Flash Testing and Comparison of 11 Rifle Suppressors

5/23/20262 min read

TL;DR:

Printed Inconel suppressors generally have the least flash. Titanium suppressors are very sparky/flashy. Baffled cans are somewhere in between.

The video is very compressed (thanks Youtube), but you can still generally tell what’s happening.

Transparency note:

AB: No business or financial relationship
Otter: No business or financial relationship
Ridgeback: Yes, carries our mounting parts
Resilient: No business or financial relationship
YHM: No business or financial relationship
CAT: No business or financial relationship

Test method:

We set up our camera on a tripod at the range a little after sundown and fired 10 rounds through each suppressor. The camera was perpendicular to the shooting position.

Host:

The host was my tuned 12.5 mid-length rifle with the compact Plan-B brake. All of the HUB threaded suppressors had a HUB LPA installed. The Velos used our Charlie LPA.

We shot PMC X-TAC 55gr which tends to be fairly flashy.

It’s probably safe to assume flash will be worse on shorter barrels and better on longer barrels.

Chart and Image Notes:

The chart is intended to be a quick reference only. Some suppressors in the same category are brighter or dimmer than others.

Because it was dark out, the camera increased exposure making the whole image appear brighter. We’ve found that shooting a little past sundown works better than in complete darkness because it allows the camera to focus better. I’m not a photographer and there’s probably better ways to do this, but this captured the flash reasonably accurately to what we observed in person.

General Observations:

Titanium suppressors were the brightest, as expected. They’ve all been shot before, but don’t have a ton of rounds through them. I expect they’ll always have some amount of sparking.
The Rhino S was less sparky than the other titanium suppressors. I'm not exactly sure why this is.
The printed Inconel suppressors consistently offered the best flash performance.
For all suppressors except the Tisha (Titanium), the first shot was brighter than later shots, usually significantly so.
The Rhodie 6 was very consistent with a minimal increase in flash on the first shot.
Despite having medium flash in the first shot, the CAT WB had extremely low flash for subsequent shots.

Future Testing and Reviews:

We're getting a couple suppressors from Otter Creek to review, including their new Infinity 556K.

I also got a Bear Creek bolt action 300BLK upper recently. I’ll write a review on that with some related suppressor notes wherever I can get it to chamber a round without needing to put my entire body weight on the bolt handle.

Have a great weekend!

- Nathan Comstock

*Click to expand images