Re: How to quiet down a 10/22?
GSR, let me try and help here.
There is a major failure to understand the basic principles of dB readings that prohibits a good number of otherwise reasonably bright people to move ahead on suppression issues. That high point of failure is looking at any dB data, any of it, without understanding either peak pressure and duration/frequency/tonality. And, once understanding it, account for it in one's research results. For far too long a very few "practitioners" (they are not engineers, scientists, scholars, researchers) without any formal education or real understanding of suppression have....bought meters and posted data without the thinnest clue as to what those numbers mean. Less dB, this better! No, no...not necessarily.
Let me boil it right down to its essence. dB meters can only measure peak pressure, that is all. Why is that important? Because the peak pressure of a .308 is the same as a .300 Winmag. But you and I, and every other living thing with ears hears the difference between a .308 and a .300 Winmag as incredibly different. That difference would stop most people dead in their tracks and think "hey, there must be something more to sound than peak pressure." And, not surprisingly, that is where many manufacturers have walked away from "practitioners" like Tits. He just doesn't get it.
The difference is actually two things, duration and tonality. Its the duration of the blast, that which cannot be picked up by a peak meter that is important. It is the frequencies generated and sustained throughout that very same duration that is important as well. That does not mean just throwing up a pretty multi colored graph of the data, but understanding what the graph means and how it relates to dB and actual performance.
So, where does that leave us. Pretty much split between goofy practitioners with bad meter placement, lack of understanding, missing manufacturer models (no not everybody wants to give a free model to "practitioners" that don't understand the basics), mismatched models, mismatched year comparisons, and a good number of cases where non-production models were provided as "in production" models (some of those models "black Box" for instance, were never produced.)
Now as to you 1% of top .22 suppressors...no, not even close. When we include integrals, all blast cans pale. Unless of course, one starts stuffing subsonics of various makes and loads and begins to pretend that a blast can shooting subs can get anywhere near the ballistic power of an integral. Then there is the part where top quality integrals compress their barrels to reduce barrel resonance, providing superior accuracy.
Now, I do not expect you to accept any or all of this as fact. But it would be a good time to start to explore the real reasons why when you lock the breach and dBs go up we always look to the can.
jhnmdahl, not necessarily. Think of it this way. A can is designed to match the pressures as required. As an example, some manufacturers of cans have tremendous back pressure problems when their product, designed for bolt guns, are threaded on to gas guns. It can be the other way, on the suppressor threads there is a fellow right now that wants a can for his M1a and thinks that he can just buy a bolt can and thread it on. He can't, and depending on the can he selects he could set into motion enough pressures to really wear his weapon down. The issue is design, pressure design, whether by volume, baffle, chamber or, as is almost always the case, a very careful balancing of them all.