vudu, tbac, and lapua centerx

[rockwind1]

i was going to be using my tbac 22 takedown with my vudu, shooting center x. has anyone used that combo much? question i had was how often should i expect to clean the suppressor? never? every 50 rds?

 

[Knotwild]

I don't have a Vudo or use Center-x. I do have a Thunderbeast Take Down 22 and a Rugged Oculus. I shoot a lot of Norma Tac. I treat them with silicone and clean every 300 rounds in an ultrasonic cleaner with 50% Purple Power and 50% water. The silincers get switched around on multiple guns. Using silicone or some other lubricant when you assemble the silincer will make cleaning them MUCH easier.

 

[rockwind1]

I don't have a Vudo or use Center-x. I do have a Thunderbeast Take Down 22 and a Rugged Oculus. I shoot a lot of Norma Tac. I treat them with silicone and clean every 300 rounds in an ultrasonic cleaner with 50% Purple Power and 50% water. The silincers get switched around on multiple guns. Using silicone or some other lubricant when you assemble the silincer will make cleaning them MUCH easier.

so before re-assembling, you spray all interior surfaces with silicone?

 

[Hoser]

I clean my TBAC Takedowns about every 1,000 - 1,500 rounds or so.

Like Knotwild, I also soak my baffles in class 5 brake fluid (silicone) so clean up only takes a few minutes.

 

[Knotwild]

Yes. Cleaning one is not really a 10 minute job. There are many ways of cleaning one, and each person will arrive at what works best for them. Some use a soda blaster for instance and I think that would be the cat's meow but I don't have one. When I bought my Oculus they recommended cleaning with a sonic cleaner using 50% Purple Power and 50% water. TBAC recommends 50% vinegar and 50% hydrogen peroxide, but they do not mention a sonic cleaner. I did not put any silicone inside my suppressor the first time and I found out that lead, lubricant, and carbon was baked on the baffles. The sonic cleaner and Purple Power did well, but there were spots on the baffle I had to get off with a metal pic, especially in the blast chamber. The Oculus is all stainless and the TBAC is stainless baffles in a titanium tube.

If you run an internet search there are articles about using silicone to coat the baffles and heating in an oven to bake it on and get it in the metal's pores. I wasn't interested in baking my suppressor.

So, in a nutshell. Before I assemble the suppressor I spray several coats of silicone on the baffles, blast chamber and inside the tube, letting each coat dry. I've also found that Balistol works good to, but it doesn't dry. Before I shoot or move it to another gun I often spray a shot of Balistol into the blast chamber. It will smoke for a few shots, but it's not bad.

You'll see when you take the suppressor down for cleaning that treating it will make the gunk greasy instead of baked on crap. Much of it will wipe off with a rag. I wipe as much as I can before putting it in the sonic cleaner. Do NOT put the outer tube in the sonic cleaner - it will rub the finish of where it contacts the cleaner basket.

For your own education, take it down after firing it a different round counts and see what builds up inside.

 

[flatlander]

I found an article on using the DOT #5 (purple) brake fluid to treat the baffles in 22RF suppressors, and used it on both my TBAC 22TD & SWR Spectre II with good results. Made me wish I'd have known to go through that treatment before I ever fired a single shot through both those cans, as it's easy to wipe the fouling off the baffles after treating them with the silicone-based #5 brake fluid. But to clarify, the author of the treatment article that I used recommended that the clean baffles should be heated in an oven to 195*F BEFORE treating them with silicone, then picked up with tweezers or needle-nose pliers and gently dropped into a jar of #5 brake fluid, and left in it until they'd cooled, then picked out of the jar and set upon a layers of paper towels to absorb the excess bf. If you have access to pure liquid silicone, there's no advantage to using #5 brake fluid, aside from the fact that it's easy to find in an auto parts store, and harder to find pure silicone. If you go looking for the brake fluid, don't get confused and buy #5.5 fluid - it's not the same as #5, and the author of the article I read gave a good reason not to use it, but I've forgotten what that reason was.
There was also a negative reply after I posted about this, and it had to do with silicone vapor coming out of a treated suppressor being toxic. I haven't done any research to verify this, but the guy who posted it referenced some scientific data, so if I were to treat a suppressor with silicone, I'd probably use it outdoors only.