Cleaned my silencer.

[samboy]

Hi gang.

              After 16 years of weekly use i decided to clean my Parker Hale silencer which is on my .22 rimfire.

              It was full of crud and took an overnight soak in bore cleaner and then a boil in washing up liquid.

               Its like brand new now so will be testing it out next week. I've been told the dirtier they are the less

                 efficient they are but i don't know if that's true.

[steve_b_wales]

You can use a product called Silensave, made by Napier. Spray inside a new or cleaned moderator, and once a shot has been fired, the chemical 'bakes' onto all surfaces. 

[Jim Neal]

Hushpower state that once the inside of their moderators coke up they become more efficient at their job.

How does it sound now it's cleaned compared to before?!

[Stonepark]

I have a ASE steel 22 mod and take it apart every 2000 rounds or so and clean the wax and unburnt powder out to keep it working efficiently.

[samboy]

10 hours ago, Jim Neal said:

Hushpower state that once the inside of their moderators coke up they become more efficient at their job.

How does it sound now it's cleaned compared to before?!

Have not tried it out yet. But as soon as do i will let you know.

[scarecrow243]

the more **** inside a moderator the less it will dull the sound as less space for the gases    also similar  dpf on a car   or Catalytic  Converter  both get choked up and don't work

[Jim Neal]

13 hours ago, scarecrow243 said:

the more **** inside a moderator the less it will dull the sound as less space for the gases    also similar  dpf on a car   or Catalytic  Converter  both get choked up and don't work

Sorry but I find your analogy highly flawed.

DPF and CAT systems work completely differently from sound moderators, don't they?  They're passing exhaust through a filter and trying to capture the solid particles.  Therefore the more that has been captured the less space there is to capture further particles.

A sound moderator on a gun is channelling the sound of the explosion and changing the way it exits the muzzle, altering the characteristics of the sound as it leaves the gun.

I have no further technical info other than what Hushpower state as I said above, but if I had to make a presumption it would be that the coating of soot building up inside the moderator works as an insulator, lessening the ability of the steel tube to transmit sound through it.

[Stonepark]

8 hours ago, Jim Neal said:

A sound moderator on a gun is channelling the sound of the explosion and changing the way it exits the muzzle, altering the characteristics of the sound as it leaves the gun.

A sound moderator designed to slow down and let gas expand in a controlled way. It is the high pressure gas exiting the muzzle which causes the sound or bang as it hits the low pressure air surrounding the muzzle.

The less volume, the less expansion and the less effective a moderator becomes, when I clean my mod of the accumulated gas and wax residue there is a notable difference in sound level due to the return to like new condition.

[scarecrow243]

Jim i only put the dpf and cat as an example  when things get clogged up they do not work the same as when new same goes for a sound moderator

[Jim Neal]

On 02/12/2021 at 08:18, Stonepark said:

A sound moderator designed to slow down and let gas expand in a controlled way. It is the high pressure gas exiting the muzzle which causes the sound or bang as it hits the low pressure air surrounding the muzzle.

The less volume, the less expansion and the less effective a moderator becomes, when I clean my mod of the accumulated gas and wax residue there is a notable difference in sound level due to the return to like new condition.

I honestly don't want to get pedantic about this but have to call into question the logic of that.  What percentage of the internal volume of the moderator is occupied by the residue build-up?  We could only make uneducated guesses.....It can surely only be a fraction of a percent?  So how much sound reduction does, for example, a 0.01% increase in the internal volume of the moderator provide after removing the residue?  Surely an undetectable difference if it's all about volume?

It just doesn't stack up.

If there is indeed an audible difference after cleaning your mod, the difference can't be to do with internal volume so therefore there must be some other factor involved?  Maybe it's drag?  The accumulated crud is slowing down the flow of gas?  But surely slowing it down is good for sound moderating, hence Hushpower's assertation that a bit of build-up inside the mod helps it work better?

I've got a Mossberg 12g pump fitted with Hushpower which I've literally never cleaned after putting a fair few thousand rounds through it, so when I get a spare hour I'll clean it up and take it for a road test on the squirrels and see what they think.

On 02/12/2021 at 08:59, scarecrow243 said:

Jim i only put the dpf and cat as an example  when things get clogged up they do not work the same as when new same goes for a sound moderator

Yep I get that mate but what I mean is your analogy is like comparing a playstation to a fridge-freezer.  Two completely different things.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Jim Neal

[Stonepark]

5 hours ago, Jim Neal said:

I honestly don't want to get pedantic about this but have to call into question the logic of that.  What percentage of the internal volume of the moderator is occupied by the residue build-up?  We could only make uneducated guesses.....It can surely only be a fraction of a percent?  So how much sound reduction does, for example, a 0.01% increase in the internal volume of the moderator provide after removing the residue?  Surely an undetectable difference if it's all about volume?

It just doesn't stack up.

.

On my ASE Utra rimfire steel silencer, i was losing about 30% volume over the 2000 rounds, but the silencer is 'quiet' and most solid I have come across, even though it traps all the wax and powder crud from each shot.

 

The spaces between the stacked 'baffle washers' fill with wax and powder as the hot gases hit the cold steel of the mod.

 

It takes usually about an hour to dismantle the silencer when it is choked, prise the stacked "washers" out and clean them with a wire brush manually. A Dremel cuts the time down to about 40minutes.

 

http://www.silencertalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=78682

 

This is the one I have in the above article.

[Jim Neal]

30% of the volume?  How did you arrive at that figure?  That's really quite a lot, it surely can't be built up that thick?

If you're really bored one rainy day, next time your mod gets crudded up and you take it off to clean it, tape over the muzzle end and fill it with cold tap water and weigh it.  Clean the mod, repeat the water/weighing process, that'll give you some figures to do some sums from.

But again this is way over the boundary of pedantics.  We're also talking about different types of sound moderators too - the hushpower mod for shotguns is a completely different thing compared to what you're talking about.

[wymberley]

On 26/11/2021 at 15:33, steve_b_wales said:

You can use a product called Silensave, made by Napier. Spray inside a new or cleaned moderator, and once a shot has been fired, the chemical 'bakes' onto all surfaces. 

Thanks, Steve. Just bought one so this was timely. Mine is over barrel so needed some 'choke' for the barrel end. OK, it needs 'drilling' out to c2.5mm - one makes two.

EXTENSION STRAW SPRAY NOZZLE FOR AEROSOL CAN 140mm RUST PROOFING DINITROL SIKA 5055516806054 | eBay

[islandgun]

I certainly don't have any experience of cleaning mods but if hushpower declare that mods are better when more clogged up, why dont they make them with larger baffles so they are more clogged up from the start..🙄 

[Windswept]

1 hour ago, islandgun said:

I certainly don't have any experience of cleaning mods but if hushpower declare that mods are better when more clogged up, why dont they make them with larger baffles so they are more clogged up from the start..🙄 

I don't think they use the word clogged up. On my 410 hushy it just has a metalic noise when using subsonic carts, this seems to be reduced when plenty of carts have been fired. It's quiet enough for me either way. If noise was a big issue it might be worth ensuring the mod is a bit sooty.