Thread: Educate this Canadian

The list of advantages outweigh the list of disadvantages Canuck.

The primary purpose is to reduce the noise of course. As you would imagine they don't reduce it to "hollywood movie" levels but they take the sting out of the top end and as mikee said, it makes life a lot more pleasant for the shooter, his companions and his dog if he has one. When hunting a suppressor will often allow you to get a second shot away as animals can be confused by the muffled rifle report giving them less cause for alarm. I find this is especially the case on the open tops where there is no cover and you can monitor animal behaviour after your first shot.

The downsides of using a suppressor are of course the added weight, added overall length and the weight-forward balance of the rifle. Most of us justify these by the mechanical advantages of using a suppressor - less recoil, better accuracy and sometimes increased projectile velocity.

While a late starter for using suppressors I'm now a convert and no longer use any non-suppressed rifles. Personally (somewhat tongue in cheek here) I believe suppressors should almost be manatory from a health and safety perspective.