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What does 76 Rounds of Full Auto 5.56 Do To A .22 LR Suppressor?

S&W M&P 22 threaded barrel model with a suppressor

Youtuber Cheekflapperer uploaded a video a while back of a Minuteman .22 Long Rifle suppressor from Freedom Armory being tested on a full-auto 5.56 rifle. It didn’t take long for the suppressor to start coming apart with the casing pealing back like papier-mâché. I am really surprised that the suppressor lasted as long as it did, pretty impressive stuff.

About the Author:

Patrick Roberts

Since founding Firearm Rack in 2014 which evolved into Primer Peak in 2020, Patrick has been published by RECOIL, Ammoland, Gun Digest, The Firearm Blog, The Truth About Guns, Breach Bang Clear, Brownells, The Shooter's Log, and All Outdoor. When he isn't writing you can find him instructing handgun and AR-15 courses, training his dog Bear, or spending time with his son Liam. See what he is up to on his YouTube Channel, on Facebook, or on Instagram at @thepatrickroberts.
The Mission of Cheaper Than Dirt!'s blog, The Shooter's Log, is to provide information—not opinions—to our customers and the shooting community. We want you, our readers, to be able to make informed decisions. The information provided here does not represent the views of Cheaper Than Dirt!

Comments (9)

  1. Okay, at full auto in short bursts, it obviously was a self correcting problem. However, given how long the suppressor lasted, one would think it feasible to be able to fire .223 through that same suppressor in single shot mode without doing much if any damage unless you are shooting through it all day with the .223. It still sounds way too dangerous to me!

  2. Some stories have no morals, this demonstration had not point. Why get all worked up over it? Heard of a ‘wildcatter’ some years ago, wanted to see just how hot he could make a .22 bullet and how fast he could push it.
    Firing it through an test barrel, he loaded a variety of necked down cartridges with .22s. His best was a necked down .30-06 case. If I remember correctly, he got just over 4,000 at the fps.at the muzzle. Why? Because, he just wanted to do it. Same with the .233 s being fired at full auto through a .22 suppressor, they just wanted to do it. Destructive, perhaps, a great deal of fun, probably. The man in my story burned out the test barrel after 20 rounds, that how hot he was able to load the .22 s. No moral, no point.

  3. No offense, but that was just plain dumb. One would not expect a rimfire can (suppressor) to stand up to the pressure of even one centerfire round. That is does proves nothing, as a rimfire suppressor is just that, for rimfire cartridges. In fact, if a .22 LR can is rated for magnum or 17 HMR, they’ll say something like (for *all* rimfire cartridges).

    This was a waste of a suppressor and the test doesn’t test a thing.

  4. Moral of the story . . . I guess suppressors are not meant to be used for sustained full auto fire.

    Carbon and residue build up inside them, and when being used with semi-auto shots that are not fired in sustained, high speed shooting, the bullet itself will generally adequately clear the path through the build-up. But I guess in this case the heat and extreme conditions were too much for the suppressor to handle.

    To be honest, I haven’t used suppressors very much. We had a suppressed MP5 in Iraq that we would use occasionally to shoot vicious feral dogs around the perimeter of our camps, but all it took was a few shots any night we went out so they never got overheated. We used the suppressed MP5 so as not to raise a lot of attention. From anybody. 😉

  5. Pretty cool but really what was the point? Destruction of a perfectly good suppressor. What did they think would happen?

  6. Interesting, but why call it impressive? Everyone like to see a building demolished with dynamite, etc, but what was the purpose of this? Was it to see the failure in detail so that improvements could be made? There are a lot things that can be done to destroy any kind of equipment, but why?

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