Who here makes their own silencers instead of buying them? Would like to exchange ideas. Thanks.

Ranb

ran perhaps you can explain the legal requirements (when making one's own silencer) to us. If you "make your own", for your own personal use, I assume from one of your other posts, that you must still get a tax stamp. Is that correct? Also, as the Form 4 seems to require a serial number, when you "make your own" you must also put a serial number on it, right? What if you decide to sell your "home made silencer"? Must you be a "manufacturer"?
All this would be very informative if you have thoroughly researched it.
Thanks, Peter.

No problem. The ATF form 1 is used to make and register firearms such as silencers, machine guns, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, gadget guns, and destructive devices. You must obtain the local sheriff signature on the form, then send it in along with form 5330.20 (attesting to your citizenship), your photos, finger prints and a check for $200. It takes about 6 months for approval now and you cannot start to make parts until the form is back approved. You make up your own serial and model numbers. If you want to sell it later on, then the buyer just fills out the ATF form 4 and you transfer it to him after it is approved. If the buyer is in another state, then it needs to be transferred to a dealer in your state with a $200 tax paid, then transferred tax free to a dealer in the buyers state, then another transfer and another $200 tax to the buyer. There is not much of a market for used silencers or those made by hobbyists.

Making or selling silencers as a business requires an FFL and payment of the Special Occupational Tax ($500 to $1000 a year) and paying the $2250 ITAR if you are a manufacturer. The $200 tax on each is much cheaper for the hobbyist especially if you only make a few each year.

To buy from a dealer, you go to the dealer, pay for it (usually in full) then send in the ATF form 4 to the ATF. The other forms used are the same as those for the ATF form 1. If the dealer does not have the silencer you want in stock, then you need to wait for him to receive it before the ATF form 4 is sent in as the serial number needs to be on the form. It is better to send it in yourself and use a personal check so you know when it is cashed by the ATF. When you get the form back, go to the dealer and bring home the silencer. Occasional sales from a personal collection do not require a license

Some people are not able to get the local sheriff to sign the forms. Many people just create a trust or Corps to own the firearm for them. The signature, finger prints cards and photos are no longer needed then. I use a trust now. I even created a shared revocable living trust with my brother so I could make a silencer for him. He just filled out the ATF form 1 and sent it in along with a copy of the trust. When it was approved, he sent me a copy of the form 1; I made the silencer and sent it to him in the mail. As I was in effect sending it to myself and the USPS does not recognize it as a gun, it was not a legal hassle. Any trustee in the trust can possess the silencer.

Ranb

jeffeosso,

I know I have ruffled some feathers in the past with my choise of words. I hope I was not doing so again with the post you quoted above. I did not notice we had a new silencer section on the forum until after I made the above post. Thanks.

Ranb

I made a 223 can for my brother on a shared trust.



The top drawing is what I made for my brother, it works well. The bottom one is the next project for a friend. Hopefully the step cone design will work even better.

Ranb

Here are some drawings of my 510 whisper silencer. The top one is how it is configured for the Encore in 510 whisper, the middle drawing is how it is setup for the Enfield in 45 acp with the spacers removed. The bottom drawing is how I would have made it from steel with K baffles.



A photo of the silencer after it was built and before I used it. The baffles stay black even after cleaning with an abrasive pad.



The Encore I use it on.



The ammo.



Ranb

Instead of equal spaced baffles try reducing the spacing towards the exit. This is a lot more efficient.
My pretty crap memory for numbers seems to suggest a 1.61 reducing relationship.
So if the last chamber is 1" the next closest to the muzzle will be 1.61" and so on.

1/2 pi or 1/4 the golden mean/ratio

Thanks.

Ranb

Is it legal to buy the components such as the internal baffles from someone else then assemble them after you have ATF approval?

Yes it is. But there is a price. You still have to pay the $200 making tax using the ATF form 1. Anyone making parts for you has to have a license (FFL/SOT class 2) as the parts are intended for a silencer. The parts have to be transferred to you on an ATF form 4 (parts are silencers all by themselves). I have heard of licensed manufacturers subcontracting silencer parts out to unlicensed manufacturers, but I am not sure how this is done legally.

You can also send out a tube that you registered to a class 2 manufacturer to have filled with baffles and end caps attached. This can be done without paying another tax as far as I know, but I'm not sure that anyone would do this for less than the cost of a commercially made silencer.

Check out http://www.silencertalk.com. A few guys made decent silencers without a lathe.

Ranb

quote:

Originally posted by ranb40:
...paying the $2250 ITAR if you are a manufacturer.Ranb

You only have to make the ITAR registration if you are a manufacturer and plan to export your products.

I have heard that the feds are demanding the ITAR from some manufacturers that do not export. I will probably not find out for sure unless I get my own FFL/SOT class 2. I might do that when I leave WA in 2023.

Ranb

We are an 07 SOT and a Customs agent stopped by last week to discuss ITAR and I asked that specific question because we keep hearing it, he told me that we do not need to register if we don't export. I've heard that all mfrs are going to be required to register but his statement says otherwise.

Most excellent. I hope they keep it that way and only require actual exporters to pay it. Thanks.

Ranb

quote:

Originally posted by ranb40:
I made a 223 can for my brother on a shared trust.



The top drawing is what I made for my brother, it works well. The bottom one is the next project for a friend. Hopefully the step cone design will work even better.

Ranb

I would love to see pictures of the Step-cone unit prior to its assembly.

It is already welded together and sent to the guy I made it for.

Here is a video of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVtzVBYFT-Y The step cone can was on a 16" carbine and was a bit louder than the K baffle can on the 20" rifle. The difference may be due mostly to the shorter barrel. The shooter likes it though.

Here are a few pics.



I welded it together with a MIG machine with flux core wire. I ground down the beads then cut them nearly flush on my lathe. I blued the exterior instead of painting it.

My brother likes to overheat his AR because he is using an old upper I gave him. So I told him when the paint starts to bubble from the heat, he needs to let it cool off for a while.

I thought I took more pics, but I do not have them online if I did.

Ranb

Thanks for the pics

I'm always curious, how do you figure out the area/size of the silencer you need, and I thought that for them to work you had to use subsonic ammo. clearly I'm wrong since they silence 50's

Bigger is better to a degree!
If the muffler has a volume that resembles the volume of the burnt powder (and an optimal design) then in theory it will reduce the bang to zero.

Heres a rough guestimate of a bullet firing:
1/3'rd of the total energy in the powder will become heat in the barrel.
1/3'rd will become kinetic (moowing) energy in the bullet.
And the last 1/3'rd will come out as energy in the expanding gas = BIG BANG.

A great part of that bang will result in recoil energy transmitted to the shooters shoulder.
If the bang can be converted from speed to heat then both recoil and bang can be reduced to 0.
Not likely but a high power rifle with a good muffler can be silenced down to sound like a standard 22LR and the recoil reduced almost accordingly.

The sonic boom of the bullet is unaltered but the rifle can be fired with much less shooter/environment discomfort.
Then there's the other benefits: Reduced barrel vibrations, reduced recoil and gained precission.

Found theese interesting pics on another forum:



I'm going to test this principle myself in the near future. I'm setting up a test rig as i write this.

quote:

Originally posted by Dago Red:
I'm always curious, how do you figure out the area/size of the silencer you need, and I thought that for them to work you had to use subsonic ammo. clearly I'm wrong since they silence 50's

Size or volume is based on how much suppression you want or need. How effective the suppressor is at reducing muzzle blast noise is completely independent of the type of action or bullet velocity.

Compare a firearm to a car. When you are driving in your car, you will hear wind, engine, transmission, tire and exhaust noise. Attaching or removing the muffler will only affect the amount of exhaust noise you hear. The same goes for a gun. Most silencers have no affect on action and bullet flight noise and are not intended to.

The only silencers that reduce bullet speed are those using ported barrels as part of the silencer, and those using wipes. A ported barrel has holes machined in it to port gases into the back of the silencer where they remain trapped until the bullet leaves the barrel. While they are very effective at reducing noise, the reduction in bullet speed is not always welcome. A silencer equipped with wipes (rubber disks with X shaped slots cut in them) reduces bullet speed as it slams into each wipe while passing through the silencer. The wipe closes after the bullet goes by and effectively traps the gases and makes for good suppression. The wipes wear out quickly though, in a few dozen rounds, and become much less effective. Anything that touches the bullet can ruin accuracy, so most wipes equipped silencers are intended for pistol cartridges in firearms intended for short range shooting.

I use subsonic ammo in my 300 whisper and reduce noise from 155 decibels to 125 decibels, I can expect supersonic ammo to be reduced in noise from 165 decibels to 135 decibels. While the supersonic ammo is much noisier due to the increase powder charge and sonic boom, the silencer is doing the same amount of work, although it has much more noise to contend with when a larger gas volume rushes through it.

Volume is not the only thing. A long skinny silencer can be significantly more effective than a short fat can of the same volume. This is because the gases are worked on by the baffles for a longer period of time and cool off more. But a long skinny silencer can be more cumbersome. Alignment to the bore becomes more critical as the longer you make the silencer tube. A slight misalignment on a short silencer is not likely to cause baffle strikes, while a longer can could. You can make up for misalignment by making the bore of the baffles larger, but then this reduces effectiveness. I try to use a bore that is .025 to .060 larger than bullet diameter to maximize the trapping of the gases. This means I have little margin for error when machining the parts to ensure everything fits square.

Personally I pick out a width and length bases upon the commercial silencers I see online for various calibers. They have to be doing something right, so I tend to copy what I see a bit. One of my first cans was for a 510 whisper. I wanted to ensure that it was safe to shoot without ear plugs, so I made it extra large, 2x18 inches. The nearly 0.6 inch bore lets out lots of noise, maximizing the volume and length helped reduce that. It telescope six inches over the barrel and mounts securing to the muzzle and threads machined six inches back. A small muzzle brake vents gases into the rear of the can.

Ranb

G'Day Fella's,

Ranb40, Sorry but I have just stumbled on to this section of AR.

I design and manufacture my own Sub & Supersonic firearm suppressors. There are three basic things you need to accomplish, to have a successful suppressor/silencer design;
1) Contain the muzzle blast.
2) Delay the release of the muzzle blast, to the atmosphere,
and
3) The longer you can delay (#2) the release of the muzzle blast to the atmosphere, the better your design should be.

Further details on #3.
The whole idea of what you are trying to achieve, is to convert the muzzle blast Sound Energy, into Heat Energy!
Thats basically how suppressors work!!!

Hope that helps

Doh!
Homer

Are you actually in Australia? I thought silencers were banned for civilians there. Which cartridges do you suppress?

I am always open to new ideas. You ever check out http://www.silencertalk.com ?

Ranb