2nd generation Phoenix XLV

Got another local shop who wants to carry my cans, and after a few months of use & abuse, I've decided to make a couple of revisions. Where the Phoenix is concerned, it's a change in the booster & rear cap design, as well as baffle alignment system. If any of you remember gen I, it had alignment tabs on each baffle, and the piston retention system was similar to that of the SiCo Osprey, with 3 blind holes in the cap and 3 tabs that rode in notches on the piston.



In demonstrations, concerns arose over the rear cap unscrewing from the can and remaining on the gun, which was never actually a problem in use, but people were worried about it nonetheless. So I revisited that, and came up with a rear cap that can be removed and installed by hand, or by using the same wrench as the front cap if it became too tight. The new design engages the piston tabs inside the booster housing rather than using pins on the rear, which simplifies my pistons in eliminating the 3 grooves. As before, my 3 lug pistons are proprietery, but my booster can use 10 point SilencerCo/Rugged/etc pistons.




The rear cap is now 7075 Aluminum, Type II anodized black. The remainder of the suppressor construction is the same with Ti housing, 17-4 booster housing, blast baffle & front cap, black anodized 7075-T651 baffles for #2 thru #8. Baffle alignment is now with a Delrin rod that has a key for the clips. Flip the alignment rod around for a stepped acetyl piece that is used to push out dirty baffles for cleaning. The baffle change does simplify production a little, but the real reason was that people checking it out who didn't bother to read the instructions tried to drop the baffles in rather than stack them and slide the can over the stack. This resulted in the thin tabs sometimes finding their way over the baffle skirts and then becoming stuck when people tried to shove them in.

Other than the rear cap, it still looks the same, but the revisions netted a 1 ounce weight loss; the Phoenix XLV now weighs 10.1 ounces including the piston & spring. Length is still 7", and I have finally been able to meter it: 131.9 dB avg. with no discernable FRP. For comparison, the SiCo Osprey 45 is 8" long, weighs 10.9 ounces w/piston and meters 131.3 dB but with a 134 dB FRP. The Octane 45 is 8.5" long, 12.1 ounces and meters 132.0 dB. Rugged Obsidian full configuration is 8.6" long, 12.8 ounces and allegedly meters 129.3 dB.

The "toughness" of my Phoenix lands between the Osprey and the Obsidian; with the round Ti housing, the Phoenix can handle more than the Osprey and is .357 mag/10mmm and full auto rated, but not designed for continuous use on submachine guns with their high rates of fire like the "belt fed rated" Obsidian.

Havok7416 said:

I like this can and was about to order several, but I think I like your Vorticus design better for my purposes. That said, the Phoenix still looks great and I may still consider it.

Click to expand...

I still haven't finalized the Vorticis design, but stay tuned to see just how tough the Phoenix is. Time and weather permitting, I'm going to take one of the first gens, which have identical internals, and torture test it on camera, starting with 300 rounds of full auto 9mm, then a couple mags of full auto .300 BLK, then 18" .308 bolt action, then M16, and finally full auto .308.

Well, the video was crap, but I'll put it up unlisted for this crowd anyway. Forgot to bring .300 blk ammo and just skipped the bolt gun, went straight to the .308 machine gun. Also just went with the 3 drum mags on the Suomi, so it was more like 200 rounds.

In the end, the aluminum baffles were melted & vaporized (some of the molten aluminum ignited into brilliant flashes outside of the can), and the 17-4 baffle was destroyed trying to knock the remnants of the aluminum baffles out, but the rest of the can-tube, booster housing, front cap- is OK. I got it home, scraped & sanded the melted aluminum off the front cap and inside of the tube, threw new baffles in it and she's good to go. So, even if someone were to take one of these and abuse them like this with rapid fire on a rifle, the can is rebuildable with just clean up and new baffles, which I can pretty well guarantee wouldn't be possible with the aluminum housed pistol cans that are still heavier.

After the fact and not on camera, I took the other Phoenix, installed the direct thread mount and fired a few .308 rounds out of an 18" Rem 770 with no ill effects. It's a pistol can, and the aluminum can't take the heat of full auto rifle fire, but it can handle the pressure of even short barreled rifles. It's just a temperature game. Granted, it's not optimized for supersonic rifle, and was pushing the envelope for hearing safe on the .308, but it didn't ring my ears. I did not set up the 2209 for that, but I'll meter it later on some rifles.



Centers were melted out of the baffles, molten aluminum spilled out and plastered itself to the front of the end cap