*dusts off Hide account*
What's up guys - Craig from Area 419.
Reading through the thread, I want to address a few points.
To begin, this is not, nor was it ever going to be, a Thunder Beast. The guys at TBAC have a terrific product line. If I want my rifle to be quiet, gimme that 338 BA. The Ultra 7 has also set the standard for mid-size suppressors. We have a great deal of respect for their work, and in all testing have used their stuff as the gold standard for suppression.
On to the Maverick - this was built with a match shooter in mind. If you're a guy that likes to bang some steel here and there with some buddies, and spends most of your time prone or on a bench, this may not appeal to you. That's ok, we aren't trying to please everyone.
Like many of our products, we started with a personal difficulty. I shoot a fairly large number of matches. This means a lot of rounds fired. As a competitive guy, I have nearly always shot these matches with a brake, wanting the greatest possible performance from my muzzle device. Downside here - brakes (wether ours or any other you'll see around) - create concussive pressure waves that effect the shooter not only at the time of the shot but over the course of a day/weekend/year/lifetime. The Maverick, in the competition setup with the brake attached, is built to retain that brake-like performance and eliminate the shock/fatigue of a brake. It does that, and if you're a match shooter you'll understand the importance.
The Maverick in the traditional suppressor configuration is also a very serviceable sound suppressor. Production models will be 8" long, and give you sound performance in line with the industry standard 7" cans. We knew we would lose some performance setting up the core unit to maximize the control from the brake, and this length/suppression ratio is the penalty.
We also understood that a lot of guys would want to train/hunt with the full suppressor configuration, and then shoot the braked setup in a match - so we made both ends weigh the same (they're so far all within about .5 gram), allowing a guy to go back and forth without a POI shift. Again, if you're a match shooter, this is sweet.
There's an above complaint about the aesthetic. While I typically (all the time) run a can with a cover, I wanted to explain the ribbing. It serves a few purposes. It provides band strength to the tube in certain places that are important to the construction of the can. The baffles are all pushing into one another and against the tube. This creates a great deal of concentricity, and keeps the baffle stack sealed so that long-term service can be performed in our shop. This construction also allows us to build in detail to the baffle skirts to use air as an insulator and hold in heat a little longer. Nothing worse than a 14-15 round stage that ends with mirage coming from your can and blurring a target. The ribs also allow us to use a larger diameter tube for the ends of the tubes, allowing for more solid caps and threads. Having a serviceable can was important, this is part of that process. We also like the ability of the ribs to retain a cover. NOTE: Production model cans will have a marginally less pronounced rib as we will be using custom-size titanium bar stock as opposed to common small-run sizes.
Worth noting - my opinion is biased, so I'll copy/paste some FB comments from a couple guys that shot them this weekend. Ruggles and Nathan have already said what Rooks and I (the other two to shoot the finale with them) will say, it's comfortable, controllable, and you'll spot trace like you never have. Here are some others:
Ryan Hansen: "So I shot this on Craig’s 6xc today. This is a amazing item. It’s hard to describe how it shoots but the gun shot “soft” barely coming off the target not just in the prone but also off a Barricade, the impulse was very smooth and the sound reduction it’s just enough to take the snap out of it. Pretty impressive device."
Steve Eames: "Shot this today. absolutely amazing, only shot 8 rounds prone and positional but never came close to loosing a bullet down range. wish i could have screwed it on my heavier match rifle to get a real evaluation, maybe another day. thanks 419 for innovation, creativity and meeting shooters demands!!"
I'm getting long-winded, but hope to be complete in addressing questions. We will be doing a FB Live on Wednesday night, so watch our Facebook page for that. We will also be pushing out more and more videos from both our range and from the finale. This system is the real deal, and we are very excited about getting them into more and more hands.
www.area419.com
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