Silencer Review: AAC Pilot 2 (.22lr)

When you absolutely positively need to shoot something quietly, a silenced .22lr is as close as you’re going to get. It’s the perfect quiet caliber – it’s fun to shoot, is easy to silence, and cheap! AAC makes three different silencers for rimfire calibers, the Pilot 2, the Element, and the Prodigy. I recently had a chance to fire all three from the same gun using the same box of ammunition and got it on video. Right now let’s focus on the “entry level” silencer, the Pilot 2.

As a preface, I just wanted to emphasize that this is not a “full” review of this product. Here at TTAG we usually reserve judgment until we’ve put a couple hundred rounds through something and tried it out in different conditions. Unfortunately the BATFE here in the U.S. prevents us from getting our hands on silencers for protracted testing unless we go through months of waiting, spend $200 per transfer, and live in certain states. It’s impractical. Luckily I recently had a chance to visit the Advanced Armament Corp. factory and test all of their cans under their supervision. While the tests may not have been as complete as I want, they were good enough for a brief review.

The Pilot 2 is AAC’s cheapest can. At $350 it costs almost as much as the tax stamp that goes on its paperwork ($200). Despite its small price and size it still does an excellent job of taking the “thwack!” out of the .22lr’s report.

Don’t believe it? Good for you! Neither did we. That’s why we asked for a live fire demonstration and filmed it. The microphone doesn’t really do the silencer justice in the video. Firing that gun sounded no louder than snapping my fingers, or perhaps a refined “golf clap” – definitely nowhere near as bad for your hearing as firing the pistol without a silencer. The pistol required no modifications to fire using the silencer beyond having a threaded barrel, and fired equally well with and without the silencer.