K baffles are so 1980’s. The cool thing these days are turbine silencers, like OSS has been producing for a while now. The biggest problem with their design is that the cans are massive and heavy, something that isn’t very good for operational operators operating in the area of operations. NEXGEN Defense thinks they have a better zero back-pressure solution: the MAXFLO 3D.
There’s two things that make this can interesting, and thanks to a little Vanna White esque modeling by Scott of this 3D printed model you can see both of them.
First up is the baffle design. Much like an integral silencer design there’s a central tube which is ported on the sides and vents into an expansion chamber surrounding the barrel. This allows the gasses to expand and cool without leaving the confines of the can, reducing the noise and light signature of the gun.
Noticeably absent are what we would commonly consider baffles. Instead of sealed chambers the expansion area snakes its way along the sides of the can and vents towards the front where nifty change #2 sits. Instead of using as small an exit hole as possible the expanded gasses vent through rather large openings surrounding the muzzle of the can, allowing the gasses to flow much faster than otherwise possible. This design reduces back-pressure, which similarly reduces cyclic rate for full auto firearms.
MSRP on the can is unannounced, but I can’t wait to get my hands on one and check it out.
K baffles work. Cone baffles work. M baffles work. Moncores work. And they’re all proven.
This thing looks like something they pulled out of the dumpster behind OSS.
When your gas is expanding about 6000fps, it makes no sense at all to allow it a route to the end of the can or further forward on the bore; it simply flows too fast to transfer any heat or energy, and essentially bypasses the baffles/etc to flow back into the bore in front of the bullet & out the front. Far better the bullet is able to keep the flow ‘corked’ as it passes through baffles, slowing the rate of expansion so the gas can cool via conduction into the metal & dissipate velocity via turbulent flow patterns. It is for that reason you don’t see helical baffles made from coiled sheet metal; they don’t work very well at all. At least this design is somewhat different in that there is an easier path for the gas to exit out the front vents which keeps it from pouring back into the bore quite so much, but that mesh diffuser it has to pass through will restrict flow enough that plenty of flow will still exit through the bore by going around the bullet.
Holy crap, it was painful typing that on this website, TTAG; between the ten-to-twenty second latency of keystrokes, the near-constant automatic page-scrolling, the two popups, the three redirects, the four refreshes, and the five “flash has crashed” messages, your site is seriously jacked up. Practically no other websites out there have these issues, even those as bloated with clickbait ads and tracking software as this one has become.
How do you even webbrowse at all without adblock and noscript?
That’s why I started using uBlock plugin for Chrome. The popups and flash based ads were killing me. Plus there were some web pages that were running very bad adverts that faked “Windows infected” messages. I would rather support the good sites, but with the bad ads and or excessive ads, I could barely enjoy any content. Not to mention, getting a random “What the fuck is that sound playing in the background” ad. They overdid the ads, and now I block.
@Tommycat – thanks for the heads-up re: uBlock plugin for Chrome. I just loaded it and came back to TTAG. Either it’s my imagination or the page actually loaded significantly faster. Thanks. Hated waiting for TTAG to load before I found this!
I run Opera. I had absolutely no issues at all. No plugins or extra shit needed either.
Actually Ernie Bray, the CEO of Nexgen Defense is really on to something here with his design. “Proven” designs are fine, but going beyond the status quo is what we should be striving for. I was fortunate enough to speak Ernie for an extended period at SHOT last week, the man is highly educated regarding expanding gases and how they operate. I expect some impressive things from Nexgen in the coming years.
So based on nothing at all, you’re saying it doesn’t work. Eat paste much?
Looks interesting except for the DNA sampler at the front. You’re more likely to take chunks of our your knees/thighs than actually using it as a weapon.
Fairly certain it’s for full operator contact shooting. Not something you’d use every day.
And lose my built-in point-blank rifle-grenade functionality? I don’t think so.
Why so spiky? Does it double as a hole-saw?
Ha…that’s exactly what I thought. For very slowly and quietly breaching a wooden door?
Hahahaha now that’s a mental picture.
Looks cool.
Looks expensive. I wonder how much better it is over an oil can.
With a name like “maxflow 3D” I thought tampax was getting into the can game.
I guess those things are taxed too…
But does it spit less powder and lead back at you? That’s one thing I would like to see in more reviews…
Those are a sign of high backpressure forward of the gas port, which this is designed to alleviate. So if it works as advertised, then yes.
To make the most of your Internet reading experience, use Adblock Plus or an RSS Reader App to do away with the distraction and bandwidth-robbing ads and other linked BS that the site uses to make fractional pennies from. Better yet, on the Mac if you use Safari, click on the “Reader View” icon just to the left of the URL to go into a view displaying only the article and inline pictures and video that go with the article itself – blocking everything else. The experience is very clean AND quick-loading. This situation is purely a “content versus revenue” situation and TTAG has shown what it cares about most when allowing so much extra with their posts. I have no idea what their budget is, but we come here for the posts – not the ads. I’m quite certain if revenue was a high priority that they could get enough sponsorship from the industry or the NRA itself if it needed to fund payment of its authors and management – if it wanted to.
It is what it is and far be it for me to question the judgment of the operators of this website.
Let me guess. Heavy, loud and overly expensive!