Best Overall 556 Can

[Failure2Stop]

I half sarcastically want one of those Walgreen's battery powered fans blowing by my face for health purposes.

Zero reason not to.
Another super good idea is to thoroughly wash your hands and face as soon as possible after any shooting event, and definitely before putting anything into any of your or anyone else's orifices with your fingers.
Accept no unneeded risk.

[NoVA5326]

Jack is certainly correct in this being a multi-variate value assessment. There is no best, simply a Venn diagram of suitable compromises.

An institutional user will care about a reasonable form factor (size & weight) with signature management, durability and (fortunately) in the last few years... the toxic crap getting blown back on the shooter.

These institutions will likely have flash suppressant powder additives for operational ammo and hopefully less toxic training ammo. Their test will be with specified ammo and perhaps a couple barrel lengths. Admittedly, IMO, they sometimes go silly with firing durability schedule... though perhaps appropriately testing to what the biggest idiot might do with little supervision.

The Navy had to really work on trying to blow up some offerings with absurd full auto firing schedules that in no way represent operational or the more intense training requirements... and ended up with some dive weights at the end of muzzle.

For personal use on a semi gun I would trend to shooter experience ala ergonomics.. swing-ability, lightweight and short, with low/no back pressure. Over say max suppression from downrange perspective or durability... as I'm no longer freeriding on the gov teat for 5-800 rd$/day training.

Bolt gun, lightweight

However, these widgets are a regulatory pain to buy.. so quite understandable to focus on durability, even in civ-landia

[Dutch110]

Zero reason not to.
Another super good idea is to thoroughly wash your hands and face as soon as possible after any shooting event, and definitely before putting anything into any of your or anyone else's orifices with your fingers.
Accept no unneeded risk.

This reminds me about a situation that occurred with one of my college room mates and his girlfriend after we had all been out to $5 pitcher and 10 cent wing night. Woke up to her screaming at him. Came out of my bedroom and she was in the bathtub, spread eagle, with the shower head on full blast and pointed to her nether regions trying to get rid of the wing sauce that had somehow made it's way to some sensitive places. Made for a great story at their wedding, lol.

[kerplode]

You kids these days with your fancy low back pressure and 3D printing...

Back in my day, we bought a giant 30 cal can made of solid stellite. It was heavy and gassy and up hill both ways in the snow and we liked it! And sometimes it would get stuck on its mount and we'd have to hit it with a hammer or unlock it and shoot it off the gun.

Yes...those were the days...

[flenna]

You kids these days with your fancy low back pressure and 3D printing...

Back in my day, we bought a giant 30 cal can made of solid stellite. It was heavy and gassy and up hill both ways in the snow and we liked it! And sometimes it would get stuck on its mount and we'd have to hit it with a hammer or unlock it and shoot it off the gun.And we liked it!

Yes...those were the days...

FIFY.

[Ironman8]

I am a true believer when it comes to low backpressure cans on self-feeding rifles.

Curious do you mean:
#1 - the newer flow through tech
OR
#2 - a can advertised as “reduced blowback” and/or a properly tuned gas system?

I gotta believe that there’s no such thing as 0 gas to the face, at least I’ve never experienced that, but how much better is the former vs latter options above?

[Ron3]

I gotta believe that there’s no such thing as 0 gas to the face, at least I’ve never experienced that, but how much better is the former vs latter options above?

I'm new to owning my own suppressors.

I have a 16 in Mini-14, completely open action right in front of my face. Zero mods to the gas "system". With my 556k Flow the gas I feel to my face is no different than without it. Obviously less sound & concussion from the muzzle because the suppressor does its thing.

[Failure2Stop]

Curious do you mean:
#1 - the newer flow through tech
OR
#2 - a can advertised as “reduced blowback” and/or a properly tuned gas system?

I gotta believe that there’s no such thing as 0 gas to the face, at least I’ve never experienced that, but how much better is the former vs latter options above?

"Flow-Through" is a marketing term that a specific company uses to describe low backpressure. We use the "Pressure Reduction Technology" (PRT) term for the same thing.
They're all doing pretty much the same thing, through different internal geometries. It's pretty easy to get a very low backpressure, depending on how willing you are to give trade-space in other areas. The early OSS cans are a good example.

When it comes to the host system, "properly tuned" can mean a whole lot of different things, BUT no matter how well timed the operating system (within practical reason), a higher backpressure suppressor will always push more gas toward the shooter simply due to the fact that the bore is going to be pressurized when the seal of the cartridge in the chamber is broken during extraction.

It is possible to have zero gas to face, but the bolt must unlock only once the bore pressure drops to 0. I don't know of any self-feeding systems that operate that slowly.

[Dutch110]

It is possible to have zero gas to face, but the bolt must unlock only once the bore pressure drops to 0. I don't know of any self-feeding systems that operate that slowly.

This right here. This is the golden nugget of wisdom that people don't get. When I was building a suppressed 7.62x39 build I spent time on the phone with the barrel maker (the actual guy who cut the barrel) talking about proper set up. I was hung up on ejection pattern. He told me he sets up his own rifles so that the brass almost dribbles out of the EP. I didn't go as stiff on the spring or as heavy on the buffer as he did. But the theme of keeping the bolt in battery as long as realistically possible was the same. It's probably one of my least gassy rifles. And it runs a Razor 7.62.. Not exactly cutting edge.

[Ironman8]

"Flow-Through" is a marketing term that a specific company uses to describe low backpressure. We use the "Pressure Reduction Technology" (PRT) term for the same thing.
They're all doing pretty much the same thing, through different internal geometries. It's pretty easy to get a very low backpressure, depending on how willing you are to give trade-space in other areas. The early OSS cans are a good example.

Thanks for the clarification.

When it comes to the host system, "properly tuned" can mean a whole lot of different things, [B]BUT no matter how well timed the operating system (within practical reason), a higher backpressure suppressor will always push more gas toward the shooter simply due to the fact that the bore is going to be pressurized when the seal of the cartridge in the chamber is broken during extraction.[B]

It is possible to have zero gas to face, but the bolt must unlock only once the bore pressure drops to 0. I don't know of any self-feeding systems that operate that slowly.

This is what I was getting at, but not asked in the clearest way...You obviously have to have gas pressure to operate the system and it's impossible to have 0 gas blowback if you want to keep the semi from becoming a bolt gun, so if I'm going to use proper buffer springs/weights and tune the gas pressure (BRT gas tube for example) to run the system just inside of that threshold to maintain reliability but not be overly gassed, then what does the newer "flow through" tech give me that a standard can doesn't? Wouldn't that have roughly the same effect?