Suppressor sound tests / 5.56 / 5.56, 16" AR-15
5.56, 16" AR-152024
91 suppressors were fired on this same gun, with the same ammunition. Thunder Beast describes the setup as: LC M193 55gr 5.56, shot from a DD 16" AR-15. Fired with no suppressor at all, it measured 156.3 dB, which is what each reduction below is counted from.
The bar above the list places each of the 91 suppressors fired on this gun by how loud the shot still measured at the shooter's ear. Between the quietest and the loudest there is 7 dB. It stays on screen as you read, so hovering a row shows where that suppressor falls.
The shaded band is the tightest 1.65 dB stretch of this strip, holding 40 of the 91 suppressors tested, which this test cannot tell apart from one another. It is a sample rather than a special group, so sweep the strip and the band follows. No 1.65 dB stretch of this strip holds more of them than that, so the field really is spread out: on this gun, which suppressor you fit changes how loud the shot is.
Filter this test
Sorted quietest first · click a heading to sort, again to reverse
← swipe columns · the name stays put
Point at a suppressor, or pick one on the chart, and ≈ marks every other one within 1.65 dB of it. This test can't tell those apart, so the order between them means nothing.
* Weighed or measured by Thunder Beast as the suppressor arrived, with whatever mount was fitted. We show these when we don’t have the maker’s figure, or when the suppressor’s length can be changed and only Thunder Beast’s numbers match the setup it fired. The same model can arrive with different hardware in different years, so treat these as rough.
Products come and go from these events voluntarily. A suppressor missing from this list was not tested, nothing more. Names are shown as Thunder Beast listed them. A name without a link doesn’t have a page on Baffled yet. Differences smaller than 1.65 dB are closer than this test can reliably measure. The results also don’t record which mount or muzzle device each suppressor was fitted with, and that hardware can affect the reading and the weights and lengths Thunder Beast measured. Decibels are not a count of anything: as a rule of thumb every 10 dB is roughly a halving of how loud something seems, so the gaps here are larger than they look.
The arrow beside each name opens every microphone reading, and it is worth opening. A suppressor can be the quietest here beside the muzzle and middling at the shooter’s ear, so a claim about one says nothing about the other.
Thunder Beast published the decibel figures. Weights, lengths and diameters are the maker’s published figures where Baffled lists the suppressor, and Thunder Beast’s own measurements, marked with an asterisk, where it does not. Mount type and MSRP come from Baffled’s catalog, and shop prices from the retailers. The resolution limit of 1.65 dB, the shaded band, and the 156.3 dB unsuppressed figure are worked out here from those measurements.
Data from the 2024 SILENCER SUMMIT, published by Thunder Beast Arms Corp. See their results
Does a result link to the wrong suppressor, or have no link when Baffled has a page for it?