The .308 and the Silencer: My South African Experience

[mark-hunter]

This raises an important question: What are hunters actually gaining in exchange for that compromise?


There are legitimate advantages to suppressors. They can reduce the sound reaching the shooter’s ears and may reduce recoil and muzzle blast. In some circumstances, those benefits can be significant. But hunting is not conducted on a shooting range. A hunting rifle must be carried for hours, handled safely around people, and brought quickly and naturally into a firing position. Those considerations matter enormously.


My South African experience convinced me that the benefits did not outweigh the disadvantages for me. The reduction in noise was relatively modest, while the deterioration in balance and handling was immediately apparent.

In my country silencers are banned. But I hunted twice with rental silencers on safari.
My conclusions and observations are identical as yours. I am not too impressed

But I will try to provide a narrow window of positive use of silencers.

If you hunt a premium game while on safari, like buffalo for example, a silenced 22lr in a truck with subsonic ammunition will give you a good opporunity to collect small game, for the pot like guinea fowl, on opportunity.

There is no sound of rifle, and no regrets in firing few shots here and there, to collect some birds. Tracked buffalos will never know.

Guinea breasts are excellent for snack over camp fire. It adds to safari experience

Next is culling operations.
For high volume shooting in culling operations, reduction of noise is significant and herd animals react less, or not at all when using suppressed rifle.

Finally, for shooting and hunting near settlements, villages or households, suppressed rifle will disturb less the local population.
In urban and suburban areas of western world, a firearm use and loud shots are disturbing to non hunting, and non shooting population.

All these situations, makes very narrow window of use for suppressor.
But in the same time this is important one.

I think that suppressed rifle is not general purpose tool, it is specialised tool for specific situations.

Suppressor is specialized gadget, and not a solution to all situations.
No more then that.

If legal in hunters country, a hunter should have it, and use it when needed.

 

[Choupique]

ongoing study on muzzle brake blast versus, no muzzle brake versus suppressors.

Im not aware of a reputable one that compares brakes and suppressors in the same study. They are so dramatically different. Here's a good study on brakes though.

Muzzle Brakes: Sound Test

I thought about these muzzle brake tests for over a year before I started this field test. We all kn...

precisionrifleblog.com

Results are dramatically different behind the rifle vs side of it but the quietest brake they tested was 41% louder than bare muzzle. The APA FB was something like 165%!

Brakes really need to be respected. They are universally extremely loud to the shooter and more so to bystanders. They have a place, but double hearing protection is really the only safe way to use them. Ear plugs alone are insufficient.

 

[JG26Irish_2]

LPVO - Light Plains-game Versatile Optic? My favorite hunting scope, lol. 1-8x illuminated FFP Mil reticle. BTW - these were popular for certain types of hunting long before the military types figured out that they might also benefit from a fast accurate means of aiming their rifles. Enables clear accurate shooting out to about 400y which for me is longer than I want to be shooting at game animals anyway. If I cannot get within 300y, I am not doing something right recognizing that some limited situations are going to require longer shots which also should require something besides the LPVO pictured. i.e. Prairie Dogs, Coyotes, Pronghorn (sometimes), etc.

 

[Gomer]

Im not aware of a reputable one that compares brakes and suppressors in the same study. They are so dramatically different. Here's a good study on brakes though.

Muzzle Brakes: Sound Test

I thought about these muzzle brake tests for over a year before I started this field test. We all kn...

precisionrifleblog.com

Results are dramatically different behind the rifle vs side of it but the quietest brake they tested was 41% louder than bare muzzle. The APA FB was something like 165%!

Brakes really need to be respected. They are universally extremely loud to the shooter and more so to bystanders. They have a place, but double hearing protection is really the only safe way to use them. Ear plugs alone are insufficient.

I used to shoot at a range that required all people with brakes to sit to the far side of the firing line, with each other.

Nothing is more irritating, when trying to shoot groups especially, than someone next to you with a side ported compensator on a short barreled rifle. Especially ARs and AKs, because the brass follows the concussion.

 

[Gomer]

LPVO - Light Plains-game Versatile Optic? My favorite hunting scope, lol. 1-8x illuminated FFP Mil reticle. BTW - these were popular for certain types of hunting long before the military types figured out that they might also benefit from a fast accurate means of aiming their rifles. Enables clear accurate shooting out to about 400y which for me is longer than I want to be shooting at game animals anyway. If I cannot get within 300y, I am not doing something right recognizing that some limited situations are going to require longer shots which also should require something besides the LPVO pictured. i.e. Prairie Dogs, Coyotes, Pronghorn (sometimes), etc.

View attachment 792766

I’m also the guy who wonders why Mexican food needs so many names for things that are basically the same. Meat in a tortilla. Fold it = taco. Roll it = burrito. Roll it and bake it = enchilada. Deep fry it = chimichanga.

I like the sandwich approach. Regardless of what you put on it…..sandwich. Same thing with scopes. Regardless of how many X…..scope.

 

[Philip Glass]

Ya that kind of statement is silly to me.

The argument against cutting barrels down for suppressor use has always seemed circular to me.

Why cut a .300 Win Mag to 20 inches? At that point you basically just have a .30-06.”

Because what happens when you cut the .30-06 to 20" too? It loses velocity as well. Now someone can say, “Well, that’s basically .308 performance.”

You can do the exact same thing with a 6.5 PRC:
“Why run a 20" 6.5 PRC? You’re just turning it into a 6.5 Creedmoor.”

You’re not trying to make the most efficient use of every grain of powder. You’re trying to get the most performance you can from the overall rifle length you actually want to carry....

I am simply trying to be efficient on the hunt. I really don’t care what the chronograph says. I just want the animals to go down and not carry a flag pole with me.

 

[Comanche 6]

To me the barrel length is a bigger issue/concern than the weight. As mentioned by many, the new titanium cans are light enough that, even at the end of the barrel, it’s not major issue. I don’t like running can with barrel lengths of 24” or greater. The issue I find is to get “optimal” performance on larger calibers there can be some impact on a 20” barrel (that could inspire some debate).

I’ve been looking at the new 7mm Backcounty which shoots higher pressure with more robust brass - which enables performance with a 20” barrel. Put a can on that and it’s manageable length with a higher caliber round. Would be curious if anyone has one and their feedback on it.

 

[Gomer]

Ya that kind of statement is silly to me.

The argument against cutting barrels down for suppressor use has always seemed circular to me.

Why cut a .300 Win Mag to 20 inches? At that point you basically just have a .30-06.”

Because what happens when you cut the .30-06 to 20" too? It loses velocity as well. Now someone can say, “Well, that’s basically .308 performance.”

You can do the exact same thing with a 6.5 PRC:
“Why run a 20" 6.5 PRC? You’re just turning it into a 6.5 Creedmoor.”

You’re not trying to make the most efficient use of every grain of powder. You’re trying to get the most performance you can from the overall rifle length you actually want to carry....

Why have the case capacity if you’re not using it? Sure, burn 80gr of powder when you could burn 46gr and get longer brass/barrel life and spend a lot less money on components. That doesn’t sound smart. Lets make our gun much louder and less efficient to make it quieter?

 

[Choupique]

Lets make our gun much louder and less efficient to make it quieter?

I dont really understand this statement.

By chopping a .300 win mag down to 18" and screwing a 10" muffler on it, you effectively end up with the performance of a normal length .30-06 without any muzzle blast and far less noise and a normal length rifle. If you want normal .30-06 performance and excellent suppressor performance, your only options to get that is less barrel length and more horsepower in the chamber, or an extremely long .30-06 rifle.

It makes perfect sense to chop big magnums down to as short as the suppressor can handle. A .300 win mag out of a 16" barrel is still a .300 win mag.

 

[Red Leg]

I dont really understand this statement.

By chopping a .300 win mag down to 18" and screwing a 10" muffler on it, you effectively end up with the performance of a normal length .30-06 without any muzzle blast and far less noise and a normal length rifle. If you want normal .30-06 performance and excellent suppressor performance, your only options to get that is less barrel length and more horsepower in the chamber, or an extremely long .30-06 rifle.

It makes perfect sense to chop big magnums down to as short as the suppressor can handle. A .300 win mag out of a 16" barrel is still a .300 win mag.

No it isn't. Suppressors do not work that way. Rifle barrels are necessary for velocity. Shorten a 28" 300 Win Mag barrel to 20 inches and you will lose 200-250+ fps. Add an 8" suppressor and it provides a very minor increase in velocity (freebore boost) of maybe a total of 10-30 fps. This happens because the suppressor is a high-volume chamber designed to let gases expand, cool, and slow down to suppress noise, it cannot maintain the tight pressure seal or high internal pressure of a rifled barrel. So @Gomer is absolutely correct. By chopping that barrel you have created an overbored, overly long, and more cumbersome 30-06.

 

[Gomer]

I dont really understand this statement.

By chopping a .300 win mag down to 18" and screwing a 10" muffler on it, you effectively end up with the performance of a normal length .30-06 without any muzzle blast and far less noise and a normal length rifle. If you want normal .30-06 performance and excellent suppressor performance, your only options to get that is less barrel length and more horsepower in the chamber, or an extremely long .30-06 rifle.

It makes perfect sense to chop big magnums down to as short as the suppressor can handle. A .300 win mag out of a 16" barrel is still a .300 win mag.

It takes a certain amount of barrel to burn up a powder charge. If you’re not burning the entire charge, you’re doing it wrong. Whether its a 30-30, 308, 30-06, 300 Win Mag, 300 Wby, 300 Jarrett, 300 Ultra Mag, 30-378 Wby…..it’s all a .308 bullet. The bullet does all of the killing. The only thing that makes a 300 Win Mag is the headstamp on the case. That headstamp means nothing if you’re not using it.

You can drop down in case capacity and get closer to 100% burn. A 308 gets to 100% before 20 inches. A 300 win mag takes at least 24 inches, and often needs 26” with slow powders. A 308 with 180gr bullet gets about 2600 to 2650 fps. A 300 Win Mag with the same 20” barrel and the same bullet will get 2700 to 2750. But it will require twice the powder, cause more wear, cost more money, etc etc.

Take handloading out of it. Compare the price of factory ammo using the same bullet. A box of Federal Fusion 180gr 308 vs 300 Win Mag is a difference of $17 a box. Nearly another $1 a round, for basically the same performance.

 

[ftrovato]

people are just rushing and putting suppressors on everything before thinking
i have done a few of them for our rifles which clients use.
it is imperative to shorten your barrel, if not a short barrel already. then using a reflex, segmented suppressor, like an Atec. they overlap a few inches over the barrel and then if u dont use all the segments you will end up back to the original length of the rifle or only an inch or 2 longer.
do your homework, think, and then suppress the rifle with correct best suppressor...dont just stick the first suppressor on an already long barrelled rifle then u do end up with what i call a broomstick
i have had clients with setups like this and they dont even fit in the rifle rack on the truck as they are too long

regards

Great advice as I look to purchase my first suppressor.

 

[Choupique]

By chopping that barrel you have created an overbored, overly long, and more cumbersome 30-06.

By chopping the barrel you have created a still handy and quiet .30-06. If you want a still handy and quiet .300 win mag, you chop down an even bigger magum.

If your goal is for example a 178gr ELDX at 2700 fps from a suppressed rifle, you either chop down a big magnum and screw a big can on it for a still handy package, or you screw a slightly less big can on a standard rifle and hunt with a scoped telephone pole.

Suppressors are so good now. A good can like a TBAC Ultra on a short barreled magnum gives you tons of usable range, low muzzle signature, and a normal length rifle. Of course you have to burn powder to achieve that.