WB
An old story relayed to me...
Sunday, October 11, 2026, 11:56

A friend confided how he once as a youth constructed an effective suppressor. He took a copper solder fitting that fit the end of his Remington .22 barrel snugly then stepped up to about 3/4 of an inch. He filed the fitting so he could slide the fitting on the barrel and also filed a hooked notch so he could twist the fitting and it would be "locked on the barrel" via the front dovetailed sight, so the gasses wouldn't blow it off. The first chamber was a section of proper size copper pip about an inch long, terminating with a solder double ended coupling. Next he found a washer that just fit inside the coupling. It has about a 1/4 center hole in the flat washer, and for effect he punched V-shaped holes around the perimeter flat part. These holes had the metal pushed aside and were still part of the washer. It added sort a directing vent(s) for the gasses. To seal this inside the coupling another inch of pipe was slid into place. I forget the number of chambers he made in such a manner but with his hands he proclaimed it was about 6-8" overall. After all the parts were built he used flux and lead/tin solder to make it a solid fixture. The end was a copper cap with a 1/4" hole centrally drilled.

His report was that it worked perfectly. He had great fun until the fear of word of mouth convicted him. He finally had enough of the worry and threw the device in a deep body of water. Hopefully, divorcing him forever from the liability.

I always thought it interesting, and tried visually to figure what those V-shaped vents must have looked like, and what they actually did to slow the gasses down. With a report of such effectiveness it always intrigued me. Surprisingly I procrastinated and never personally duplicated the experiment.