Designing Suppressors At Silencer Central

Silencer Central became widely known in the firearm market largely due to the company's innovative sales platform and nationwide infrastructure that allowed it to ship suppressors directly to a buyer's home. However, in recent years, the company has been developing its own line of suppressors, and the company has been able to innovate with designs like its Speed K. Watch our "American Rifleman Television" feature segment above to see what's going on behind closed doors as Silencer Central continues to innovate and bring new options to consumers.

"Federal Premium Ammunition came to us and said, 'We see the market for AR-specific suppressors to be an area of opportunity,'" said Brandon Maddox, CEO of Silencer Central. "Honestly, at first I thought, you know, this isn't really probably our market. Like I don't, you know, I intentionally, at first I was like, okay, typically what Silencer Central brings to the table is our compliance acumen, our business acumen, a lot of times we've focused on super quiet, super lightweight. This felt a little different, you know, less blowback and, you know, they weren't really sure what size they wanted. A lot of things that I was thinking, law enforcement, we don't really have any relationships with them. And I was a little like, on the fence and my team's like, 'Okay, it's Federal Ammunition, you have to work with these guys.'"

Though available to consumers, the priority with the Silencer Central Speed K was to offer a compact, effective sound suppressor for the military and law-enforcement community. With that goal in mind, the engineering team focused on the priorities of those professionals before beginning the design process.

"Blank sheet of paper, we had kind of our top 10 items that we wanted to address within the design of the Speed K," said Lucas Van Laecken, director of engineering, Silencer Central. "Looking at those, we had ranked them in terms of what was most important to the law-enforcement community. So that we can, if we had to give and take anything within the design and development of it, we knew exactly where we wanted to pull those strings. And then it really went into putting together some different concepts."

Ultimately, the conceptual stage led the Silencer Central engineering team to realize that 3D-printing was the ideal manufacturing method for the Speed K, rather than traditional machining. This method enabled the team to add cavities and flow channels for propellant gases that couldn't be created with traditional machine tools. The end result was a suppressor with some versatility in its design that makes it ideal for a wide range of police departments and professional teams.

" You'll have some SWAT teams that really have some high-end stuff to some really small towns that have just a factory Colt AR 16-inch. And so that Speed K was designed that doesn't matter what that department has, if they're throwing on just something stock kind of more of your basic AR platform, it's gonna run great," said Zach Ely, sales consultant, Silencer Central. "If they've got the ability to tune it with a gas block or some other things or they have upgrades, it's going to be maybe a little bit better, but really regardless of the AR platform the department's running, it's going to work on all those. Trying to develop something that will reduce that and mitigate that back pressure but still have optimal sound performance."

With the knowledge gained in its experience of building the Speed K and other specialty suppressors, Silencer Central has been able to improve and innovate in the world of silencer design and construction. The company's Backcountry is an ideal platform for hunters seeking to trek long distances without weighing their rifle platform down, and recent developments include improvements in the Speed K that make it even lighter and handier.

" Having an engineering team to look at the designs and say, 'Okay, I think we could make it this way. It'd be more efficient. It would be stronger, and we could also scale it better,' that's good to have someone at the table that can bring that insight to you," Maddox said. "Because before it was a, 'Hey, can you help us design the perfect product?' Now it's, 'How do you help us fine-tune the manufacturing of the perfect product?'"

To watch complete segments of past episodes of American Rifleman TV, go to americanrifleman.org/artv. For all-new episodes of ARTV, tune in Wednesday nights to Outdoor Channel 8:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. EST.