I never noticed anyone post any observation on their TAC-16 for the benefit of other who may be wondering about buying one (or maybe someone did post, and I just missed it).
Anyway, here is my (limited) experience so far:
I picked up the supressor on Thursday last week. The first observation is that they screw that end-cap on TIGHT -- you really do need their tool or something similar to get it off. So I didn't get to look inside.
(I had already seen inside one that Pat bought along to the Form-4 signing party that we had last year).
At some point I suppose I will be buying one of those tools.
On Saturday I decided to see if it suppressed enough to think about using the rifle without hearing protection -- so went out into the back yard (we have a big back yard -- 2.5 acres) and fired a shot into a bank of earth at about 15'. The good news is that the hearty big bang that .223 makes was nicely suppressed, leaving just the crack of the supersonic bullet. That crack is still pretty noisy, and it echoed around for a while -- fortunately, people around here are used to such noises, so no-one took any notice.
Is it usable without hearing protection? Well, IMHO, in open surroundings you can dispense with hearing protection.
Yesterday, I took a trip to the CVSC range. I had the whole place to myself, so my ear muffs just sat on the bench the whole time. Its nice to be able to shoot a rifle without having to wear hearing protection.
I was a little surprised that there was little if any effect on the POI. I didn't do any with/without tests, but without making any changes other than screwing the TAC-16 on, I was hitting the target in pretty much the same place I was on my last visit there.
I did NOT notice any objectionable gas in the face. I don't shoot with my nose pressed up against the charging handle -- but its pretty close. However, I did notice afterwards that there was some small amount of soot on the flat part of the charging handle, so obviously some gas has passed that way -- I just didn't notice it.
As expected, there was a lot more dirt accumulated in the rifle. I fired maybe 50 rounds. I was using a 7-round Colt magazine (makes bench-rest a bit easier), and at the end the feed-lips and follower were covered in black soot -- much more than normal. The end of the bolt carrier (bolt end), the bolt, the barrel end of the receiver and barrel extension were much dirtier than I would normally expect after 50 rounds. But as I said, this was pretty much expected.
So, was it worth buying? -- Yes. I didn't have unrealistic expectations about it being Hollywood-quiet, so I wasn't dissapointed by the bullet crack -- I was actually fairly impressed by level of suppression of the muzzle blast. Its hard to describe how it sounds -- maybe something like a .22LR rifle.
As far as ergonomics go, I have it on my 16" M4gery -- so the length is now very similar to my 20" A2 - the A2 has a heavy barrel, so the balance ends up being somewhat similar too. When funds permit I am thinking of building a SBR, it might end up on that eventually.
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In case you are marveling at my rstraint at waiting until Monday to go out and play - this hasn't been a good few days. After getting home from meeting with Pat to pick up the supressor I had a call from England to say that my mother had been taken into hospital, and the doctor basically said that she wouldn't be coming out. 8am on Friday morning I got the phone call to say that she had gone...
Had it been just me, I would probably have loaded up all the ammo I have and taken my mind off things that way - but my wife was pretty upset too, and just wanted me around...