A Flash "Suppressor"?

[Thunder Chief]

I've had an idea in my head for a while. It's a muzzle device that's similar to a sound suppressor without the outer housing tube. It would be essentially a skeletal aluminum bar (like a suppressor core) with baffles open to the air, meant to bleed off gas gradually. Or, if fully open baffles would release the gas too quickly then essentially a suppressor with many holes drilled in the outer tube. Is there any reason this wouldn't work? Anything I'm missing? I'd love to actually try it, but I don't have a rifle with a threaded barrel, so I'm out of luck for the moment.

[Plisk]

You'd would either create a giant muzzle brake, like Sig did with one version of the MPX...



Or you get into the area of suppressor manufacture. Enclosed baffles gets into that area very quickly.

[Thunder Chief]

Let's not do enclosed baffles, I really have no desire to visit club fed.

I've never heard of the MPX before, it's kinda interesting. Do you really need a massive break on a subgun like that?

Okay, so massive breaks aside, what if you drilled fifty or so evenly spaced 1/4" (or less) holes all along the length a thick walled tube of aluminum, say with an ID of .223 and 1" walls, would that bleed off that gas at all? Or do anything worthwhile?

[FMJBT]

Let's not do enclosed baffles, I really have no desire to visit club fed.

I've never heard of the MPX before, it's kinda interesting. Do you really need a massive break on a subgun like that?

Okay, so massive breaks aside, what if you drilled fifty or so evenly spaced 1/4" (or less) holes all along the length a thick walled tube of aluminum, say with an ID of .223 and 1" walls, would that bleed off that gas at all? Or do anything worthwhile?

The problem I see with this idea, is that it is essentially a monocore suppressor without the outer housing. By simply slipping a tube over the outside of the "Muzzle brake", you end up making it a suppressor. You'd have to design the exterior of it to somehow prevent a length of tube from being slid over it. That giant muzzle brake on the Sig is pretty interesting, but I'm pretty sure it falls into the same catagory of nearly being a suppressor. The angled baffles actually look really similar to the internals of the YHM suppressors. All it would need would be some thin pipe or tube on the outside and you'd be looking at some time in a federal pound me in the @$$ prison....

[Gunsmith Dan]

Just so I understand this correctly,

You want to build a device that directs and exhausts gas directly to air for the purpose of reducing the sound, not muzzle lift, so that it would not be classified as a sound suppressor.

Lets just skip the legal issues for now and stay focused on the technical issues.

A sound suppressing device (for firearms, large machines, vehicles, large motors etc.) all follow the same principle because there is not other way to reduce sound on a small scale without enclosing the expanding gas. The amount of holes and in what direction has nothing to the reduction in sound, it is how much the gas velocity is reduced before it is released into the air.

If you drill alot of holes that reduces the pressure, but remember that is direct to the air so the rapid reduction in pressure still makes alot of sound, there is nothing to absorb the sound energy (sound is energy so it does not just disappear on it's own). SO the theory of the enclosed space is that it absorbs the energy as the gas is traveling around the passages and converts that sound energy into heat energy (that is one of the reasons suppressors are always hotter than the barrel). This way when the gas finally reaches the air the energy transfer via sound is drastically reduced because it was converted into heat.

The more advanced designs also not only convert the sound into heat energy but they also try to create reverse harmonics so as to act as a noise cancelling system to further reduce the sound (this has to be tuned correctly because if the reverse wave is not the exact opposite you actually add to the noise instead of subtract).

So basically no matter how many or how big the holes unless you have something that absorbs the sound energy or slows down the gas velocity you don't really reduce the sound. All you actually do is redirect the sound so while the target you shot at will not hear the sound as much, everyone to the sides and behind you will hear it louder (easy to see the difference just shoot the same rifle with and without a muzzle brake to get an idea).

So after all that then you got the pesky Federal Laws:




So basically there is not a specific "design" that is excluded from the law, ANYTHING that reduces the sound (PLEASE let not get into a drawn out discussion about potatoes) would be a silencer.


hope that helps

[jfifer]

yup, even a single decibal could lead to a cell mate.

[Gunsmith Dan]

The only "legal" way to reduce the sound that a firearm makes is to use slower velocity heavy rounds (subsonic).

(steel arrows propelled by a very small charge comes to mind)

[Thunder Chief]

No, no, I'm not trying to reduce sound at all, I'm trying to figure out a way to completely eliminate the flash. I just thought that piggybacking on suppressor technology might be the way to do it.

[Gunsmith Dan]

Nope because anything you do to completely eliminate flash will also reduce the sound and then you have a silencer.

You can redirect the flash and use subsonic low power load and that will give alot less flash to the target, but again redirecting will mean something else will get lighted up and still give away your position.

The best you could hope for is a flash suppressor that redirects 90 degrees to the bore and be inside a building with no windows and shooting out of a small hole. You could connect pipes to the holes and extend them so you could shoot out of a larger hole, but it still would be a stationary setup not made for quick relocation.

[FMJBT]

Running a KX3 at the end of a long barrel might work for eliminating flash and reducing muzzle blast. The KX3 is basically a single baffle suppressor anyway. On a shorty barrel, the larger amount of unburnt powder leaving the muzzle tends to overwhelm the internal volume of the KX3, making a rather large muzzle flash although with a slightlly reduced blast. On a longer 18" or 20" barrel, the additional bore length might be enough to burn up the extra powder so that the limited internal volume of the KX3 would be able to contain it long enough to eliminate muzzle flash. Maybe.

I wonder if anyone has tried welding like 5 or 6 KX3 comps end to end......

[Freq18Hz]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but flash suppressors were invented a long time ago. Almost every modern battle rifle utilizes one.

-Freq

[Gunsmith Dan]

OP is not looking for a flash suppressor but a flash eliminator that does not reduce sound, which technically not something that can be done and still make the rifle portable.

[hambam105]

Any gun related device or idea or association that improves the probability of sharing shower room floors with Big Louie needs to brought to the attention of somebody else.