May this serve as a cautionary lesson to you folks even though this sad little tale does not reflect at all well on my intelligence. LOL
I had just got my suppressor out of jail after 13 months. It’s an Ultra 7 in 6.5mm. And yes, this is the first suppressor I have owned (or used) in my 70 years of life.
I take the fairly new gun (Altus BA in a JAE) and suppressor to the range today to check zero, eye relief, comb height from prone position as we will be in PA soon for a four day SH clinic with Frank/Marc, blah, blah, blah.
I’m a bit distracted by some other fellas while screwing on my Ultra 7 and didn’t notice that underneath the suppressor the Rifles Only cover’s retention lanyard had gotten between the suppressor and the Area 419 uni adapter shoulder. It didn’t help that it was 104F out (real feel…and yeah, it felt real) and I was shvitzing like a fat man in a Russian bath house. It didn’t seem like the U-7 screwed on enough turns but I took the 419 wrench and gave it a tug, it seemed to be tight. So I dropped down and sent the first shot.
Well, I immediately heard a very loud report, felt a lot of muzzle blast, looked up and there was no suppressor on the end of my gun.
I shot it down range.
I thought surely I would find it laying on the grass maybe 3-4 yards down range, maximum. It wasn’t there.
This is a 10 bench only range with a berm and 10 backers at 100 yds at the same elevation as the shooting positions and a smaller berm with 5 backers at 50 yards which is maybe 10-12 feet lower than the shooting position/100 yard berm elevation. So, not seeing my suppressor I kept walking toward my 100 yard target on the far left of the range. And kept walking and looking…walking and looking…walking all the way along my POA to my 100 yard target and still no suppressor!! I spent 45 minutes looking everywhere and nada. WTF.
By this point I’m really sweating bullets and panicking a bit….I have to find this NFA item. One, because I def don’t want to do the dance with ATF again on a new suppressor (and yeah, the $1K is a factor there also) and two, because someone will be mowing that grass and eventually find the can…with their blades. No bueno, that. So, I called up to the shotgun range house where my good friend @GBMaryland was RO for the day. And another fella showed up to shoot and was nice enough to help us look…well, since we were downrange and not leaving until we found the suppressor, he really didn’t have much of a choice but he really was quite willing to be helpful and I appreciated it very much
The three of us looked for it for at least an hour; utterly baffled as to why we STILL couldn’t find it on fairly recently mowed grass square range. And, as part of this we did indeed look along the side of the higher vegetation around the sides of the range, sides of the berms, etc., figuring perhaps that thing really did roll all the way downhill to the low point at the 50 yard line and was stopped by vegetation.
The result…..no talley, no joy, no suppressor.
I’m looking at my search party and can tell that their motivation had waned significantly and they were about to bag it. So, I took one more trip down range toward my 100 yard target and as I’m passing some high vegetation on the left end of the 50 yard berm, on a whim I started kicking and stirring a couple of feet back from the edge and voila’….I finally found it….50 yards down range in some high weeds!! 50 yards in the air. It didn’t roll there…it was in the middle of a patch of high weeds. It FLEW there.
Now, the terrain drops maybe 10-12 feet to the 50 yard line where I found it so it was a minimum of 35 yards total of actual flight path (can’t believe I’m writing flight path and suppressors in the same paragraph LOL).
And, an Ultra-7 with a 419 Hellfire mount weighs 9 7/8 oz. And it flew at least 35 yards horizontal.
Examining it at the range, it looked like I was lucky and just grazed one baffle…so I looked down the bore, it looked all lined up still, there were no cracks or bulges in the tube at all, so I shot a few more rounds with no issues. But, when I got home I put a Teslong bore scope in there and yep…struck every baffle and a bit of the end cap. Very small chips taken out…but nonetheless. So, I took pics, reached out to TBAC on a Sunday evening with my figuring that they will see it the next morning when they come in. Well, TBAC has GREAT customer focus and @Zak Smith replied to me that night and in his opinion the suppressor is fine and will function perfectly….just don’t do it again (sigh..haha). In discussion with TBAC, if I did want it repaired, it would essentially be an almost all new suppressor just with the serial numbered tube retained (and maybe some other bits…but mostly a fork lift upgrade).
Below are five pictures of the baffles going from muzzle end to pic 5 being the end cap. And I hope this little story of woe was at least mildly interesting.
I had just got my suppressor out of jail after 13 months. It’s an Ultra 7 in 6.5mm. And yes, this is the first suppressor I have owned (or used) in my 70 years of life.
I take the fairly new gun (Altus BA in a JAE) and suppressor to the range today to check zero, eye relief, comb height from prone position as we will be in PA soon for a four day SH clinic with Frank/Marc, blah, blah, blah.
I’m a bit distracted by some other fellas while screwing on my Ultra 7 and didn’t notice that underneath the suppressor the Rifles Only cover’s retention lanyard had gotten between the suppressor and the Area 419 uni adapter shoulder. It didn’t help that it was 104F out (real feel…and yeah, it felt real) and I was shvitzing like a fat man in a Russian bath house. It didn’t seem like the U-7 screwed on enough turns but I took the 419 wrench and gave it a tug, it seemed to be tight. So I dropped down and sent the first shot.
Well, I immediately heard a very loud report, felt a lot of muzzle blast, looked up and there was no suppressor on the end of my gun.
I shot it down range.
I thought surely I would find it laying on the grass maybe 3-4 yards down range, maximum. It wasn’t there.
This is a 10 bench only range with a berm and 10 backers at 100 yds at the same elevation as the shooting positions and a smaller berm with 5 backers at 50 yards which is maybe 10-12 feet lower than the shooting position/100 yard berm elevation. So, not seeing my suppressor I kept walking toward my 100 yard target on the far left of the range. And kept walking and looking…walking and looking…walking all the way along my POA to my 100 yard target and still no suppressor!! I spent 45 minutes looking everywhere and nada. WTF.
By this point I’m really sweating bullets and panicking a bit….I have to find this NFA item. One, because I def don’t want to do the dance with ATF again on a new suppressor (and yeah, the $1K is a factor there also) and two, because someone will be mowing that grass and eventually find the can…with their blades. No bueno, that. So, I called up to the shotgun range house where my good friend @GBMaryland was RO for the day. And another fella showed up to shoot and was nice enough to help us look…well, since we were downrange and not leaving until we found the suppressor, he really didn’t have much of a choice but he really was quite willing to be helpful and I appreciated it very much
The three of us looked for it for at least an hour; utterly baffled as to why we STILL couldn’t find it on fairly recently mowed grass square range. And, as part of this we did indeed look along the side of the higher vegetation around the sides of the range, sides of the berms, etc., figuring perhaps that thing really did roll all the way downhill to the low point at the 50 yard line and was stopped by vegetation.
The result…..no talley, no joy, no suppressor.
I’m looking at my search party and can tell that their motivation had waned significantly and they were about to bag it. So, I took one more trip down range toward my 100 yard target and as I’m passing some high vegetation on the left end of the 50 yard berm, on a whim I started kicking and stirring a couple of feet back from the edge and voila’….I finally found it….50 yards down range in some high weeds!! 50 yards in the air. It didn’t roll there…it was in the middle of a patch of high weeds. It FLEW there.
Now, the terrain drops maybe 10-12 feet to the 50 yard line where I found it so it was a minimum of 35 yards total of actual flight path (can’t believe I’m writing flight path and suppressors in the same paragraph LOL).
And, an Ultra-7 with a 419 Hellfire mount weighs 9 7/8 oz. And it flew at least 35 yards horizontal.
Examining it at the range, it looked like I was lucky and just grazed one baffle…so I looked down the bore, it looked all lined up still, there were no cracks or bulges in the tube at all, so I shot a few more rounds with no issues. But, when I got home I put a Teslong bore scope in there and yep…struck every baffle and a bit of the end cap. Very small chips taken out…but nonetheless. So, I took pics, reached out to TBAC on a Sunday evening with my figuring that they will see it the next morning when they come in. Well, TBAC has GREAT customer focus and @Zak Smith replied to me that night and in his opinion the suppressor is fine and will function perfectly….just don’t do it again (sigh..haha). In discussion with TBAC, if I did want it repaired, it would essentially be an almost all new suppressor just with the serial numbered tube retained (and maybe some other bits…but mostly a fork lift upgrade).
Below are five pictures of the baffles going from muzzle end to pic 5 being the end cap. And I hope this little story of woe was at least mildly interesting.
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