Silencerco Omega Durability Update- 2500 Rounds Fired

I absolutely love shooting with a suppressor, but the current laws and the ATF don't exactly make it easy to just go out and pick one up.  By the time you research which can you want to buy, make the purchase, wait for the paperwork to go through and finally pick it up, months have gone by.  With the time, effort and expense that goes into buying a suppressor, I commonly see questions on the forums about the durability of a given suppressor, whether or not to clean it, etc.

When I picked up my Silencerco Omega in November of 2015, I thought it would be interesting to photograph the internals of the can, (at least what I could see), to keep a simple log of how many rounds I fired and what happened.  I wasn't exactly expecting to see a lot of wear, but wanted to have a good idea what was happening.  I made a log book for the suppressor and started recording the caliber and number of rounds fired.  The photos, and ultimately video, that I took evolved over time, but hopefully the following video gives you an idea of what the suppressor looks like through the first 2500 rounds.  This is all centerfire ammo, though about 200 rounds of it was powder coated lead.  I did a video on that with this post.  I have not cleaned the internals at all.

The Omega has spent a good portion of it's life on my 308 Remington, which was later rebarreled to 260 Remington.  It has also seen 300 Blackout (almost exclusively subsonic), 6.8 SPC and, of course, 223/556.  I haven't exactly handled the suppressor with kids gloves, but haven't done repetitive mag dumps either.  Most of the precision rifle shooting is pretty slow, although some of the competitive courses of fire are around 5-10 rounds in as little as 30-45 seconds.  This gets the can hot to the touch, but there is typically plenty of time for it to cool down.  Also, currently all of these rifles have a 16" or longer barrel.  The wear that I am experiencing may be different for those of you that use shorter barrels or have a heavier firing schedule.

When I purchased the Omega, I wanted a fairly lightweight suppressor that would work well for hunting, but I also liked the fact that it was rated for limited full-auto use.  That means that the typical semi-auto use that would subject it to shouldn't be a problem.  There are lighter cans on the market and there are cans that are built like tanks to handle heavier full-auto firing schedules.  For me, the Omega seemed to have the best compromise for my use.  If you would like to see a more extensive review from a year of use, let me know in the comments below.

I realize that 2500 rounds is not an exhaustive test, but I figured that it was a good point to show, especially since it represents just over a year of shooting.  While I know there are many shooters out there that fire way more rounds through a suppressor over the course of a year, I know there are also a lot of shooters that will only put a few hundred rounds through at a time.  I will continue to log the rounds and document the interior of the suppressor.  Maybe it will take another year, maybe less.  I do know that I won't be wearing it out any time soon.

Subscribe to the Black Rifle mailing list 

Check out my recent post on shooting Lead Powdercoated bullets through the Silencerco Omega.