Baffle Strike

[snipecatcher]

Has anyone here experienced them shooting subsonic? I asked on SilencerTalk, but haven't got much of a response. I had a subsonic 175 SMK destroy the 5th baffle out of 10. I had tested 4 of them on paper before screwing on the can, and at 100 yards, all produced perfectly round holes, plus I usually shoot subsonic 240's, and have put 20 of them through the suppressor without a problem before this. The first shot after screwing on the suppressor, the bullet hit 3 feet low, so I took it off and went back to the manufacturer, where they confirmed the mangled baffle. What would cause this one bullet to yaw out that much, and only hit one baffle in the middle of the stack? It was the first one through, so there was no chance of the suppressor being loose. Any ideas?
-Dan

[alorton]

If it hit a middle baffle I would have expected it to go sideways and destroy the rest of the suppressor. We've had some baffle strikes on a few of my department's 5.56 suppressors but it has always been the tail end of the suppressor and just nicked it. This was with 55gr duty ammo (supersonic) in a 1:9 barrel so the best we can figure is bad ammo. It certainly should have been stable.

[Scalce]

I am assuming you have used this can before with supersonic rounds on this rifle?

If not, did you do a visual check down the barrel and suppressor to make sure it looked lined up?

What are the rifle and barrel specifics?

What was the velocity of the rounds you shot?

Round holes on a target at 100 yards doesn't mean that they were not on the edge of being stable.

Subsonic BTHPs are tricky to get to work correctly in certain weights with slower twist rates.

[alorton]

If he had been shooting 240 SMK's without problems I can't the 175's shouldn't have been borderline on stability, right? Since the 240's were fine I'm assuming 1:8 twist.

[i8asquirrel]

could this have been a paice of carbon or other obstruction in the Can? I have a hard time rapping my head around a bullet being so unstable as to hit the baffle that close to the bore? I would love to see some ultra High speed video of rounds leaving the muzzle.....

[Scalce]

Originally Posted by alorton

If he had been shooting 240 SMK's without problems I can't the 175's shouldn't have been borderline on stability, right? Since the 240's were fine I'm assuming 1:8 twist.

My bad

I missed that whole part.

Damn speed reading skills.

[snipecatcher]

The rifle is a Savage with an 18" Shilen barrel varmint contour, threaded 1/2x28, 1 in 8 twist. I have shot quite a number of 240's subsonic, before I got the can, which was just a couple of weeks ago. The manufacturer (a small shop) took my rifle, with the 240 gr. handloads, and tested the suppressor, everything was good. I took the rifle out for the weekend, and shot 20 more of those handloads through the suppressor, no problems, but had to take suppressor back in to have the endcap re-torqued. It was fine at that point. The next time I took it out, I shot 5 through it on the AR-15, all grouped well. I then shot 5 shots through the 300 whisper with the new load, 8.5 gr VV-N110 under a 175 SMK. All holes were perfectly round. I screw the suppressor on, and that's when I had the problem. Physics would dictate that the bullet would be deflected into opposite side of the baffles after contacting the first one, right?

One other thing:
The manufacturer says that it would be "impossible" for the baffles to be out of line after torquing down on the endcaps, but they are a simple washer/spacer type. If one of them was machined slightly off, and had a different amount of torque holding it in, it seems as though that could be the culprit.