22 suppressor cleaning

[American_Fusilier]

I'm a new suppressor owner, I have a Dead Air Mask HD 22 can. I've only shot about 25rds through it. The manual that came with it said to clean it every 2k rnds or so

My questions are how often do you clean your 22 can, and how do you guys clean them? I just recently learned about "the dip" and CLR, and it sound like that's the way to go.

Though after watching some YouTube videos, it looks like purple power in a sonic cleaner will work. However, I do not have a sonic cleaner.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Englishmn]

I have the same one its getting nasty but I just scrape some crud off occasionally and put it back together.
Its going to get dirty first round you fire so I don't worry a whole lot.
Anything that can remove the lead easily will probably turn it into a more absorbable toxic lead compound that you don't want to dump anywhere.

 

[Spats McGee]

...What are your thoughts?

My thoughts: I'm always looking for tips on cleaning my suppressor, so I'm going to post in your thread so I can find it again.

 

[Spats McGee]

Just so you know, I have my baffles in CLR now. Will let you know how well it works.

 

[American_Fusilier]

I saw a YouTube video of a guy using CLR, and it seemed to work for him. Curious to see about your results

 

[Spats McGee]

My first round of CLR is done and it looks promising. I’m probably 250 rounds or so since the last cleaning, so not all that much. First bath was about 1.5 hours and most of the crud just washed off. Wiping took most of the rest, but I still have a few old crud deposits, so the baffles are in a second bath. No sign of damage to my old eyes.

 

[American_Fusilier]

Good to hear! I think that is the route I'll take when it's time to clean it. Thanks for the report!

 

[nugi]

What do you do with the CLR waste after?

 

[Spats McGee]

What do you do with the CLR waste after?

You know, I probably should have thought about that question before running my test...

2nd bath is done. It did not loosen the older deposits, so I will still need to invest in a tumbler or sonic cleaner. Other than that, the baffles are nice and shiny.

 

[a_canadian]

I started off using a thin coat of white lithium grease on the first few baffles. But it's smokey stuff, stinks when shooting indoors, and doesn't last more than a few dozen shots with subsonic CCI. So I was happy to run across this thread:

http://nfatalk.org/forum/index.php?threads/keeping-baffles-clean-ongoing-experiment.10344/

Basically a few users concluded that 'Silaramic' high temperature white brake grease seems to be the best coating. It's amazingly sticky when shooting, and I've tested to well over 100 shots before finding the blast baffle no longer sufficiently coated to prevent carbon build-up on the aluminum K baffles. Considering I was cleaning my baffles every 50 shots or so to make it a matter of using a rag rather than going to solvents and wire brushes, more than doubling that is an impressive upgrade. Tried some purple high temp brake grease, but it didn't perform as well and it smoked and stank worse than lithium. Silaramic hardly smokes at all.

 

[Spats McGee]

I started off using a thin coat of white lithium grease on the first few baffles. But it's smokey stuff, stinks when shooting indoors, and doesn't last more than a few dozen shots with subsonic CCI. So I was happy to run across this thread:

http://nfatalk.org/forum/index.php?threads/keeping-baffles-clean-ongoing-experiment.10344/

Basically a few users concluded that 'Silaramic' high temperature white brake grease seems to be the best coating. It's amazingly sticky when shooting, and I've tested to well over 100 shots before finding the blast baffle no longer sufficiently coated to prevent carbon build-up on the aluminum K baffles. Considering I was cleaning my baffles every 50 shots or so to make it a matter of using a rag rather than going to solvents and wire brushes, more than doubling that is an impressive upgrade. Tried some purple high temp brake grease, but it didn't perform as well and it smoked and stank worse than lithium. Silaramic hardly smokes at all.

I was going to try this stuff: https://www.ucwrg.com/materiel/oil-grease-and-tools/18/aeroshell-33ms-grease/

Any thoughts?

 

[a_canadian]

No opinion, sorry, as I've never used that. Can't hurt to try it I guess.

 

[GaryNC]

I do not have a Dead Air Mask but I do use this stuff on my suppressors. It is high temperature (2,300 degree F) grease and does not get me all dirty. This stuff was suggested on another NFA Silencer forum.

 

[Spats McGee]

I started off using a thin coat of white lithium grease on the first few baffles. But it's smokey stuff, stinks when shooting indoors, and doesn't last more than a few dozen shots with subsonic CCI. So I was happy to run across this thread:

http://nfatalk.org/forum/index.php?threads/keeping-baffles-clean-ongoing-experiment.10344/

Basically a few users concluded that 'Silaramic' high temperature white brake grease seems to be the best coating. It's amazingly sticky when shooting, and I've tested to well over 100 shots before finding the blast baffle no longer sufficiently coated to prevent carbon build-up on the aluminum K baffles. Considering I was cleaning my baffles every 50 shots or so to make it a matter of using a rag rather than going to solvents and wire brushes, more than doubling that is an impressive upgrade. Tried some purple high temp brake grease, but it didn't perform as well and it smoked and stank worse than lithium. Silaramic hardly smokes at all.

The bolded parts makes me wonder if it's worth the effort for me to try to coat the baffles at all.

 

[a_canadian]

It's a matter of shooting preferences. If you're one who likes popping off 500+ shots in a day, it's unlikely you'll have the patience to dismantle, clean, and re-grease your suppressor several times during each shooting session. I'm more interested in rather small numbers of shots and shooting tidy little groups, so cleaning baffles occasionally isn't such a big deal for me. If I were going through many boxes of .22lr I'd probably switch to thinking of my suppressors as disposable and just not bother.

 

[American_Fusilier]

Seeing a suppressor as disposable is not an option for me. They are way too hard to get for that.

 

[a_canadian]

Agreed. The labour I put into making baffles and hand-tapping a tube at each end, using a die to hand cut threads on end caps... it's all a bit much for me to consider the result as a disposable item. So instead I use the Silaramic, less frequently than I used to use white lithium grease, but still often enough that my 7075 aluminum k baffles don't erode prematurely. If I happen to want to go over 100 rounds or so, it's not that hard to unscrew the suppressor and use a brush to smear some fresh grease on the face of the blast baffle, going through the 1/2"-28tip threaded hole in the back. Not a perfect solution, but generally enough to get me through another few dozen shots without worrying about a difficult cleaning job.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Frequency just depends on your needs. Some ammo is dirtier, some designs collect crud more rapidly.

"The dip" results in hazmat & highly toxic lead acetate, so it's a last resort.

The guts don't need to be squeaky clean, and cans actually perform better with a little carbon in them.

I usually drop baffles in mineral spirits for a couple days, then clean them mechanically, get most of the crap off with picks and pocket screwdrivers, wire brush in the tube, Dremel with a wire wheel on the critical mating surfaces of the baffles if needed.

For those looking on, DO NOT use Simple Green, CLR or "the dip" on aluminum parts. It's fine for titanium or stainless bits, but will attack aluminum.

 

[American_Fusilier]

Good info. Thanks!

 

[Odd Job]

If you have to clean a .22 suppressor (and I am not convinced you do) then I would just do these two things and call it good:

1) After every 500 rounds, take it apart and use a stiff dry toothbrush on the components. Then reassemble, even though the pieces won't be squeaky clean
2) If you are sharing one suppressor between two rifles, you may need to detail clean the female threads of the suppressor before attaching that to the other rifle. This happens to me because one gun has a longer thread than the other. So if I fire 500 rounds with the "short" gun then I have residues deposited on the internal threads of the suppressor where they need to be clean before attaching to the "long" gun

I have one reflex suppressor that requires four sets of threads to be cleaned after brushing it out, or it will not reassemble cleanly.
Having said that, I have one suppressor that I am abusing, past 35k rounds now, with no cleaning. It is still going strong! It is an A-TEC CMM6, manufactured in Norway. It is made from aluminium.
Bearing in mind that if it does fail, I won't be crying, I'll just buy another one as it is easy for me to do that here in the UK.

 

[a_canadian]

There was a fellow years ago posting on Silencertalk about his experiments in shooting a Form 1 .22lr suppressor 'to death' as it were. He weighed it at intervals. Memory is weak on this one, as it was maybe a decade ago, but I think he shot something like 20,000 rounds before it was so full of crud that it wasn't really a suppressor any longer and weighed about 50% more than when it was new, more of a low quality barrel extension by that point. He was an X-ray technician so recorded images of its progress towards failure. With .22lr, I'd definitely recommend cleaning, even if it's just by plugging one end, pouring turpentine or whatever solvent in the other and swishing it around, then dumping it out somewhere that it won't go into the water table, a creek, a kitchen garden...

 

[Conelrad]

I have 3 home built suppressors on form 1's, all are some 40 years old now.

They have always been cleaned by disassembling and soaking in carb cleaner for a day or so. Sure cuts the grime and crud, just rinse with water and things are good to go.

Never hurts a thing, as carburetors are made out of the same metals.

 

[Spats McGee]

…For those looking on, DO NOT use Simple Green, CLR or "the dip" on aluminum parts. It's fine for titanium or stainless bits, but will attack aluminum.

Thank you, @MachIVshooter.

 

[American_Fusilier]

I believe the baffles are stainless on the dead air mask HD... I'll have to read the manual again

 

[Spats McGee]

I believe the baffles are stainless on the dead air mask HD... I'll have to read the manual again

I’m fairly certain the baffles are stainless and the tube is titanium.