Back in July, I had a chance to visit SilencerCo’s facility outside Salt Lake City for the introduction of their new 36M modular suppressor. It’s a two-piece design that can be used in two length configurations and on a range of mounts.
Here’s SilencerCo’s description . . .
Introducing the Omega 36M, a light, compact, full auto rated modular centerfire rifle suppressor with the versatility to use on magnum rifles, 9mm pistols and sub-guns.
The Omega 36M is a two-piece modular design with a fully welded core, front and rear. The rear core contains Cobalt 6 and Inconel baffles which provides extreme wear resistance under high heat and heavy fire. The front core consists of new lightweight 17-4 baffle design to save weight while still providing high wear resistance. The titanium outer tube with lock-ring prevents tube loosening and reduces weight. The 36M is finished with a black Cerakote for a heightened level of durability.
The Omega 36M ships with the Charlie ASR mount and is compatible with all SilencerCo Charlie style mounting systems. The updated Charlie front cap allows for tool-less removal and the rear Charlie mounting system provides better mount to suppressor retention.
The Omega 36M will be available early December with a $1,187.00 MSRP. For more information on this model click here
If that strikes you as expensive, hold on. The Omega 36M will suppress everything from .22 Hornet to .338 Lapua. As well as handgun calibers like 9mm. In either short or long configuration.
I got to try it out with a range of guns and calibers, both pistols and rifles.
The Omega 36M is rated at 139 dB in both configurations.
You’re probably familiar with SilencerCo’s Maxim 9 integrally suppressed pistol. Here’s the Omega 36M mounted on their new non-NFA Maxim 9mm pistol.
If you’re looking for one suppressor to handle just about everything you’re shooting, the new Omega 36M deserves a good look.
Part of the product intro was a tour of SilencerCo’s West Valley City, Utah manufacturing facility, which is probably a lot bigger and definitely a lot more impressive than you’d expect.
SilencerCo has almost 200 people working two shifts cranking out suppressors, flash hiders, muzzle brakes, and more for commercial and government customers.
A suppressor is simple, right? They’re all basically the same inside aren’t they?
Think again.
Silencers aren’t magic. They’re the product of hundreds of hours of design, engineering and testing. They’re optimized in terms of baffle spacing and made to precise tolerances to ensure concentricity (and prevent baffle strikes), all to provide the maximum noise reduction within space, weight and cost constraints.
Cerakoted cans.
SilencerCo QCs more than one out of every three production items they produce.
Some of the quality control is done electronically (as in the video above), and some is done by highly skilled individuals.
This is part of the critical process of serializing, inventorying and accounting for each NFA-regulated item. Ever wonder why suppressors cost as much as they do? Compliance is a significant portion of the retail price you pay.
Now all you have to do is wait for the ATF to do their thing.
If only it didn’t take 9-15 months to actually get one…
It may not, if you file a form 4 as an individual. My dealer said he has had a couple come back in 4 months recently. Quickest was 103 days. NFATracker.com is showing similar trends for form 4 individual. Of course this was after I sent my info in on two, as a trust, but that is just my luck. Lol.
I’ve been dealing for 8 years. The shortest time I’ve seen has been 2.5 months. That just happened with forms I filed in July. That’s weird because there’s 12 forms as far back as last December that I’m still waiting on. FWIW
Some recent article stated that the ‘new’ team members that were added to the processing divison were given the newer forms, which is why a whole passel of folks have been getting their stamps back earlier than folks that had them from last year.
Things that don’t suck…..very cool shit, man.
What does 36 in the name reference?
Looks like a pretty good combo of features, size, and weight for a “one and done” can, which saves a lot of money on tax stamps. Though I prefer having dedicated cans to calibers or at least mounts, so you don’t have to reconfigure your can constantly going from pistol to rifle to 3-lug to 22. At least the “Trinity of silencers” gets you rifle, 22, and pistol, and if you go with 7.62 rifle and .45 pistol cans you get the smaller calibers. Though that is $600 in tax stamps to accomplish.
Caliber limit.
If the rating of 139dB is the same in either configuration why ever use the long config?
This.
And, 139 is not impressive in any caliber
That’s the “supposed” to be decibels and configuration for the 338 Lupua. But the white paper says otherwise. Go to Silencer Co and look at the whitepaper.
The website will lay out barrel length, bullet grain, and what brand of round was used.
According to the white paper (short summary):
9mm: Short -131.9dB Long – 123.3dB
5.56 Nato: Short – 139.9dB Long – 130.6dB
300blk (sub): Short- 134.6dB Long – 124.1dB
308WIN: short- 135.6dB Long – 129.6dB
338 Lapua: Short – 139.9dB Long – 134.2dB
Hoped this helped.
Anybody hear the minimum barrel length on this can? I am sure it would vary depending on the cartridge but when silencerco employees used to have a podcast, “Bearing Arms”, they were teasing it as a hybrid and chimera combo. Hybrid part being up to 46 caliber and chimera being no minimum barrel length. It may be in the manual but I can’t get it to load on my phone.
“Anybody hear the minimum barrel length on this can?”
Won’t that be determined by the burn rate of the powder?
Never mind I found it….. it’s somewhat depressing. As stated in my post, the chimera has NO barrel restrictions. When first previewed this was talked about being a hybrid and chimera combination. Once again taking the no barrel restriction from the chimera. This is not the case with this one. 223- 10” min.,
308- 16” min., & 300WM/338LM- 20” min.
Can everyone please stop using and showing AE 147 subs in any video or article please!?
It is without a doubt, in any universe, the loudest f’ing sub I have shot and as a FFL/SOT manufacturer I have many suppressors and lots of ammo. I unfortunately bought six cases of the stuff on sale in Alaska. I ended up trading it 3 for 1 to a commercial reloaded for some good 158 subs.
It has too short of a Cartridge OL to feed reliably from German HK mags even in semi.
My cans I bought Nov 28th 2018 finally got approved and picked up Nov 7th 2019. My previous Omega 30 , purchased 3 years ago, only took 6 months.
I will say the Mask HD and Ghost-M were worth the wait though.
Soon to be banned in VA. I still have two cans in jail here with one I ordered not shipped from SilencerCo yet. It’s been two months on that. Hurry up ATF for the other two!
Will they allow you to ‘grandfather’ what you already have?
If VA doesn’t make an exception for paperwork filed before a specific date then that’s gonna be a PITA.
The ATF will not allow a transfer or change of address to a local or state in which the NFA item in question is not allowed. Sometimes they’ll tell you why on the paperwork and sometimes they’ll just deny it, I had both when I temporarily moved to Boulder County on short notice.
Your options at that point are limited. The ATF’s guidance is to place the NFA items in a safety deposit box in a location where the items are legal. However, that guidance is for when you already own it, already have possession of it and are moving somewhere that the stuff is illegal or are going overseas for an extended period of time. What do you do if you’ve put in the Form 4 and your state/locality makes it illegal while you’re waiting?
If I had to guess, to be entirely honest I’d guess you get fucked when the tax stamp is denied on something you’ve already paid for because without a explicit exception the ATF will absolutely not “help” you circumvent state or local law(s).
*locale
I know it is hard for many, but I suggest moving to a free state and denying the state your tax revenue (which is mostly what they care about… besides control).
He says he shot. 45, but the manual online lists pistol calibers only up to 9mm. I didn’t see any .45 caliber front caps available for this either. Perhaps he was shooting a prototype, or maybe the online manual is wrong?
I’m wondering if the can comes with the Piston mount adapter as well. The website doesn’t appear up to date, as “accessories for the 36m” show all accessories, including salvo shotgun suppressor accessories. They don’t show any accessories for a Charlie .45 front cap, if it really handles .45, and they don’t show an accessory Piston mount; so does the Piston mount come with the suppressor?
The website had a section “What ships with your suppressor”, but it doesn’t say anything; it’s just a picture of the suppressor on a rifle with the ASR mount. Therefore, I would assume that the pistol utility must not be available out of the box, and it looks like they need to add some more accessories to make it work with pistols. If it came with the Piston mount, one could use any existing Pistons from other Suppressors.
My mistake. Didn’t shoot a .45. I shot a 9mm GLOCK and the non-NFA Maxim.
Iam a YHM fan have a sidewinder 9mm
Suppressors will never become popular until they cost less than the gun they will be used on. Come on, the retail costs for $50 of materials and 2 hours of assembly and test labor at $50/ hour should not sell for a grand. Even with overheads of a 10 employee corporation and “ compliance costs” whatever the hell that is and reasonable profit shouldnt retail for over $500. Add the tax stamp and the user is in the ballpark of a reasonable suppressor investment. Perhaps the makers haven’t moved into 21st century manufacturing processes and are using manually welding and forming and stamping and cutting with humans doing all the work. There is nothing exotic about suppressors from a materials and manufacturing standpoint. Im sure the makers keep their costs and processes close to the vest. Comments invited.
^ This!
Motorcycle and automobile mufflers (which have a LOT more material) cost way less than $1,000. I don’t see why firearm mufflers (suppressors, a.k.a. silencers) have to cost significantly more.
When suppressors cost about $200, I will buy SEVERAL of them and suffer the 12-month wait for the ATF to approve/issue my tax stamp. Meanwhile, I will use hearing protection.
Automotive mufflers, while they work on the same principle, are nothing like a silencer in terms of building them.
An automotive muffler runs at ~2-3PSI. A silencer for a pistol in like 9mm takes a shock of something like 3000PSI, and when I say shock I mean that pressure spike occurs in thousandths of a second so the welds and materials all have to be rated significantly above that. With rifles you start talking about a rating for repeated shocks at 10,000PSI.
That shit is not cheap and it’s not even in the same universe as running a car/motorcyle muffler, which btw, also doesn’t have to be threaded just about perfectly so it can be attached and removed countless times and still line up with the bore axis.
If suppressors like this was $200 then you would give your left nut for a 12 month turn around time. ATF turn around time is based on amount of applications received. If you decrease the cost by 1/6 then the amount sold will easily increase x6. Not to mention you wouldn’t be the only one buying ”SEVERAL” so 12months x 6times the increase of people x 2because they would buy several= You saying you won’t buy one because it is a 12 YEAR wait.
@UNCOMMON_SENSE. “ When suppressors cost about $200, I will buy SEVERAL of them and suffer the 12-month wait for the ATF to approve/issue my tax stamp.”
I’ll call your bluff. Look up black aces tactical po’boy 30 or 56 or 47 MSRP is $199 for any of them. Order SEVERAL of them. Let us know how you like them. If your coming through Indiana let me know and we can do some side by side comparisons between yours and some that cost over $200 to see if the extras are worth it.
And before anybody gets butt hurt, that was not a knock on the po’boy, just the only one that I know at $200.
You’re welcome to jump into the game and show them how it’s done.
If he can keep the weight and length the same or under, include the asr mount, use quality components like titanium, cobalt 6, and inconel so it last more than 10 shots, provide a lifetime warranty, make sure that it handles the pressure of a 338 Lapua mag being fired over and over, and has the insurance and lawyers to pay out if his “quality” can fails and goes full hand grenade; do all of this for less than $500- I’m in for almost every rifle I have. I am guessing the amount of time before that happens is going to make the ATF wait time look like pizza delivery time.
You clearly have no idea how high-end manufacturing of items that operate under high-pressure work.
Some of this is manually welded and some of it’s probably done by machines. I used to do both. That machine costs more money than you want to think about, more than most small businesses are worth, and it’s not anywhere near as reliable as you’d like to think nor is it capable of the level of precision you’d expect.
Then there’s the inspection which ain’t cheap either. All those welds have to be X-ray inspected by a multi-million dollar machine run by a certified CWI. Then there’s the certified welders that do the work by hand and by running the bots. They’re certified for X-ray quality work on each type of exotic material that’s worked with by the company. Their certs aren’t cheap and neither is their time.
Anyone who says this kind of thing “shouldn’t cost this much” has no clue what they’re talking about. Just the machines to make this stuff cost from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
If you want cheap cans then they need to be like the cheap ones overseas: disposable. With the NFA in place no one is gonna pay $200 and wait a months for a disposable muffler. That’s why no one makes a wipe based muffler for the civilian market at this point.
YHM has several rifle suppressors (Turbo 556, Turbo K, Resonator) that sell for around $450 with a QD mount. They are all competitive for size, weight and sound reduction. I’m sure a high end suppressor will take more full auto punishment but they are all more than ok for anything a normal person would use them for. I really don’t think you are going to get a cheaper suppressor that you would actually want to own. Compared to what other suppressors are going for (typically double $$), I really don’t understand all the complaining.
I was once married, I found shooting a 44 Magnum with a ported 4 inch barrel without ear pro to be a great benifit. riiiiinnngggg ” Whats that you say honey ?,” buzzzriinggg “I need to spend more money on ammo.” zzzriinng “Love you too” ( Im sure I heard her say, somthing you”)