Suppressor frustrations

[fishblister]

Hey yall, I have some suppressor frustrations that I thought I'd ask about in hopes that someone can help me out.

I have bad ears and I love to hunt and I really hate wearing earpro in the woods, so I picked up a suppressor (after a 200+ day wait) summer of 2024 and promptly put it on my 18" 308 (purchased specifically as a host to the suppressor). Its a 5/8 direct thread titanium can - very quiet, sounds awesome. However, first time out on the range was frustrating to say the least, well turns out you really do need to torque these suckers down and use blue loctite so they don't loosen up during your attempts to sight the scope in. It took me a month (3 range trips) to figure out what was going on. I had an end cap strike which was (obviously) affecting accuracy. Got a new end cap, torqued it down appropriately and took it back out and got the rifle shooting good enough to take out to the woods.

Yesterday I took it back out to the range to do some shooting with my boys and it was hitting decent in the first 4 shots, after that it was all over the place. And by all over the place I mean 12 inches to the right or more at 100 yards. I let it cool down and checked to make sure everything was tight and it was and took 2 more shots and they were hitting center but after that, every subsequent shot was drifting further to the right again. I again let it sit for 15 minutes to cool down and returned to firing and it did the same thing.

I'm quite frustrated. I took the can off today and inspected it, its fine, no signs of any baffle or end cap strikes anywhere. I just can't really figure out whats going on, I know heat can affect your accuracy but 12 moa or more seems crazy.

Help!

-FB

 

[RSB]

Others much more knowledgeable here than am I, but did you buy one that claims no shift in impact. Prior to purchasing mine I did the homework and studied. POI shift is real, especially with on the older technology and cheaper materials.
Then there is the question of the host gun and barrel. Does the barrel get hot quick? do you have different metals experiencing heat expansion at different rates? is the suppressor made of materials less than desirable when heated. Just thing I made sur to avoid when I purchased, and by no means am I bragging when I tell you I have had no issues.
I doubt this helps you much, but it's some of the issues to be aware of and investigate. Good luck in getting this resolved.

 

[fishblister]

Host is a Bergara B14 wilderness ridge sp, 18" in 308, can is a diligent defense enticer L-Ti (long, titanium). I would say the barrel with the suppressor on gets hot quickly, yes. I need to do more shooting with it without the suppressor on to narrow things down a bit as well.

 

[Bypass]

Host is a Bergara B14 wilderness ridge sp, 18" in 308, can is a diligent defense enticer L-Ti (long, titanium). I would say the barrel with the suppressor on gets hot quickly, yes. I need to do more shooting with it without the suppressor on to narrow things down a bit as well.

Does the Wilderness have the Carbon barrel?

 

[Allsmiles]

Go shoot the Bergara without the can and see if it groups well. Other things to check is if the gun is torqued into the stock correctly, optics mounted correctly and not loose on base or rings, and are you shooting the same ammo each time. If it does, it is in the suppressor or mount.

Host is a Bergara B14 wilderness ridge sp, 18" in 308, can is a diligent defense enticer L-Ti (long, titanium). I would say the barrel with the suppressor on gets hot quickly, yes. I need to do more shooting with it without the suppressor on to narrow things down a bit as well.

 

[fishblister]

Does the Wilderness have the Carbon barrel?

No it's not carbon.

 

[fishblister]

Go shoot the Bergara without the can and see if it groups well. Other things to check is if the gun is torqued into the stock correctly, optics mounted correctly and not loose on base or rings, and are you shooting the same ammo each time. If it does, it is in the suppressor or mount.

I will do all of this and report back. I am the one who installed the scope and rings and I torqued them down to spec and used loctite on all the screws. The fact that the rifle kept coming back to zero after everything cooled off tells me its probably not related to how the scope is attached, but definitely worth checking. What about mirage? Could the heat mirage "trick" me into thinking I'm aiming center but actually not?

 

[Allsmiles]

If it keeps getting hot and groups degrade with only the rifle, reach out to Bergara. They were able to answer my questions on why my B14r carbon fiber would put 10 shots on top of each other and when I put my Spectre II on, my groups would be 12" in any direction from center. My solution was I needed a spacer as the blast baffle was too close to the muzzle and creating some weird harmonics. Newer 22lr suppressors have longer blast baffle distance for this reason and long threads for mounting.

 

[shell_waster]

Certainly shoot the rifle without the suppressor. See if the stringing occurs after the same number of shots. I’m going on a limb and say it will and just the nature of the barrel heating up.

 

[BigMike]

What suppressor did you pickup? There are mounts that are hub compatible that return to zero dead nuts every time and don't walk off.