B&T SRBS cans

[gatordev]

I put this thread in this forum section because it's not really meant as a review, just a run down of my adventure with these cans so far.

I first heard about this new series of suppressors from Shot Show 2024 and they looked interesting. B&T has been around forever and has a distinguished pedigree, so I was optimistic on what they were promising. The fact that we could get either a Ti or Inconel suppressor that was also Surefire compatible at a price significantly less than what SF was offering was an intriguing idea.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54019245124_8a6a1ac598_h.jpg

After waiting a few months and trying to figure out who I was going to use to F3 a can through locally (since my previous SOT holder closed up shop), reviews started to populate and things were looking positive. So I splurged and ordered both a 7.62 SRBS Ti and a 5.56 SRBS Ti at a great price through AU. Based on one of the more comprehensive YT channels, it looked like B&T had engineered these things to shoot a combat load at a time and not have any damage, which I thought was a decent metric for what I was looking for given they were titanium.

Fast forward to a few days before F4 approval and I do a little more googling and what do I find? Turns out B&T issued a very quiet Technical Bulletin (found here: https://bt-usa.com/support/product-support/) that states their SF hubs aren't compatible with the entire line of SF mounts, specifically the SF 4-prong. I later found through testing on my own mounts that they also aren't compatible with the newer SF A2 mounts, and things looked a little sketchy with the 5.56 version on the two Warcomps I have (one open and one closed). Basically, they don't properly align with the bore. Thank goodness I found that Reddit post that clued me in to this, otherwise I'd have at least one can with blown out baffles.

As an aside, the 7.62 version wasn't causing as many problems, as it only had alignment issues with the SFA2. More on why in a minute.

So, time to call B&T. As per the bulletin, they stated that they could send a new collar for each suppressor which would fix the issues with all of the regular sized SF mounts. When I brought up the issue with the SFA2, they said that the original design is too long for those mounts, but they have a prototype hub mount that is compatible and will eventually be sold with the cans. After a little back and forth on getting two replacement mounts, which I did have to pay for but at a reduced price (a little annoyed at that, but I've moved on), they said they'd send out all of the parts.

After getting everything and taking everything apart, I discovered that my 7.62 can already had the new collar, but the 5.56 can didn't. This is why the 7.62 can didn't have as many alignment issues. After putting both of the new hubs with new collars back on the cans, everything was golden with alignment across all the mount types. Success!

Here's a comparison of the old hub with the new one. The prototype hub is on the left (shorter one).

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54170310886_e495795366_h.jpg

And here is the old collar (bottom) and the new collar. You can see they changed the design to be compatible with the 4-Prong.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54170310896_fc6311ccf9_h.jpg

Definitely more of an adventure than I had planned when originally buying them, but at least the fix was both quick and fairly easy. I was worried B&T was going to be "looking at the problem" for a while.

[gatordev]

For the actual interface with rifles... They don't fit as snug on the mount as my SF cans do. Sometimes on SF cans you might have a tiny bit of play, which can usually be fixed by taking another crank on the locking collar. With the B&T mounts, no matter what mount I've put them on, there's a slight amount of play when it's cold. As it heats up, it seems to be reduced. I'm guessing with more carbon build up, that will help, as well. Either way, I haven't found that play to affect accuracy, as the groups have stayed consistent across multiple rifles, on both the 7.62 and 5.56 side (I've only shot the 7.62 can on my SR-25 APC to date).

POI shifts vary. On my M27, the POI shift was only about .3 mils down and no real windage adjustment that makes it worth worrying about. Grouping was unchanged, with both groups being amazing from that barrel.
I tried POI checks on two other 5.56 guns and had mixed results. One was on a closed-tine Warcomp (SOCOM mount) and it was noticeable, but nothing beyond what you might expect from a SF can. The other mount I tried it on was a SF legacy brake. It ended up having a 2" POI shift to the right at 100y, which isn't really practical, but I can't fault the can or hub since it's not even designed to work on that mount. I just tried it to see what would happen.

As for flow-through performance, I didn't really notice a difference on the 7.62 can on the SR-25. Both with and without the B&T, I would get a little gas. With a full-size SF RC2 7.62 can, it seemed like I also got the same amount of gas. Since I was sending dollar bills down range, I didn't do a ton of shooting with it. I need to take out some cheaper 7.62 to do more testing.

On the 5.56 guns, though, it was noticeable. On my old school Noveske N4 (not a gassy gun to begin with), it was like shooting a .22LR with zero gas. On the M27, the gun's recoil impulse was super pleasant (more so than unsuppressed) and no added gas. Same with the two other ARs I tried.

For the hell of it, I also tried running the can on my 416A5 clone on the suppressed setting and that was fantastic with no malfunctions. That gun needs more testing to fully trust it, but it didn't seem to struggle and all the brass fell at the 4 o'clock. I didn't do any POI testing with that gun (yet).

From behind the gun, the sound was pleasant. It didn't sound terribly louder than any other can, despite it being flow through, but I'm probably not a great judge of that.

Overall, I need to put more rounds through these, but after the fixes, they seem to be performing well. And I guess I finally need to break down and put a SOCOM mount on that rifle with the legacy brake because the light weight of the can matched with the great performance of that rifle would make an already great competition gun even better.

[Jerry R]

Very interesting read, thanks.

[Joelski]

Good feedback. Did you notice any tendency toward stiction, or did the smidge of free play negate carbon lock in your testing

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[gatordev]

Good feedback. Did you notice any tendency toward stiction, or did the smidge of free play negate carbon lock in your testing



I don't know that I either a) fired enough rounds or b) left it on long enough. Out of habit, I tend to remove a suppressor pretty quickly if I know I'm not going to continue to use it so it doesn't stick. My "stiction issues" tend to come from trying to get a suppressor back on after a long bout of not cleaning the collar.

Also, for additional info, the locking collar on these is very different than the SF collar. There's no release button to push and instead you just start twisting the collar. Depending on how close your mount is to a rail or light, that might make it harder to get a good grip, but I'm not sure how that will affect sticking down the road. It might help with it.

[Former11B]

Tough being an early adopter of things but glad you got it somewhat figured out. I posted in the NFA section before I saw this thread, sorry.

I’ve tried to simplify my life with mounting systems but I can definitely understand having a gun set up with one type of mount and wanting to adapt the can to it rather than play the “buy new mounts” game for every new can

[Stone]

Nice write up!

[gatordev]

A few updates. Bottom line up front: I still dig the cans. They've done well. The mounts...meh. I still don't have a huge round count on either one, but they've both been run several times during a several hour night shoot. I've been told by someone standing next to me that they don't really sound any louder than a SOCOM RC and may sound more pleasant. Flash to me, the shooter, hasn't been an issue. I don't notice anything different. Never really got feedback on how it looked to a bystander.
Good feedback. Did you notice any tendency toward stiction, or did the smidge of free play negate carbon lock in your testing Stiction still seems to be a non-issue. Again, I remove my cans fairly quickly after use, but with the B&T mount, I haven't noticed issues with them coming off and I definitely haven't had issues with them going back on, which seems to happen relatively quickly with the SF mounts. Still probably not enough rounds to give a definitive answer. However, I don't know that I'll have an answer for you because... I'm kind of done with these mounts, at least for now. Early on, I noticed that POI seemed to shift some when removing and then reattaching to the same host. I couldn't really confirm that because of some shooter induced error and range limitations, but something seemed up on some guns. This last week I took the CQBR B2 (I guess B3 now) back to the range to rezero after reassembly and started off zeroing with the can (7.62 version) at 50y. The rifle gave me a great group. I then cycled a couple of other SF cans through to test POI shift from that first zero. The RC was matched and a SOCOM Mini was off some amount. I noted the results and then put the B&T can back on and shot one more group. Again, a nice group at 50y...but about an inch off at the 10 o'clock. That's pretty noteworthy to me as you start shooting out to 100y. And so, I'm just going to put a SF hub mount on the 762 can. The 556 can had already been converted to a SF hub for the same reason...the B&T mount POI didn't seem to be consistent. But when testing that gun after putting the SF hub mount on, it kept returning to zero multiple times. For me and for my uses, I don't fully trust the return to zero on the original mounts. Yes, it's ended up costing me more than I originally planned, but I'm still happy with the suppressors' performance, so I guess I'll chalk it up to a learning experience. That said, it didn't seem like every gun had this same issue.

[gatordev]

Sigh...I give up on the formatting. The forum BB code doesn't seem to be working anymore. Sorry for the wall of text.