pedal_pusher wrote:i personally think aac is junk...only because i owned one that didn't last a year, and when i call them, i don't want hear that they supply the worlds most elite military/government cause that's a bunch of bs.
What happened to it? AAC generally has a good warranty if it's a manufacturing defect, but historically customer service hasn't been their strong point. That's suppose to have changed, but I personally can't attest to it either way as all of mine have been flawless. However, individual experiences aren't enough to prove a product is junk or otherwise. On aggregate AACs are generally considered very well built cans, but like all products they have good points and bad points. It depends on what you value.
As a side note, even the best QC/QA can't guarantee that there are no lemons. Now if you got a lemon and they wouldn't stand behind it or you just didn't like how they did so, then by all means take your money where ever you wish.
pedal_pusher wrote:aac are great marketers, it's gucci unnecessary technology to fool people who don't know better into spending more then they should...their cans are no better/quieter then awc's.
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in the world of suppressors, the simplest design works the best. none of the gucci companies do business beyond consumer.
Those two statements don't quite jive, particularly with your previous comment about AAC customer service. AAC's poor customer service is generally attributed to their focus on military markets and not civilian, but you say AAC is "gucci" and such companies don't do business beyond the consumer. So which is it? Is AAC a "gucci" company who only sells marketing or are they a military focused company who just sells to civilians to help manufacturing/production flows?
Regardless if you meant it or not, you're coming off as someone who's ranting about an irrational hatred of AAC.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of AACs marketing. The whole tattoo, bad boy image doesn't do anything to sell them to me. Later, I'll tell you why I choose the AACs I have.
pedal_pusher wrote:aac are great marketers, it's gucci unnecessary technology to fool people who don't know better into spending more then they should...their cans are no better/quieter then awc's. i used to like awc until lynn mcwilliams passing and his wife retiring, then leaving the company to be run by their neighbors kid... whose also another 'talker'. i would put silencerco in the same category.
in the world of suppressors, the simplest design works the best. none of the gucci companies do business beyond consumer.
So is it "gucci" or unnecessary? Is it all marketing fad or simply not needed for the civilian market place? I'll give you that there may be valid points that you don't need a can as well built as AACs or that frequency shifting isn't needed for the civilian market, but if that's what people want to buy why should you care?
Building a simple device which is basically nothing more than an expansion chamber isn't hard. An empty 2-liter soda bottle will do just fine in most cases. However, modern suppressor design has gotten to the point of computational fluid dynamic modeling, finite element modeling, etc. You aren't going to get huge gains from those techniques because most of the sound is eliminated by simply containing it so the expansion time is lengthened and cooling it. As the old saying goes, you get an 80% solution for 20% of the work, but the last 20% of the solution will take 80% of the effort. For most of the civilian market that's more than adequate and as proof of that point I'd note the large number of suppressor companies doing just that.
Furthermore, once you reach hearing safe levels of sound reduction, additional dB reduction isn't all that useful because human hearing works on a log scale anyways and secondary-plus noise sources become dominate. I.e. at some point a suppressed AR is going to be louder than an suppressed bolt no matter how good you make the can on the AR. Thus, chasing an artificial dB rating is folly. That's where the advanced techniques come into play. You can shift the frequency to it sounds less like gun fire, or into ranges humans hear poorly in or not at all, use it to fool our direction finding capabilities, etc. All of those things are important in suppressor design and some (e.g. flash signature, etc.), but may be of limited or no value in certain markets. It's up to the buyer to decide what they value and purchasing accordingly.
Of course, just like recoil, suppressor tone qualities are subjective and vary wildly from person to person. However, there are plenty of examples where the can with the better dB rating sounds much louder than "lesser" cans.
pedal_pusher wrote:for years the industry has tried to revolutionize the product to be quieter and run cleaner, but have yet to. the only change is cosmetic and higher prices.
Counter point: the military's M107 suppressor testing (
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2006smallarms/semick.pdf). It showed clearly the differences in sound and flash reduction, as well as the wildly varying impacts on recoil, etc. between the different designs. There are other such tests, but that's the one that came to mind first.
It's ignorant to suggest they are all the same. Perhaps what you intended to say is that for what you think the civilian market should care about they are all the same to you?
pedal_pusher wrote:the major development in the last decade was the quick release mount which reed knight had the upper hand on first. the only problem with his clamp on style was that sometimes cans would fly downrange. i like where surefire's going in developing smaller, short, stubbies for 556 and down, which is something i've wanted for years. the smaller the better in my book. silencerco's philosophy is obviously the bigger the better and yet, they're no quieter.
Yes, not all QDs are created equal. They each have strengths and weaknesses, just like the various suppressor designs. I too am a fan of the smaller cans on ARs, but more than Surefire is making them now. Certainly they deserve the credit for making them popular.
pedal_pusher wrote:of course this is all just my opinion based from actual field use, not google or reading books. ok, bring on the hate.
Thankfully I am well educated and have field experience because both are important. There are plenty of stories where the engineer's got it wrong on paper only to be corrected by the field, but there are just as many where the field keeps Fing up stuff because they learned to do it wrong and are too stubborn to learn otherwise.