SITREP: November 1999
By Dan Shea
Quote of the month, sent in by email from little r rambo. This is offered without comment: “A slipping sear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what’s left of your unit”- August 1992 PS Magazine (The Army’s preventative maintenance magazine).
SAR put in a notice in New Review that Ruger’s 50th Anniversary No 1S rifle is in 45-70, apparently in a real “Beauty” stock, etc. Somebody PLEASE make and register a suppressor for these. Please, please. Loaded with a 500 grain pill, maybe with a brass engraved can on it. Engrave it “Fifth Anniversary of the High Cap mag ban” or something. Then send a pic to Ruger. Please. Maybe add “We only make friendly sporting guns, not scary firearms”. It would make an outstanding platform for a serious suppressor anyway, so why not have some fun with it.
Speaking of suppressors, I have been waiting to finish this Sitrep because we were doing the 1999 SAR Suppressor Trials. Only one word suffices to describe them; OUTSTANDING! The normal screwups occurred, of course. We had inclement weather, late starts due to equipment foul-ups, and long, arduous days. All through it, the staff exhibited good spirits, and the attendees were very supportive. One thing we had not originally planned was for the appearance of Dr. Chris Luchini, the eminent physicist, with an intense testing array. Dr. Luchini was able to gather an incredible field of data, and able to crosscheck and verify our other meters. The B&K went down on the second day, but our data is outstanding, and thoroughly cross checked.
Al Paulson, SAR’s Suppressor Technology Editor, is writing an article for us, and SAR is publishing a book on these trials. We tested over 130 strings, and did the accuracy testing as well (Stan Andrewski supervised this). You can read about it in the upcoming issues of SAR.
I would like to personally take a moment to thank those 15 plus suppressor manufacturers who participated. It takes a lot of backbone to stand up and present your work on the open playing field, where all can see, and hear- or NOT hear. There were some real impressive suppressor designs present to be tested. I am not going to steal anyone’s thunder- Al will be writing about it, but I am sure that the rumor mill is running strong right now. Some of the .22 caliber rifles were so quiet that they were within a few dB of the dropping of the hammer, and they still had outstanding velocity and accuracy!
That information will be forthcoming in future issues of SAR, so stay tuned, and don’t touch that dial.
- Dan
This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V3N2 (November 1999) |
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