The vast majority of silencers are designed to never ever EVER come apart. The reason is that they’re designed for higher pressure cartridges, so making them permanently sealed lowers the probability of the cans coming apart under pressure. It’s also easier and cheaper to produce. But Huntertown Arms, a silencer manufacturing company little more than a year old, has done something I’ve never seen done for the 5.56 round: they’ve made a silencer that you can take apart and clean . . .
That may not seem like such a breakthrough, since 5.56 ammunition doesn’t dirty up a silencer all that much. On the other hand, .22 long rifle is dirty as all get-out.
Silencers are often used to quiet multiple calibers, and thanks to being able to use the same barrel for both 5.56 and .22lr, shooters can also use the same can to quiet both. The issue is that 22 ammo tends to leave tons of residue behind, whether in the form of unburnt powder or just nasty carbon build-up. If not cleaned out every once in a while, the gunk will eventually make the silencer useless.
Huntertown Arms’ solution is to build a scaled-up stacked baffle can, a design typically used only for rimfire these days. That means the silencer can be cleaned and put back together, and it also allows the shooter to rotate the baffles. The rearmost baffle will receive the most punishment thanks to the muzzle blast, and rotating the baffles will extend the lifetime of the parts.
It’s a nifty design, and hopefully I’ll get my hands on one to test out for more than ten seconds at some point in the future.