For about five years I have purchased and set up issued rifles for my police department. They are mostly 11.5" barrels with a suppressor and we have added to the program each year. We have about 43 rifles,including 32 Sionics, but also 3 Sig MCX, 4 DD MK18s, 2 Gemtech integras, and a Suppressed Weapon Systems integral suppressed upper. For suppressors we have 15 Surefire FA556ARs, 12 Gemtech 556LEs,and 6 Sig SRD556Ti's. We leave the cans on full time and all except the Surefires are direct thread.
I recently read in Recoil magazine about the 3D printed inconel Bantam suppressor made by thermal design solutions. The price was reasonable and I ordered one. It is incredibly compact at 3.8" long and 1.2" in diameter with a weight of only 6 oz. The size and weight caught my eye but I was also really interested in its advertised forward gas release capabilities. My priorities in a suppressor are Weight, Size, Gas management, and lastly noise level. We suppress our rifles because we know that our officers would fire them on duty without eye or ear protection and we don't want significant and permanent hearing loss to occur. We aren't going for stealth. On the range of course we use eye and ear pro.
The Bantam arrived and I like its design and compact size. It is smaller and lighter than any of our other suppressors. I was really impressed by the gas management. It really works as advertised. No gas face at all and the fired brass and ammo still in the mag were much cleaner than normal. We recess our cans slightly under a 12" Seekins MCSRV2 rail and the extra space due to the smaller diameter kept the rail much cooler. I really like this can and consider it our best option right now for future needs.
We tried to use a sound meter after a long range day to test and compare 5 of our suppressors. I know something must have been off with the calibration because the numbers are way too low. We also had a but of trouble using the meter. However the #'s are useful for comparison provided you take them with a grain of salt. The Bantam was the loudest and the SWS Integral was quietest. Pretty much saw that the heavier cans suppressed better which isn't a surprise. Here's what we got in our admittedly flawed and unscientific test:
Bantam 106.9
SWS INTEGRAL 93.9
Gemtech 103.1
Sig SRD556Ti 100.6
Surefire. 97.3
Keep in mind integrally suppressed uppers are a bit heavy, and the Surefires weigh 17 oz plus a large muzzle brake.
