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How I Built a .300 Whisper Suppressor  Suppressor  (and a .22 suppressor too) By Rob Robinette

Warning : You must have a BATFE Form 1 with tax stamp to legally build a suppressor. National Firearms Act (NFA) rules apply and you can do hard prison time for violating the law. The first step in manufacturing a su ppressor is getting permission from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives Explosives (BATFE) (BATFE) by filling out a Form 1 and sending in $200 for a tax stamp. It will take about 5 months to get the tax stamp so send it in early. Since I had a combo lathe/mill at home that I used for making car parts I already had everything I needed to make a suppressor. I decided to go with an all aluminum "monolithic baffle" design for this .300 Whisper suppressor. The .300 Whisper uses .308 size bullets and is very good at sending heavy 220 or 240 grain bullets at subsonic speeds downrange accurately. If I were building a suppressor for .308 supersonic loads I would use at the very minimum steel for the blast baffle (first baffle the bullet encounters). Subsonic .308 loads are very mild and a thick aluminum blast baffle is fully adequate. I used 1.5 inch outside diameter round aluminum bar for the baffle and 1.5 inch inside diameter aluminum tube for the baffle cover. I used 6061 T6 T6 aluminum bar and tube from www.metalsdepot.com The 1 foot long bar used here cost only $12. The suppressor is 8 inches long. To manufacture a monolithic baffle suppressor the basic steps are: Start with a solid round metal bar to make the baffle Face both ends of the baffle on the lath You may need to remove some material from the outside of the baffle so that it will fit inside your aluminum tube Drill and tap one end of the baffle where the baffle will screw onto the threaded barrel Drill the bullet path through the baffle Mill out the gas chambers in the baffle Face the ends of the seal tube To finish the seal tube you can remove a small amount of material on the lathe or simply polish it up with some steel wool Insert the completed baffle into a metal tube and seal. The seal can be a press fit, welded, epoxied or even duct tape! Don't forget to inscribe or engrave the suppressor with: Serial # Model # Manufacturer (your name) Manufacturer's city & state

Suppressor

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Using the Grizzly lathe to drill the baffle's center hole.

Suppressor

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To prepare for tapping I drilled the thread end of the baffle.

Suppressor

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Drilling the bullet path the full length of the suppressor. For a .308 bullet I used an 11/32" (.344") long bit from Home Depot. For a .223/5.56 use a 1/4" (.250") bit.

Suppressor

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Boring the thread end to the pre-tap size.

Suppressor

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Tapping the baffle--Do not try to use the lathe's power to do this. I used the tailstock to simply hold the tap for perfect alignment with the bullet path. I pushed inward on the tailstock and turned the lathe chuck by hand to start the tap. I did the last half of the tap using a standard tap hand wrench so I could feel when the tap hit bottom. I used a 5/8" x 24 threads per inch (tpi) tap to match the thread on my .300 Whisper upper. For a normal .223/5.56 AR use 1/2" x 28 tpi.

Suppressor

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Drilling and milling the baffle chambers.

Suppressor

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Cleaning up the bullet path after milling.

Suppressor

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The finished baffle. I had to turn the baffle in the lathe to remove about 15 thousandths from its diameter to make it fit easily into the tube. I intentionally left the baffle chambers odd shapes to disrupt the gas's path through the baffle.

Suppressor

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Suppressor

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I slid the completed baffle into the aluminum tube and welded both ends to seal the suppressor. It's now ready to be screwed onto a rifle, inspected for barrel alignment and test fired. Please forgive the crude welding, I'm an amateur aluminum welder. You'll need an AC TIG welder to do this kind of work. If I need to open the suppressor I can use the lathe to cut the welds to remove the tube cover.

The suppressor wrapped and installed on the .300 Whisper upper. The wrap helps reduce noise too.

Suppressor

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A .22 baffle made of 1 inch solid round aluminum bar 

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The .22 baffle next to it's outer seal made from aluminum tube with a 1 i nch inside diameter 

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The .22 baffle inserted into the tube seal with a nice tight press fit.

Suppressor

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The .22 suppressor installed on the 10/22 [ Home ] [ Up ]