Earlier this year we attended the inaugural 5.7 Fest event, a celebration of the 5.7x28mm round and all the guns, ammunition and gear that help support it, at Range Ready in Robert, LA, the home of the Gun Talk folks. One of the pieces of kit we had the chance to check out were two suppressors from Silencer Central, the established rimfire Banish 22 and the new, Golden Bullseye Award-winning Speed K. The Banish 22 is designed for rimfire rounds like the .22 LR, .22 Mag. and .17 HMR, but is rated up to the centerfire 5.7mm round. The Speed K is rated for 5.56 NATO, which of course means it works just fine for 5.7x28mm as well.
As part of the Silencer Central portion of the 5.7 Fest demonstrations, a sound meter was set up to record the decibel level of a handgun, fired with the same ammunition, both with and without a suppressor. Clearly, we expected the level to be less when the pistol was suppressed, but what was interesting was to see how well the Banish 22 worked to reduce the sound signature of 5.7mm ammunition. While the Banish 22 was designed for rimfire, it still took the signature of 5.7x28mm out of a 5-inch-barrel handgun down more than 20 decibels, nearly to “hearing safe” levels (which is why best practices are still to wear hearing protection even with a suppressor).
Obviously, pairing subsonic ammunition with a dedicated suppressor designed for centerfire cartridges will yield lower sound ratings, but it was instructive to see that a rimfire-based suppressor could bring the noise level down substantially. When paired with a pistol firing subsonic .22 LR ammunition, the sound level was reduced well into “hearing safe” territory, although again, this is for single-exposure noise, not continuous.
In this video, we chat with Ryan Harkema of Silencer Central about the Banish 22 and Speed K suppressors. For more information on either suppressor, or other suppressors from Silencer Central, visit the company’s website at silencercentral.com.
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