Supressor cooling

Spindrift

Well-Known Member
Those of you who have supressors for your centerfire guns, are probably familiar with the mirage problem. The heat waves from the supressor can be really disturbing.
At my local range, someone deviced a clever solution. A cheap vacuum cleaner, connected to a plastic tube that goes over the supressor. Both supressor and barrel is cooled very efficiently by the air stream.
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wquiles

Well-Known Member
Outside of forced cooling like the one above (very clever!), it is the identical problem to our cars disk brakes. The more you use them, the more frequently between uses, the hotter is gets, as it is far slower for the heat to dissipate compared to how much heat they get with each shot.

Besides taking a longer time between shots or strings of shots, which is what I do, some companies do sell thermal suppressor shields that block a lot of the thermal heat from the air above the suppressor, thus minimizing the mirage effect created by that hot air right in the line of sight for your scope. I too hate the mirage with my suppressors, but have not resorted yet to buying or making one of these sleeves/covers:
https://www.google.com/search?q=sup...me..69i57j0.6554j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I suspect one can make something similar (ok, maybe not so pretty) as a DIY, but I have just slowed down my shooting to let the suppressor cool off as soon as I start seeing the mirage.

And of course, when shooting subsonics in the 308 savage, it takes FOR EVER (or almost) for the suppressor to heat up enough to bother me. It is with the higher power rounds that I get the annoying mirage effect.
 

Ian

Notorious member
I haven't run power out to my shooting range yet or built a shooting house over the bench. I use half of a 20-oz energy drink can with a thin layer of fiberglass mat loosely wired around the suppressor sometime to kill mirage in similar fashion to what the F-class competitors use over the length of their barrels. A spritz of water cools the thin aluminum instantly when it finally gets hot from shooting or just sitting in the sun.

If you drill tiny drain hoes in your baffles you can just dunk your hot can in a bucket of water like Liberty Silencers do at their full-auto demonstrations.
 
F

freebullet

Guest
Bet his vac trick works great. To increase efficiency a guy could remove the filters for more cfm.

I don't have that problem...yet. We do get barrels hot quick though.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
we pull the bolts and chimney effect the barrels.
one guy here has a little CO-2 contraption he built? to take the little cartridges.
he aims it down the barrel and gives it a shot, seems to work [shrug] but I dunno about cooling a barrel down that fast.
 

Ian

Notorious member
BruceB had rigged up some contraption with ice water and an aquarium pump, ran the cold water straight through the bore frombthe chamber end. Swab out and back to shooting, worked for him.
 

Sig556r

Active Member
Won't prolly do it from the chamber but I dip my Griffin in water for cooling & keeping dbs down a bit
 

Spindrift

Well-Known Member
Made a litle manual «cooler pump», cheap plastic pump and a piece of garden hose that actually fits well in my chambers. Not nearly as effective as the vacuum cleaner, but it helps a little. And gives you something to do, besides just waiting...

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Ian

Notorious member
Pretty clever.

I'm seriously considering sewing a denim jacket for mine out of some old pants and soaking it with water before starting to shoot, then douse it with cool water every five shots or so to keep it that way. Even my mirage buster isn't enough in the direct sunlight.
 

wquiles

Well-Known Member
Agreed, good idea. Last Sat morning I was done shooting the 300BLK pistol at 50 yards and the suppressor was WAY too hot for me to even remove it and put on the 308 bolt gun :angry:

Don't get me wrong, I now don't like shooting anything without a suppressor in place, but them getting hot and the related mirage are definitely a pain to deal with.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Exactly. I'll put together a temporary "jacket" and test the idea as soon as time permits. Will keep you posted on the results.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
use a shot bag. [you'll have to soak it for a bit but it will hold the water pretty well]
something like a 8" length of mechanics wire and the extra water would prove out the theory quick enough.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Hmmm, I think somebody ;) gave me some extra cloth shot bags a while back and I have a roll of SS tie wire. I was thinking denim because the twill weave holds moisture really well.
 

Ian

Notorious member
I chose to work on my shooting shack foundation in the 103°F heat rather than test the suppressor cooler. I was going to be miserable either way so the slightly more productive project got the nod. We still have plenty of summer left :cool:
 

Ian

Notorious member
The wet denim jacket experiment today was a smashing success. Heat problem completely solved.

Ran 18 rounds in under 5 minutes, barely got the jacket warm to the touch even after soaking for a few more minutes and after that the evaporative cooling effect actually chilled it considerably.

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wquiles

Well-Known Member
Very nice! I have to try that as well :cool:

I would imagine that the extra weight hanging from the end of the barrel will/could affect harmonics and POI a little, right? :headscratch:

Or pretty much safe to say that for about 100 yards it will make no appreciable difference?
 

Spindrift

Well-Known Member
That is, I believe, impossible to predict and can only be answered by testing. But most probably no significant POI change
 

Ian

Notorious member
No POI change for me. Probably only 2-3 ounces of fabric and water, shot a 1-3/8" 9-shot group at 100 with cull bullets, visiting friend put 9 into 2" at 75 yards with 4 touching in the 1" bull, never shot an AR before. The three wraps of wet (not dripping, just barely saturated) denim was a total game changer when shooting with the suppressor, zero mirage, zero heat issues, zero money invested, no problems whatsoever. If it does get hot, I'm sure that flooding it with cool water from a drinking bottle would be all that's needed to keep shooting.