll start with the obvious. Firearms, especially centerfire rifles, produce a very loud report. Damage to hearing starts at sound levels above 85 decibels (dB). Sound level of 5.56 mm military ammunition is in the range of 150+ dB, depending on barrel length.

Even one shot causes damage to unprotected ears. Several shots in rapid succession cause more damage, as the ear has no time to rest or recover. Automatic weapons fire is the worst of all. The damage is progressive and irreversible.

On the range we use plugs and muffs to protect our hearing. And in the field? Well, I watch news coverage of soldiers on duty in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq and I don't see them wearing muffs, though I suppose they could be wearing plugs. If they fire their weapons without ear protection, they are going to have hearing loss.
Such loss is not inevitable. The tools and technology exist to prevent, or at least reduce, damage to hearing. It's a matter of deciding to spend the time and money to apply it.

Consider an analogy. Suppose a business told its workers, "On this job there's a good chance you're going to suffer hearing loss. Sure, there are tools available to reduce the damage, but we decided not to buy them. Too much trouble and expense, we just can't be bothered. What the heck, a little hearing loss isn't going to kill you."

Would you consider the employer's approach acceptable? Me neither. But that in effect is what we are saying to our soldiers.

Improved Effectiveness

Advantage No. 2: A quality suppressor reduces recoil. Competition shooters have demonstrated the effectiveness of compensators in reducing muzzle jump and consequently increasing the rate of aimed fire. Compensators allow powder gases to escape, making them louder than uncompensated firearms.

Suppressors are highly efficient compensators, the difference being the gases are confined and then released slowly, reducing both sound and recoil. A suppressed rifle has less muzzle jump than the same rifle in standard form, making it easier to shoot and easier to keep the target in view after firing.

Advantage No. 3: It is easier to shoot, and to teach others to shoot, a suppressed rifle. The single biggest obstacle to good shooting is flinching. Flinching is caused by anticipation of muzzle blast and recoil. Less blast means less flinching, which in turn means faster progress in training and better marksmanship in the field.

Advantage No. 4: Less noise means better communication. In the movie Black Hawk Down, there's a scene in which a soldier lets off a long burst from his squad automatic weapon (SAW), the muzzle just above a fellow soldier's head. The poor fellow grabs his ears and lets out a bellow of pain. He is temporarily disoriented and deafened, his combat effectiveness greatly reduced. That's only a movie, of course, but it presented a realistic situation.

The soldiers' guideline "shoot, move, communicate" breaks down if they can't hear. Whenever possible hearing protection should be worn, even with a suppressed rifle. When combat circumstances make muffs impracticable, suppressors reduce noise to levels where communication is possible. In both military and police situations communication between tactical marksman and spotter is especially critical.

Advantage No. 5: Suppressed firearms are especially valuable for shooting in confined areas. The suppressed HK MP5SD didn't become a favorite with police SWAT teams by chance. A confined space increases the sound level of a shot considerably. Police know the odds are if they ever have to fire their weapons it will be in a building. The sound from unsuppressed firearms could leave them temporarily deaf, disoriented and combat ineffective.

The report of an unsuppressed firearm, especially a high powered rifle, in a confined space can be literally stunning. I was on a small indoor range once when a police armorer ripped off a 30-round burst through an M16. Even with good muffs, with my hands pressing the muffs on tight, the noise was painful. What it would be like without muffs I hate to imagine.

It appears the current war on terror is going to involve a lot of house to house searches. On the news I often see soldiers conducting house searches, armed mostly with standard M16 and M4 rifles. I hope those good men never have to fire their weapons.

Higher Survivability

Advantage No. 6: With a suppressed rifle a soldier is less likely to give away his position. No soldier wants to be seen by the enemy. For a tactical marksman (read sniper), being detected is a very bad thing. Enemy combatants fear snipers. If they detect their position, they tend to respond with snipers of their own, or with missile, mortar, or artillery fire.

Though a suppressed rifle isn't silent, the distance from which the sound can be heard is considerably reduced. The sonic crack doesn't stay with the rifle, it accompanies the bullet. With powder gases confined in the can, muzzle flash is virtually eliminated. A suppressor doesn't make the marksman undetectable but it improves his situation considerably.

Suppressors have disadvantages as well. They cost money. They can change the weight, size, and balance of the firearm. Poorly designed or manufactured suppressors need constant maintenance. Poorly made suppressors reduce accuracy. Poorly made suppressors wear out quickly and need to be replaced.
Best Can Yet?

The SureFire M4FA suppressor has all the advantages and almost none of the disadvantages. It is ingeniously designed and extremely well made. It is light and compact and does not significantly change the handling of the rifle. It does not need constant maintenance. It is extremely durable. It does not reduce accuracy. If anything, due to less muzzle jump and recoil, it enhances accuracy. As for cost - well, okay, all that good stuff doesn't come free.

What impresses me most about the design is how it can be so effective while still being compact and light. The SureFire unit is just 7.5 inches long overall and weighs 17 ounces. It's easy enough to make an effective suppressor if you don't care how big and heavy it is. Making it small, light, and effective takes both art and science, plus the best available materials.

The people at SureFire tend to get all vague and noncommittal when asked about the material used.

"Well, it's a special steel alloy."

"Special? What is special about it?"

"Yep, it's special. Good steel. Light and strong. Really special."

"Okay, but tell me what it is."

"No."

Barry Dueck, director of the team working on suppressor development, unbent enough to describe the steel as a "high temperature aerospace alloy." (I'll call it HT steel for convenience). As there are several hundred such alloys he isn't giving much away.

Initially, Dueck says, they tried using a combination of HT steel and less costly stainless steel. "We made a can of stainless, using HT steel just for the first baffle, which gets the most abuse. After 900 rounds full auto, the HT wasn't affected, the stainless was badly worn. After that we wrote off stainless completely."

Where does the art come in? Well, the SureFire design bounces sound waves back and forth in such a way the sound waves in effect cancel one another out.

To illustrate, consider ocean waves rolling towards land. The waves strike the face of a concrete breakwater and bounce back in the opposite direction. Waves rolling out meet waves rolling in. At some points the peak of an incoming wave exactly coincides with the peak of an outgoing wave. The result is an extra high wave.

On the other hand, there will be times when the peak of an outgoing wave coincides with the trough of an incoming wave. When that happens the two cancel each other out and there is no wave at all.

That in effect is how SureFire makes a small suppressor as effective as a large one. The art is in shaping and placing baffles in the suppressor tube in such a way that average wave height (and therefore sound level) is reduced.

More Than Simple Science

SureFire vice-president Cameron Hopkins commented, "You'd think it would be a matter of applying the laws of physics and mathematics, running data through a computer until you get the right answer. But there's a lot of trial and error and intuition involved."

Barry Dueck added, "One of the problems is the slight variations from shot to shot in powder gas volume, pressure, and sound wave frequency. We had some university professors, really brilliant people, help with computer modeling. One of them remarked that modeling fuel and air flow through jet engines was child's play compared to what we were doing."

"The sound level from our suppressor varies slightly from shot to shot," Dueck explained. "What we conservatively claim is our suppressor reduces sound level by 27 to 30 decibels, although individual shots showed a 32-decibel reduction."

"Because of the way the can confines and releases the gases the sound is of slightly longer duration than a regular shot. You likely can't hear it, but we can measure the difference."

To measure sound levels, SureFire made a huge investment in the most sophisticated, up to date sound testing equipment. Dueck is confident there is no better equipment in the world.

"We got samples of most of the suppressors on the market and tested them on our equipment," Dueck said. "Most didn't match the makers claims. I don't think they were purposely exaggerating, it's more a matter of them not having as modern testing equipment. One unit claimed to give a 40 decibel sound reduction actually measured 30 on our equipment."

"One can did better than ours, it gave a sound reduction of 34 decibels. However it's a huge unit, big and heavy, not very practical."

The powder gases bouncing around the interior of a suppressor are very hot. During long strings of fire, the barrels of the Les Baer rifles would get too hot to touch. The suppressors would get - well, way too hot to touch. Yet they continued to perform as well as ever. The three suppressors we used each fired well over 2,000 rounds, more like 2,500, with no apparent ill effects.

Acid Test

According to Barry Dueck, our testing was mild compared to the torture testing done by SureFire. On one occasion at a military base, Dueck, who is an ex-Marine, fitted a SureFire can to an M4 carbine. He stuffed his web gear with all the magazines it would hold, and had assistants pass more mags when these were gone.

Then he fired 50 magazines on full auto, emptying each in one continuous 30-round burst and continuing as fast as he could change magazines. The finish burned off the suppressor, then it started to glow, first red, then white by the time the last of 1,500 fired cases hit the ground.
When the can cooled, it was disassembled and measured. The precision gauges showed no appreciable wear, "About as much as the blue wear on one of your 1911s after a few thousand practice draws" is how Dueck described it.

I asked SureFire reps how the suppressors could stand such abuse.

"Well, we have this special steel..."

"Can you tell me..."

"No."

First Class Hardware

The SureFire suppressors tested were fitted on Les Baer's wonderfully accurate Super Varmint rifles. Few rifles of any type can match the accuracy of these great semiautos. An example I tested a couple of years ago averaged under a half-inch for 30 consecutive five-shot, 100 yard groups. Les commented, "You should try one of the new ones, they're more accurate."

Les also brought along three regular Super Varmint rifles, without suppressors. All six rifles were fitted with Leupold's outstanding 6.5-20x Long Range Target scopes, bolted to the rifles with Baer's rock-solid machined steel rings. The ammunition was likewise in the premier class; Winchester's wonderfully accurate Supreme cartridges loaded with 55-grain Ballistic Silvertip bullets.

On military M16A2 and M4 rifles the SureFire suppressor is fitted using a special adapter. The adapter fits behind the standard "bird cage" muzzle brake/flash hider. The suppressor fits over the brake and is secured to the adapter with a large locking nut.

"We designed it that way so the suppressor can be quickly attached or removed in the field," Barry Dueck noted. "We recommend the suppressor be removed whenever the rifle's bore is cleaned. Otherwise, there's a chance a cleaning patch might end up stuck in the suppressor, and it would be very difficult to get it out."

"Fitting the can over the muzzle brake helps keep the weapon compact. The suppressor is 7.5 inches long overall, but adds only 3.75 inches to the overall length of the rifle."
Critical Virtue

"One of the features we feel sets our unit apart is its ability to return to zero. Other units we tested gave good accuracy, but if they were removed and reattached, their repeatability was only within about four minutes of angle. With our unit we claim repeatability of one minute of angle, and generally they will do even better."

Les Baer rifles aren't fitted with suppressors, so Les machined the barrels of three rifles to accept the adapter. The cans were removed at the end of each day's shooting for inspection and for barrel cleaning. They did indeed return to original point of impact.

I asked Dueck if the suppressors need disassembly on occasion for parts replacement.
"No, there's no need, and it wouldn't be practical. Our suppressor is assembled with 84 welds, most of them internal, so you'd have to virtually destroy it to disassemble."

"If parts need replacement it's time to replace the whole unit. We guarantee our suppressor for 30,000 rounds, meaning it will likely outlast the rifle. In fact it will likely outlast two or three barrels."

I wondered about the reason they could offer such a guarantee.

"Special steel, right?"

"You got it."

A minor disadvantage of suppressed rifles is they tend to get dirty quicker. Confining powder gases in the suppressor results in more gas, along with burned powder residue, coming back into the action. All three suppressed rifles fired at least a thousand rounds between cleanings, with no malfunctions, so in practical terms it does not appear to be a problem.

Would They Measure Up?

Every link in the accuracy chain - Baer, Leupold, Winchester - was top quality. If the suppressed rifles wouldn't shoot, it would be the suppressors' fault. Well, the suppressed rifles would shoot. My goodness, how they would shoot.

We shot in two man teams against realistic field targets, with spotter and shooter trading off occasionally. The targets were small and indistinct, situated at varying distances from our firing position. One team would have a suppressed rifle, another a standard rifle. Given the marksmanship challenge, any decrease in accuracy from the suppressed rifles would be immediately apparent.
As a not-so-incidental point of law, it should be pointed out suppressors are considered "Class III" weapons, along with full-auto firearms. Manufacturers such as SureFire must have Class III licenses, and each unit carries a serial number. A licensed SureFire employee had to be in charge of each suppressor at all times.

Private citizens can legally own suppressors in most states, but only with the same rigorous background checks and registration involved in owning full-auto firearms. As with full-autos, a $200 federal transfer tax is required for purchase of a suppressor.

Ironically, some European countries with stringent firearms regulations not only allow but encourage the use of suppressors. In the U.K., occupational health regulations require suppressors on police rifles. Private citizens using rifles for hunting or target shooting are encouraged to use suppressors both to protect their own hearing and as a courtesy to others. Suppressors on hunting rifles are common in several other European countries.
Unfortunately so many of our views are shaped by TV and movies rather than by logic. In the public mind "silencers" are tools of gangsters and criminals, and no amount of logic is going to have any effect.

Shooting's A Pleasure

Back to our field test, I must admit it was a pleasure to shoot a centerfire with no more noise than a .22 LR, to watch the crosshairs barely move as the rifle fired, letting you spot the bullet strike and immediately correct if necessary. The others felt the same, and it is safe to say the suppressed rifles got the lion's share of the workout.

If there was a difference in accuracy between suppressed and regular rifles I couldn't detect it. All the rifles were magnificently accurate. After a while I got so I would only begrudgingly give up the suppressed rifle.

To me, the report of the suppressed .223 rifles sounded like a .22 LR rimfire rifle with high-speed ammunition. According to Barry Dueck it is actually a bit quieter, around 120 decibels on their testing equipment. High speed .22 LR ammunition typically measures 134 decibels from a rifle barrel, up to 152 dB from a pistol.

A noise level of 120 dB is not safe for long-term exposure. In fact some audiologists say the mild spoken .22 LR is one of the worst threats to hearing. It doesn't cause immediate pain or ringing to the ears and seems innocuous. But over time, with hundreds or thousands of shots, it slowly and insidiously damages hearing.

Even with a suppressor as good as the SureFire, muffs or plugs should be used whenever possible. Nonetheless a suppressor is still a huge advantage, never more so than in military or police situations in which muffs or plugs are impracticable.

That's why suppressors should be standard equipment on military and police rifles. There are so many advantages - important advantages - to justify the cost. I expect a lot of those suppressors will be made by SureFire.

For more information:

SureFire L.L.C.
[714] 545-9444
www.surefire.com