Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine Hunt Cast with me Koby Morehead. We're gonna nerd out on bears hunting and the outdoors. We'll tell stories, talk biology, tactics, gear, and the fight to protect the pursuits that we hold dear, So grab your bino's, lace up your boots, load up your barrels, and gather the helnds. Sweet venture on this journey together. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Hunt Cast. As you probably read in the title, we're
talking about suppressors today. And suppressors are one of those things that I was never that interested in until a couple of years ago. So growing up, we would always wear those little foam ear plugs whenever we were sitting guns in at the range or really out beside the house. And then when we go out in the field, we
just wouldn't wear any hearing protection. And most of our rifles, like, they weren't threaded, they didn't have a muzzle break or any type of muzzle device on them, and so most of that sound, I don't know, we just never really cared about it. And the younger that I was, the drilline would be pumping and I wouldn't even be able to remember the shot, like it never felt like it did anything to my hearing. Well, that all changed a
few years ago. I was muzzleloader hunting with my dad and one of my dad's muzzloaders has a muzzle break on it, and this was one of those times. My dad had been patterning some bucks and there was a big buck that would come through that he was interested in, really nice ten point, and then there were a couple other really solid bucks coming in, you know, about forty
five minutes an hour after him. So for the first time that I can remember as an adult, well, my dad and I sat on the ground together and just waited for these deer to do what we just knew they were going to do. His buck came in, he shot it. We went and drug it into the shade to make sure it didn't get too hot, and then
we sat back down and it was my turn. Well probably about an hour, hour and fifteen minutes later, the other bucks came through, and I just remember seeing this rack coming over the hill and it was really exciting. I mean, the visual really has stayed with me these
last few years. And so the buck comes out, I shoot the buck, and my dad he always likes to do a follow up shot when he can, he pulls up and shoots, and that muzzle break just directed all of the sound from his rifle barrel into my left ear and I couldn't hear anything.
For a while.
Well after a couple of hours it turned into a loud ringing on that left side and there for months, anytime that I heard base it would just be all staticky like it really scared me and it really wrecked my hearing there for a short time. Luckily, my ear heeled up, which you know, you never know if it will or not. And from then on, I don't go out in the field with a rifle without any type of hearing protection. Mostly I'm using those amplified muffs. Well
that all changed with my first suppressor. So I got my first suppressor earlier this year from Brandon, who were talking to today from Diligent Defense, and it really has been a game changer. So today we're gonna be talking about the history of Diligent Defense. We're gonna be talking about the benefits of suppressors and just what all they do for you, because it's not just about the sound anyways. I think you're gonna like this one. Stick around, maybe
you'll learn something. And here's Brandon. So tell me a little bit about your background, how you got into suppressors, and then how that led to your company.
So in nineteen eighty two, my dad started a welding and fabrication company, So I was born into that and I've just been around it my whole life. I went to school, ended up working for Siemens for a while, ended up back in the family business. I've always had a love for manufacturing, and since i've been twelve, well since I've been younger than that, but since i've been twelve, I've just been hunting and shooting and killing everything. So as time went on, started having kids, I just wanted
to do more. So I wanted kind of a hobby. At the time, there was a lot of guys putting small CNCs in their garages at home, making fidget spinners and golf club putter heads and things like that, and boring pocket So I put a cheap Facebook marketplace machine in my garage and started tinkering my buddy that we had just we'd known each other when we were younger
from BMX and racing. But he I was working with him through my family's business and he was a maintenance engineer for a company and just with Snapchat, he's seen what I was doing. He put a machine in his garage and just a lot of back and forth, and some years later we started in silencers. I mean, there was some more behind it than that, but we basically partnered up and that started in twenty eighteen, and I would say by twenty twenty, I think, is when we
got our FFL and became legit. We bought some cheaper sound testing equipment and just put our heads down and bought all the competitor stuff that we really liked and tested against it and basically wanted to introduce something lighter, as quieter, quieter and more affordable, just because a lot of stuff's out there is really expensive. And yeah, the rest is history.
Yeah, oh that's uh, that's awesome. Well when would you have used.
Your first suppressor?
Oh there was some stuff I had when I was a kid that may or may not be allowed to be out there.
But non serialized stuff.
Yeah, there might have been a pop bottle with some you know, different things there. Yes, there may have been an oral sylpter. I can't I can't say for sure. Yeah, but I had a friend in the military, so I was probably nineteen at the time, was when I first started shooting, So it wasn't long after that that I had one. Yeah, but yeah, to have good ones. It's been the last five years.
Yeah, So what's the difference between a good suppressor and uh less than preferred suppressor?
Of the cans made today are pretty darn good weight. Wait's a big thing. When I say good, I mean sound. Sound suppression is pretty darn good on all of them. Yeah, Weight and length are huge things to look at, especially in the hunting world. If you're shooting off a bench all the time, it is what it is. But if you're if you're climbing hills and going under tree limbs and things like that, short length and lightweight is something you want.
Yeah, So the main benefit in the short one would be weight, and especially the titanium ones that you guys put out, I mean, they're they're pretty durned light. Some of the questions that I had before for getting a suppressor was I was kind of intimidated by the process, all the paperwork, and then also like I wasn't even sure exactly what I needed or how to choose a suppressor.
So we're gonna kind of do a dummies guide to suppressors here, and so let's kind of start out talking about why you would want a suppressor, Like all of the benefits of a suppressor.
There's way more pros than cons. Number one is going to be hearing protection. You know, you hunt your whole life. That's a lot of shocks with out of your plugs, and i'd say the majority of people don't wear hearing protection while hunting. Recoil reduction, I would say it cuts your recoil in half. It actually changes the impulse completely. You know, shooting god on suppressed feels more like a punch. Shooting suppressed feels more like a slope push, you know
what I mean. There is still it just changes the impulse completely. Accuracy. I would say ninety nine percent of the time I shoot better groups, The gun shoots better, and I think it's just such a more pleasant experience. Your your trigger pull and everything's just there's no hesitation.
Yeah. I feel like with a recoil, part of the anticipation I would have had before would be the sound impact, you know, that kind of light preparing, not just for the punch, but for but for the sound and as far as accuracy, I mean, I run the suppressor I have from you guys on mainly on my seven PRC, and I shot that thing out to one thousand and fifty yards and you know, hitting still a couple times in a row. Once we got it, you know, the
wind call and everything figured out. I mean, it's just been a tack driver with That's one of the things I was concerned with as well. But yeah, any more benefits.
Yeah, follow up shots. I've definitely noticed. I mean, it's not Hollywood. You hear a gunshot when you break the sound berry. That's loud, but it seems like animals can't really piece together exactly where you're coming from. And then also to be able to hear the bullet impact the animal is pretty cool. You'll know right away if you hit it or not. You know what I mean. It smells sounds like you're smacking it with a boat or or something.
You know.
Yeah, I mean, you sent me a video of a guy shooting subsnic. I think it was three hundred Blackout or something like that, shooting sub sonic through one of these and all you hear is the impact on that round.
And yeah, even where coopers, you'll definitely hear I mean when you shoot a white tail or a bear or whatever, you definitely hear the thump. It's a good holo versus when you hit the ground, it sounds different. You can you can hear both. As far as cons go the process, I don't want to say it's a con. It's just annoying the to go through and have the fingerprints and things like that. But once, once you do it once,
it's it's no big deal. Yeah, added length and wait to the end of your gun, and depending the brand you go with or depending the model you go with, uh, you can make that less of an issue. And the only other thing that's coming to mind is on a gas operated gun like an AR or something, it's dirtier, it makes your gun dirty or quicker, and you get some blowback. But you can tune for that stuff on the gas platforms. But there's there's definitely way more pros than cons, that's for sure.
Yeah. One of the things I didn't know whenever I was starting out was what I would need. So I know that there's different materials that companies use for their suppressors and that each one of them is. It's not just a matter of one being better than the other, but them being purpose built. So the reason for say a titanium one versus a steel one, what would be the way to choose between those two?
The steel cans are more durable and they're cheaper. That's definitely the pros to the steel cans. But for the hunting community, I mean, you can mag dump thirty rounds through a tight can without issue. So I always recommend people are short titanium can just because of the The length is a big deal. You don't think much about it. You're used to, you know, carrying your gun, but you put an extra six inches out there. You're hitting the tops of doorways getting in and out of your truck,
getting it out of your buggy. It's nice to keep the stuff as short as possible, that's for sure. Yeah, we always recommend light titanium for the hunting community.
But yeah, if.
You're on a budget and the two hundred dollars means a big difference to you, just gotta be a little tougher. I guess the extra.
Weight yeah, yeah, I mean a still, when could you run more rounds to them than a titanium, like if you were just about volume. From what I've had people tell me, they were saying, if you if you run a lot more rounds volume wise, that the steel cans handle all of that more intense heat better.
But we don't be wrong.
See we don't see the erosion and the silencers unless you're really doing the mag dumping. I mean, we have we have titanium silencers out there that are coming up on ten thousand rounds through them and they look like the day that we made them, just journey. But if you start doing full full auto or mag dumps, you'll start to see the actual erosion from the metal getting hot and the unburnt powder basically just starts. Yeah, gotcha,
got it. But I would say stainless if you're going to do a lot of that, stainless might be the way to go.
Okay.
And so the next thing that people probably need to know is how to pick a can based upon the rifles that they have, Because not every can is made for every caliber. How would people choose which one's right for them?
So that's actually a question we get a lot, especially from first timers. You can run a big boar can with a small bullet. You're just going to give up a little bit if it's your very first suppressor and you have a three fifty legend nine millimeter this or that. We have a can that's good for nine milimeter bullet
size down, but it'll handle a magnum cartridge. So you can run a three thirty eight Lapua, you can run your three fifty Legends, you can run your nine milimeter car car being subgun or something like that, all the way down to your five, five, six, twenty two two fifties. So it's kind of what you want to what you want to hone in on. But if you buy a specific thirty cow, you're going to give up one or two decibels. Or you can buy our specific six milimeter
in down can, which is one or two decibels. But I recommend for first time buyers at least a thirty cow can. I wouldn't get our six can, you know what I mean? Yeah, but even our eight sixth down or nine mili down can is what I'd probably recommend.
Yeah, I mean for first times.
It sounds like I'm following the recommended plan. Makes me feel good about myself. Yes, yes, the threads are different too, as something we can tell talk about the the thread size on the different rifles, and so what would people need to do if they want to move a can from one rifle to another that has a different thread size, because I think some people think that they just have to have one can that just set for that particular thread.
So there's still silencers you can buy today that aren't really friendly as far as swamp into this or that, but the majority of companies have gone to what they call hub threads. It's a one in three eights twenty four thread and there's fifty different adapters you can buy now. So basically you adapt down the engine three eights twenty four. Primarily you're going to see two threads out there. It's a five ags twenty four and a half twenty eight.
Those are adapters that we either include with the can or we sell separately, just depending which model you get, and those are direct threat adapters. Then you can go to some different options where you have a muzzle device that you leave on the gun and then you leave them ount in the can. But I would say for beginners in first time or is just a direct thread is the shortest, cheapest, lightest, best bet.
Yeah, Yeah, that sounds good. Was there anything else that you can think of that would make people be a little bit smarter than the average bear when it comes to suppressors or some of the things that you offer that would help them maybe get ahead of the game on just flexibility inside of what they could do with their can or anything like that.
So the can I was telling you before is our DTF series. If it's your first time, that can's going to have a zero point four h six flashcap on the front. If you wanted to optimize it for a thirty cow or a twenty two cow, we make different end caps so that you could you could optimiz is the performance of your can by stepping down to that. Yeah, that's one thing that we offer for flexibility that a lot of companies don't. They might have a welded end cap.
Are n caps you can swap out and change and things like that.
Yeah, yeah, and then you guys, I think sell a tool that makes it easy to swap those out.
Yeah, it's just a regular T sixty torquepit. But we do sell a T sixty ranch as well that you can swap those out with.
Yeah, I just put it in the gunbag. And that's where it lives the range bag. Well, sweet, tell us about some of these hunts you've been on and recently you guys like to get up there and get with it too.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I've been a hunter since I was a kid, and I never traveled to hunt, but I take advantage of my situation, for sure. I'll start off with my bear. That was actually a Pennsylvania public land Allegheny National Forest. I was archery hunting, crossbow hunting. I was always a compound guy until I had kids, and a couple of years into having kids, I wasn't shooting enough and had a mishap and jumped over to the beaw rifle. Unfortunately.
Yeah, I'd like to get back into it, but no shame.
Anyhow. It was in twenty nineteen. A buddy of mine was doing some scouting sent me a pin to a nice spot. I'd never been there. I walked in the dark just with Onyx and picked a tree and on my way up just had a bear come cruising through and put it together made it happen. I think I was like one hundred and forty pound, couldn't tell, but when I got up to it, it had Maine started on it, so I didn't get to do besides get the skull. Yeah, but that was my first and only bear.
Yeah.
I got to do a mule guy hunt down in Port Mansfield, Texas. Those are an Asian antelope that's an invasive species that they get up to like nine hundred pounds if we're not that big. Yeah, but we got to hunt those with thermals since some they're invasive.
Nine games shoot them.
Yeah, you can shoot them twenty four to seven anyway you care too.
So well, and that's kind of the way to do it because they have excellent eyesight there and they're real flighty.
Yes, yeah, yeah, very skittish animal. We were able to stalk up on a group of bulls and we shot three in one time. We just did a countdown three to two one. We dropped all three in one. Yeah. Pretty cool.
My dad and I have done that with pigs before. It's it's kind of fun to see multiple things drop.
Yes, yeah, it's a lot of fun. But most of my time these days is spent chasing coyotes, and it's just because working kids. It's it's something that.
Allows you know, nighttime activities.
Yep, nighttime activities, put the kids to bed, you're not at work, and I can sneak out and still hunt a little bit and not really mess up my schedule because when I start chasing white tails, I get addicted and everything goes to the wayside.
You know, Yeah, yeah, I get that. So I think the only other thing that we need to talk about is the process of getting your tax stamped and actually the whole process from purchase to having the suppressor in hand.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So the very first thing you need to know is it's not legal in every state. It's legal in forty two states California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, all those states that aren't friendly. You cannot own one unless you have an FFL, but luckily the other forty two states you're good to go. You need to find either a local gun shop that sells silencers and basically they can guide you. There's different methods once
you start the process. Silencer shop is a big distributor, they have a kiosk and basically you can do your fingerprints there. A lot of smaller shops do not offer that, so you'll need to go to a ups store or to the police department or different methods like that, and they'll actually do your fingerprints for you. Then you bring them back to the gun shop and there's a two hundred dollars tax for every silencer that you buy, and then you got to buy the silencer. The weight times
used to be like four hundred days. You're seeing them as quick as twenty four hours now, so they're flying off. You can buy one on a trust, which adds some waight time. The advantage of a trust is you can put family members on it things like that. But if you're trying to get it quick, buying as an individual's the way to go. Yeah, there is a company called Capital Wormery. They're out of Texas. They have forty two partnering FFLs. They stock our whole product line, and that's
the easy button for people. You can go online, just like you're buying anything else. You can get the silencer through them. As soon as you pay for the silencer, they're going to shoot you an email within twenty four hours and hold your hand and walk you through the process and the silencer will ship to your door. So there's a lot of people that don't have local gun shops that sell silencers, So that's a that's a really good option.
Yeah, because they have to have the elevated FFL to do that, if I'm right.
Yep, yep, they need a Class three or greater FFL.
Yeah. I found the process to be really easy, but I would say, if you're going to do it at a local gun shop, make sure it's local. I mean it took me. I had to go out there three times throughout the process. So the first time that I went was to do the initial everything at the kiosk, and then the second time I had to go and I think they had to go into their system and
like accept it. They needed my driver's license and stuff, if I remember right, to do that second step, and then that started my weight time and in less than twenty four hours, I was back up there and picking up my suppressor the next day. But that process doesn't start. They couldn't do anything until the suppressor had actually hit their store and they had it in hand.
Yeah, they need the suppressor in hand and they need to have the actual serial number and everything right there with them. So yeah, yeah, it does add some time. But yeah, we have I think around eight hundred direct dealers. We have a distribution network which has like four thousand under them. So A Arms is our distributor. So if any local gun shop doesn't have Diligent Defense, they can contact Alan Arms as well. That's that's another stream to get them.
Yeah, well, sweet and uh, do you just want to do a quick run through of the the suppressors that you guys offer.
Sure? Starting off at the rim Fire is our road Hunter. It's a user serviceable suppressor, which means it's got end caps and you can pull the baffles out and clean them and their laser etche to reassemble. That handles up to the five to seven handgun cartridge. It's seventeen HMR twenty two long rifle twenty two wins all of those. Up Next is the wolf Hunter that's six milimeter and down, so two forty three's six milimeter creed more things like that.
It's optimized for the predator hunting crowd. Lightweight, it's just at nine ounces or rate under nine ounces, depending which accessories you have on it, the STI series or the Enticer series. I'm sorry is after that, we make that in a short and a long configuration in both stainlessly and titanium. That's probably our most popular A series of cans. Yeah, and then we have the DTF series, which those are titanium only, and we have a long and a short
version of those. Basically, I recommend to people if you're shooting a lot of subsonic you might want to consider the long can if you are primarily shooting supersonic bullets, which means you're going faster than the speed of soundt pecond. Short cans are my personal favorite because the crack of the bullet is actually louder than the difference between the two cans, if that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, it does after you you shoot one of those. Yeah, but it's not like a it's I mean, it doesn't hurt your ear, like you don't even like flinch at that sound.
Yes, it's very comfortable.
Yeah.
Yeah. They we have to watch saying hearing safe because I don't know that anybody knows what hearing safe is. But your hear haunt ring and it's comfortable. And if you're shooting a lot of rounds at the range, hundreds of rounds, it's still a good idea to have hearing protection on. But when you're hunting, as far as being comfortable disturbing neighbors, things like that it's it's great.
It's cool, and then I think the I think the last thing to talk about is your warranty.
Yeah, so there's some things that happen sometimes. The biggest thing that we see is people's silencers come loose, and as soon as your silencer comes loose, you'll get a bit of a droop and the thread we have to do class two threads to basically allow our adapters to fit on everybody's guns, So as soon as your can comes loose, it can droop a little bit and that can cause a baffle strike. That's the biggest thing we see.
Most of the time. It's just the end caps that we'll just say, hey, we'll just drop a new cap in the mail for you. But no, if anything happens, God forbid, you have a bad weld can comes apart. Which welded cans unfortunately have came apart, not just us, I'd say, every single brand, drop it in the mail. We'll have it back to you within a week.
Normally sweet sweet cool.
Yeah, we've had We've had guys that have their cans shot by their hunting partner somehow. That's that's probably my favorite one. It had a shotgun and blow right across the front of it, right across the side. Oh guys, we're hunting together, I guess, and predators and yeah shot the other of we've had cans get blown down range. That just people using different mints. They're like quick disconnects that just fail.
Gotcha, cans come loose?
Yeah, send them back, we'll fix them.
Yeah, sweet, Well anything else you think?
No, I think we covered it all. To be honest with you, I do have a note here. You wanted to know how a silencer works. I could touch on that real quick.
Oh yeah, let's do that.
Basically, when a bullet exits the barrel of a gun without a silencer, do you have a tremendous amount of pressure behind it upwards of like seventy thousand PSI, you get rapid expanding gas behind that, and just that change, just the rapid expansion of gas is what the noise is. A silencer has a series of baffles in it that essentially cause turbulence inside of that area, and they slow that gas down. I can't tell you how much they
slow it down. I would say it's a milliseconds. But just by slowing that gas down, the exiting of that gas, it cuts to sound in half or more. It's it's extremely quiet, and that's how they work. There's a third party testing company called Pu Science. He does a really cool method. We held the quietest silencer on a three Toho eight bolt rifle at Shooter's year up until a few months ago. And the cans that are beating us are north of twelve hundred dollars and they're much larger
than ours. And to hear the difference of the two you need a thirty plus thousand dollars sound meter to see it. They sound to me the top five to six islencers sound very very comparable. Yeah, guys like to just say mind is quieter than yours. But you know, the top guys are all making good cans, and unless you got a very expensive sound meter, they're all good.
Well, tell Ashley hi and he'll talk to you guys later. All right, Thanks.
Thank you for listening. The Bear Hunting Magazine Houndcast is recorded by Bear Hunting Magazine and produced by Mountain Gravity Media. Be sure leave us a five star review on iTunes and keep guarding the gate.