Posted: 4/14/2010 6:54:06 AM EDT
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Guys,
Just got back from an advanced rifle course I instructed at USSA over the weekend. Part of the course involved some significant hours spent shooting in no light or low light environments. One of the things I like to do is a muzzle attachment review (comps, brakes, flash suppressors, etc.) to gauge their effectiveness at night. In the interest of keeping this short and to the point, the AAC Blackout flash suppressor absolutely dominated every other design for reducing flash. I have one on my XCR and I tested it against every other design present which included the Phantom and the Vortec flash suppressor designs. To keep the comparisons in an apples to apples format, I would have the student test their setup then I would take the magazine they were using and use the same mag and ammo through the XCR. The Blackout outperformed everything by a clear margin. It wasn't even close, which really surprised me as both the Phantom's and the Vortec's are excellent flash suppressor designs with a long history of outstanding performance. As it stands, I will be switching out all of my current flash suppressors for AAC Blackouts on my setups. In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that AAC is one of my 3-Gun competition sponsors, but this has no bearing on my decisions regarding my "work" setups. USSA-1 |
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Quoted:
I love my black out but all I can say is. IN BEFORE THE DELETE. Thanks for the review but aac and arfcom are oil and water so I expect this thread to dissapear shortly. It is too bad that silly, childish grudges can result in a censoring of information that might actually be useful to our local gang. There are a lot of LE, .mil and contractors in the GA gang. Discussions about gear can influence the gear these guys use in the line of duty. It would be a shame to have that discussion squashed over an old argument. |
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It definitely lives up to its name, that's for sure! Oustyd had one on at one of Joe's carbine classes a couple years ago during the night portion. My older style phantom did pretty good, but it wasn't blacked out like his! I was definitely impressed.
Did you get any ringing w/ yours? I've seen some guns that ring and others that don't. My buddies rings so bad it's kept me from replacing my older style phantom mount they were making. Has anyone tested their new muzzle brake mount at night/ low light? They also just came out w/ a new design called the brakeout. It's a combination of the muzzle brake and balckout mount in one. Looks interesting. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
I love my black out but all I can say is. IN BEFORE THE DELETE. Thanks for the review but aac and arfcom are oil and water so I expect this thread to dissapear shortly. It is too bad that silly, childish grudges can result in a censoring of information that might actually be useful to our local gang. There are a lot of LE, .mil and contractors in the GA gang. Discussions about gear can influence the gear these guys use in the line of duty. It would be a shame to have that discussion squashed over an old argument. Agreed. Maybe removing the companies name out of the thread title will keep the thread here longer. |
| bookhound I agree,I have no problems with the info posted here and I respect his opinions that is why I run the Titan comp on one of my rifles.I was not implying that it should be deleted I was just being silly knowing the inevitable outcome of this thread.I hope it stays around. |
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Quoted:
I love my black out but all I can say is. IN BEFORE THE DELETE. Thanks for the review but aac and arfcom are oil and water so I expect this thread to dissapear shortly. FNG moment... is there a thread or something where I can read about what this is all about? I'd ask someone to explain it, but if I can read it myself then no sense in repeating it... |
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Well, if the thread goes, then it goes.
I'm not selling them and I'm not advertising for them. They are not vendors on the site and I'm not trying to do any shrill account work for them or link to their vendors or their webpage. I just reported on some real world testing results. I've used Phantoms for years and been quite happy with their performance and saw no reason to switch to another design for some marginal increase in performance at best. The fact that I've been sponsored by them for almost 18 months and I've never really bothered to test their new stuff shows that I didn't really think it would offer any significant improvement. Simply put, it did, and I thought it was important enough to let some of my HTF guys in on my discovery. As Book has noted in the past, it's nice to see an actual thread with some good information in it and not some discussion about half of a deer BS. My XCR has a 16" barrel, but I anticipate SBRing it and getting the 12" sometime this year. I haven't tried the new Brakeout, but when I do, I'll try to offer up some thoughts......if it's permitted. USSA-1 |
| I have only shot low light with carbines 3 different nights so my experience may not be as much as some people here; however, I agree with Erik's assessment of the Blackout. From my experience and observations, it consistently produces the least amount of flash over a wide variety of ammunition. In my opinion, the Vortex is a very close second. There are many factors that affect flash including ammo, barrel length, and type of flash suppressor. I suggest that everyone here get some experience with your equipment at night. It can be a real eye opener. |
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I have shot the Muzzlebrake and the Brakeout in low-light. The Brake gives off a lot of flash. The Brakeout I view as a "worst of both worlds". The marketing is that it is the best of both worlds but to me you get flash from the brake portion, only half an effective brake, about the same flash suppression as an A2 and it can still ring a bit - just not quite as much on some guns. Just my opinion though.
The pinging/ringing is something that I've never noticed on any of my guns. feeling, I know your buddy.  Are you talking about the ringing on his bolt-action?
Mark |
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How does it stack up against the FSC556? I've been looking at both, but am leaning towards the FCS556 since i don't intend on running a can. The FSC556 looks like a fireworks show coming out of the end of the barrel. At the recent Hackathorn class, cmshoot was running one and at night there were all kinds of things going in all kinds of directions off of the end. I have seen the same results as USSA. I've got a blackout on my rifle and its the shiz. I do get a little ping from just about anything with manipulating the rifle if you listen closely. At the range its not noticeable unless you're sitting around doing nothing. Shooting in a shoothouse, there's a lot of other things happening that one doesn't notice the ping. |
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Quoted:
Are you talking about the ringing on his bolt-action? Mark IIRC his rings on his AR and his bolt gun. One of them rings really bad and I can't recall which gun that was. Just to clarify, I was just asking if anyone else's rang really bad, not trying to bash the mount at all. I've not heard any other blackouts ring like his did, but have only been around a handful. I agree that typically you cannot hear it, unless you listen for it. His wasn't typical. Maybe his was louder on the bolt gun. Might be an explanation b/c the of the increased muzzle velocity of the 22-250 he has the mount on. Anyway, I agree the mounts are fantastic at reducing flash. I need to test mine again with various ammo. Might end up going to the blackout mounts after all. |