Thread: Suppressors - one size fits many? - is it 'safe'?

Originally Posted by Bubble07

thanks for the replies guys.



yeah that 30cal 'designation' kind of confuses me, does it just mean the hole is big enough for every chambering from 30-30Winchester(.308" dia) up to 30-378WtbMag(.308" dia) ?
would '30cal' also include the 303British(technically .312" dia)? is that last one still considered '30cal'? i'd assume that last difference(0.004") isnt worth worrying about but where does it end eg.. 8mm is only .325" dia & where do you stop pushing your luck?
probably much better to rely on the mfr's designation as the guide but you can see above it's possibly open for interpretation..?

sorry if that's getting too picky/technical we're only talking about a hair's whisker, i just like to understand stuff & if it means worst case scenario someone keeps their eye.. bonus.

Not really answering your question but giving something else to think about, a mate of mine who is new to hunting mentioned that when he put a suppressor on his. .22 it couldn’t hit a door at 25 yd. When he pulled it out of the safe I said chances were the bore wasn’t concentric with the suppressor thread (Recent model JW15).
At some stage later he wanted to look into viable options for a suppressor and wanted to understand the problem. I took out the bolt and screwed the suppressor on. Looked down the bore and on the right hand side I could see three of the baffles. Showed old mate who had a revelation on the spot.

I also remember about 10years ago, reading on a gunsmiths website about fitting of .17hmr suppressors and how it was more important to have tight tolerances in the fitting of the .17 suppressor.


What all of the above says to me is that there is more in it than just having a cut off point at which the suppressor ‘bore’ size is big enough for the rifle bore size (and that is before you start factoring in cartridge capacity as DPT has mentioned.


One thing you could try if you wanted to understand it better without blowing anything up is poking a projectile through a baffle that is not attached to the rifle. If it fits through without touching the sides the caveat is that that’s no guarantee that the suppressor is of the correct caliber. However if it won’t fit, well it’s now a given that you shouldn’t shoot that caliber through it.