Suppressor/lightweight rifle question

[LostArra]

A month ago I had an episode of sensorineural sudden hearing loss. I woke up on Labor Day with no hearing in my left ear. Prompt treatment by an excellent ENT doc got some of the hearing back. She strongly suggested I wear hearing protection for any loud noises including mowing, chainsaw, tractor and especially firearms. The firearms is not a big deal for me since I may shoot 4 rounds a year; three to check zero and one dead animal. And that's if I even hunt with a rifle which is rare. I've always worn ear protection at the range but not always while hunting. Now I have custom ear plugs and over ear muff.

I only own one hunting rifle which is a 50+ year old Model 70 featherweight in .270 that I inherited from my dad. I would like to get a suppressor for it since one of my daughters hunts as well as her husband and they will inherit it from me. What is a good suppressor for a lightweight rifle? Talk to me like I'm in kindergarten. I know nothing about suppressors. Thanks

 

[Okie_Poke]

I am also kinda thinking about being in the market for a lightweight suppressor and have been doing a little casual looking. So I'll provide a couple of references to get you started, but hopefully someone else who is more knowledgeable will chime in before long. In general, lightweight = titanium, and titanium = $$$.

The general-use can that I have is the original Dead Air Nomad 30. It's not super light (about a pound) but I think it suppresses pretty well and it makes a good general use can. Also, they make a titanium version of it that's quite a bit lighter: https://deadairsilencers.com/silencers/nomad-ti-xc/ For your use case, that strikes me as a useful place to start to at least give you something to compare against. There are lighter and shorter cans, to be sure, but shorter generally means less sound suppression, which you probably don't want. One draw back to the Nomad on a hunting rifle is that it's relatively fat, which may make it visible in your scope on lower powers depending on how low your scope is mounted. It doesn't bother me when it happens, but it may bother you.

Here's an article summarizing a summit that compared the sound suppression of a bunch of different suppressors to each other. This is the best apples-to-apples comparison I know of, but there may be others. The target audience of this article is PRS, not hunting, but the data is still useful and Cal does a good write-up. Cal only lists the suppressor lengths, though, and not their weights, so you'll have to look up individual suppressors if you want to know how much they weigh. Still pretty useful.

2024 Suppressor Summit: Hard Data To Compare 250+ Suppresors!

Recently, 33 suppressor manufacturers gathered to test almost 250 models of suppressors at one loca...

precisionrifleblog.com

Good luck.

Edit to update link to current TI-XC model.

 

[Skerhunter]

A month ago I had an episode of sensorineural sudden hearing loss. I woke up on Labor Day with no hearing in my left ear. Prompt treatment by an excellent ENT doc got some of the hearing back. She strongly suggested I wear hearing protection for any loud noises including mowing, chainsaw, tractor and especially firearms. The firearms is not a big deal for me since I may shoot 4 rounds a year; three to check zero and one dead animal. And that's if I even hunt with a rifle which is rare. I've always worn ear protection at the range but not always while hunting. Now I have custom ear plugs and over ear muff.

I only own one hunting rifle which is a 50+ year old Model 70 featherweight in .270 that I inherited from my dad. I would like to get a suppressor for it since one of my daughters hunts as well as her husband and they will inherit it from me. What is a good suppressor for a lightweight rifle? Talk to me like I'm in kindergarten. I know nothing about suppressors. Thanks

Check out this info - there is information from other people comparing this to other light weight options. I believe general consensus is this is currently the best short/light weight option for hunting.

Silencerco Scythe TI review

Ryan asked me to create a thread for the Scythe. They are sending him one, so I'm sure he will post his thoughts here as well. Ive only had one range day with it, I will be testing it more and will add any new thoughts to this thread after I can get back to the woods to shoot. I used it on my...

rokslide.com

The info posted previously is a good guide as well for other options.

 

[iamthenick]

I got the nomad ti and it makes my .308 sound like a .22

Super light... I'm sure there are some newer things out there that might be a hair better but I'm not sure about them.

I bet .270 is gonna be a hair louder but you should still be in good shape.

Regardless of which brand you get I would look for a direct threaded titanium silencer.

 

[TxLite]

I only own one hunting rifle which is a 50+ year old Model 70 featherweight in .270 that I inherited from my dad.

This sounds like something that should be left alone and not threaded imo.

If your hearing loss is that bad a suppressor will help but I’d recommend wearing ear plugs with it.

I’m all for suppressors (they’re the best gun purchase I’ve ever made) but in all honesty as little as your shoot, it may just be worth wearing earplugs instead of getting a suppressor. Not sure you’d be getting your $1000 worth over a lightweight set of plugs.

 

[Diemaker24]

What TxLite said makes the most sense they are great but messing with an inherited 50 year old model 70 to attach a suppressor to only use it twice a year doesn't make a ton of sense versus just wearing ear pro

 

[LostArra]

This sounds like something that should be left alone and not threaded imo.

I'm glad you said that. I probably should just shoot with my new over ear muff plus my custom ear plugs before messing with the rifle. I did some brush hogging (52 hp tractor, no cab) with the ear pro combination and I could barely tell it was running.

Thanks for saving me a $1000

 

[Formidilosus]

I'm glad you said that. I probably should just shoot with my new over ear muff plus my custom ear plugs before messing with the rifle. I did some brush hogging (52 hp tractor, no cab) with the ear pro combination and I could barely tell it was running.

Thanks for saving me a $1000

Most people that use suppressors would disagree. I would 100% thread that barrel and get a good can. There are quite a few that are relatively light and short.

 

[TxLite]

I'm glad you said that. I probably should just shoot with my new over ear muff plus my custom ear plugs before messing with the rifle. I did some brush hogging (52 hp tractor, no cab) with the ear pro combination and I could barely tell it was running.

Thanks for saving me a $1000

I wouldn’t alter an heirloom rifle in general personally but I also completely understand the viewpoint of “at least it’s getting used and not in the safe”. If it were me I’d just buy a different rifle for suppressing vs chopping/threading my dad’s.

A suppressed centerfire sounds similar to standard velocity 22lr in my experience. So if that’s too loud for you then that’s why I mentioned wearing ear pro even with the can.