Unknown suppressors OG testing

As someone who worked in the hearing protection field, even 15 years ago there was very little test data on gunshot/ impulse noise. What was out there was old, ie 50’s-70’s. Not really a priority for anyone as it’s pretty well known that guns are loud and exposure causes hearing damage.

One of my co workers was involved in a rewrite of the nrr standard and several of the others in the group were still trying to get good characterization of different guns 2010-2013 time. The sound meters in use today did not exist back then. Even testing hearing protection for impulse noise was hard. 3m used actual explosives to test the filtered protection that caused all the lawsuits. The testing we did was with an air cannon and even then we had trouble making it really loud.

In regards to tone, sound is not a single frequency, but many. The Db is a measure of sound energy and doesn’t reflect the frequency of the sound. So yes a suppressor can have a different sound signature due to which frequencies it reduces more, just like hearing protection doesn’t attenuate all frequencies the same amount. Because of this ear plugs for musicians are different than industrial protection.

Now for my $.02 on sound levels, 140 Db is not a hard limit. Some people will suffer damage below 140 and some will not suffer if slightly above 140. It depends on your body and how your ears are shaped. Also the way they figured it out isn’t as scientific as you might think. They tested people who work around hammer mills and for a lot of the gunshot testing they used cats as their ears are similar in construction to humans. You can figure out how they assessed the damage to the ears.

Once sound is below 140 ish, it’s about dose if you get damage. At 135 ish, you can probably take 3-5 shots. 130 is about 10, 120 is 100, 110 is 1000. This is why you need hearing protection at the range even with a can and why everyone should have a can on their rifle.
 
Holy smokes, I am away for a few days and soo soo much has happened. I'll try to touch on everything that people are upset about. If I miss anything let me know and I can add more detail!

1. Why the OG65. Looking way back to when we got our first prototypes of the OG in Jan of 2025 we basically had met all of the requirements we had set forth (sub 140, 10ish oz, 4" OTB 4" after) we started drilling into sound suppression until we hit an absolute wall at about rev 9. After rev 9 there was only tiny increases in sound reduction. At about rev 40 tried we had what we thought at the time was just about everything we could do in the 4" after the muzzle. Jump forward to early/mid august, Ryan had insisted time and time again that we need to make a 6mm OG, I finally had done it. We tested it and everyone thought the microphones were broken because it was so so much quieter. We went back out and tested it again and got the same results. We were wondering what the heck do we do with this knowledge now that we have it. We were also in the middle of the reaper development at the time and I had made what I thought at the time walls and baffles that were too thin. Try as we might we determined the walls and baffles arent too thin and they are safe with some barrel lenght restrictions. So I took my new found knowledge of the reaper baffle stack, the reaper wall thicknesses and the knowledg of the affect of making an OG 6mm. These three things had a baby and that is the OG 65. I made one, Form me and ryan shot it and looked at each other and literally said "Oh F***" what do we do with this. The advice that we ran with was "Don't apoligize for making your products better". We considered holding out because we knew there would be backlash for us launching this so close to when we launched the OG.... It didnt feel right to any of us to keep this to ourselves and we want all of our customers/potential customers to have the best that we can offer.

2. OG 2.0 we havent even started on it. We are going to work on making the OG lighter knowing what we know now. There are two major hurdles in the way that we need to figure out how to get around. .30 cal bore (super loud) and weight (save with a RUM). I have not and will not start working on it for a while. it is going to be a long hard fought battle to make something .30 cal and actually better.

3. Sound levels. OOF this one is my fault and my fault alone. I was so focussed on the design/manufacture/test repeat cycle that filming what we were doing was not something that even crossed on my mind. Transperency when it comes to this is very important and it is a complete oversight on my part that it hasn't been. We will be addressing this promptly. (Form showing up in my office grabbing a microphone and walking out without saying anything). I will share what I can in another post but based on what all has transpired in this thread I doubt it is going to be satisfying.

4. If you feel like you were an early adopter and lied to about what your OG is exactly please reach out to me. (rokslide DMs are the most reliable way) and I will make sure that we do something to soften the blow. Sincerist apoligies if you feel this way.
 
Unknown Suppressors said:
Holy smokes, I am away for a few days and soo soo much has happened. I'll try to touch on everything that people are upset about. If I miss anything let me know and I can add more detail!

1. Why the OG65. Looking way back to when we got our first prototypes of the OG in Jan of 2025 we basically had met all of the requirements we had set forth (sub 140, 10ish oz, 4" OTB 4" after) we started drilling into sound suppression until we hit an absolute wall at about rev 9. After rev 9 there was only tiny increases in sound reduction. At about rev 40 tried we had what we thought at the time was just about everything we could do in the 4" after the muzzle. Jump forward to early/mid august, Ryan had insisted time and time again that we need to make a 6mm OG, I finally had done it. We tested it and everyone thought the microphones were broken because it was so so much quieter. We went back out and tested it again and got the same results. We were wondering what the heck do we do with this knowledge now that we have it. We were also in the middle of the reaper development at the time and I had made what I thought at the time walls and baffles that were too thin. Try as we might we determined the walls and baffles arent too thin and they are safe with some barrel lenght restrictions. So I took my new found knowledge of the reaper baffle stack, the reaper wall thicknesses and the knowledg of the affect of making an OG 6mm. These three things had a baby and that is the OG 65. I made one, Form me and ryan shot it and looked at each other and literally said "Oh F***" what do we do with this. The advice that we ran with was "Don't apoligize for making your products better". We considered holding out because we knew there would be backlash for us launching this so close to when we launched the OG.... It didnt feel right to any of us to keep this to ourselves and we want all of our customers/potential customers to have the best that we can offer.

2. OG 2.0 we havent even started on it. We are going to work on making the OG lighter knowing what we know now. There are two major hurdles in the way that we need to figure out how to get around. .30 cal bore (super loud) and weight (save with a RUM). I have not and will not start working on it for a while. it is going to be a long hard fought battle to make something .30 cal and actually better.

3. Sound levels. OOF this one is my fault and my fault alone. I was so focussed on the design/manufacture/test repeat cycle that filming what we were doing was not something that even crossed on my mind. Transperency when it comes to this is very important and it is a complete oversight on my part that it hasn't been. We will be addressing this promptly. (Form showing up in my office grabbing a microphone and walking out without saying anything). I will share what I can in another post but based on what all has transpired in this thread I doubt it is going to be satisfying.

4. If you feel like you were an early adopter and lied to about what your OG is exactly please reach out to me. (rokslide DMs are the most reliable way) and I will make sure that we do something to soften the blow. Sincerist apoligies if you feel this way.
Click to expand...
As a small business owner it would really be easy to say “you got what you purchased” but then you lose trust. I can’t believe the humility and clarity just provided by a guy just trying to make a business in an industry that changes so quickly. Hats off and bow down. This is amazing!
 
Bluefish said:
As someone who worked in the hearing protection field, even 15 years ago there was very little test data on gunshot/ impulse noise. What was out there was old, ie 50’s-70’s. Not really a priority for anyone as it’s pretty well known that guns are loud and exposure causes hearing damage.

One of my co workers was involved in a rewrite of the nrr standard and several of the others in the group were still trying to get good characterization of different guns 2010-2013 time. The sound meters in use today did not exist back then. Even testing hearing protection for impulse noise was hard. 3m used actual explosives to test the filtered protection that caused all the lawsuits. The testing we did was with an air cannon and even then we had trouble making it really loud.

In regards to tone, sound is not a single frequency, but many. The Db is a measure of sound energy and doesn’t reflect the frequency of the sound. So yes a suppressor can have a different sound signature due to which frequencies it reduces more, just like hearing protection doesn’t attenuate all frequencies the same amount. Because of this ear plugs for musicians are different than industrial protection.

Now for my $.02 on sound levels, 140 Db is not a hard limit. Some people will suffer damage below 140 and some will not suffer if slightly above 140. It depends on your body and how your ears are shaped. Also the way they figured it out isn’t as scientific as you might think. They tested people who work around hammer mills and for a lot of the gunshot testing they used cats as their ears are similar in construction to humans. You can figure out how they assessed the damage to the ears.

Once sound is below 140 ish, it’s about dose if you get damage. At 135 ish, you can probably take 3-5 shots. 130 is about 10, 120 is 100, 110 is 1000. This is why you need hearing protection at the range even with a can and why everyone should have a can on their rifle.
Click to expand...

If you can handle people asking you questions about all of this, it would make a really good independent thread. Great stuff, and super interesting. Also, helpful in understanding damage thresholds better.
 
Unknown Suppressors said:
Holy smokes, I am away for a few days and soo soo much has happened. I'll try to touch on everything that people are upset about. If I miss anything let me know and I can add more detail!

1. Why the OG65. Looking way back to when we got our first prototypes of the OG in Jan of 2025 we basically had met all of the requirements we had set forth (sub 140, 10ish oz, 4" OTB 4" after) we started drilling into sound suppression until we hit an absolute wall at about rev 9. After rev 9 there was only tiny increases in sound reduction. At about rev 40 tried we had what we thought at the time was just about everything we could do in the 4" after the muzzle. Jump forward to early/mid august, Ryan had insisted time and time again that we need to make a 6mm OG, I finally had done it. We tested it and everyone thought the microphones were broken because it was so so much quieter. We went back out and tested it again and got the same results. We were wondering what the heck do we do with this knowledge now that we have it. We were also in the middle of the reaper development at the time and I had made what I thought at the time walls and baffles that were too thin. Try as we might we determined the walls and baffles arent too thin and they are safe with some barrel lenght restrictions. So I took my new found knowledge of the reaper baffle stack, the reaper wall thicknesses and the knowledg of the affect of making an OG 6mm. These three things had a baby and that is the OG 65. I made one, Form me and ryan shot it and looked at each other and literally said "Oh F***" what do we do with this. The advice that we ran with was "Don't apoligize for making your products better". We considered holding out because we knew there would be backlash for us launching this so close to when we launched the OG.... It didnt feel right to any of us to keep this to ourselves and we want all of our customers/potential customers to have the best that we can offer.

2. OG 2.0 we havent even started on it. We are going to work on making the OG lighter knowing what we know now. There are two major hurdles in the way that we need to figure out how to get around. .30 cal bore (super loud) and weight (save with a RUM). I have not and will not start working on it for a while. it is going to be a long hard fought battle to make something .30 cal and actually better.

3. Sound levels. OOF this one is my fault and my fault alone. I was so focussed on the design/manufacture/test repeat cycle that filming what we were doing was not something that even crossed on my mind. Transperency when it comes to this is very important and it is a complete oversight on my part that it hasn't been. We will be addressing this promptly. (Form showing up in my office grabbing a microphone and walking out without saying anything). I will share what I can in another post but based on what all has transpired in this thread I doubt it is going to be satisfying.

4. If you feel like you were an early adopter and lied to about what your OG is exactly please reach out to me. (rokslide DMs are the most reliable way) and I will make sure that we do something to soften the blow. Sincerist apoligies if you feel this way.
Click to expand...
Keep innovating bro, keep innovating.
 
RockAndSage said:
If you can handle people asking you questions about all of this, it would make a really good independent thread. Great stuff, and super interesting. Also, helpful in understanding damage thresholds better.
Click to expand...
It’s an interesting subject and I wish I still had some of the white papers I had access to then. I researched as much as I could as it is important to me. Would be an interesting topic to delve into.
 
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