I recently had Black Hammer Arms (aka dreadi, aka Dana) apply Cerakote to three of my homemade (Form 1) suppressors. These all had nice shiny titanium tubes, and although that's pretty in a way, well, they also looked very "Form 1-ish," if you will:



So Dana worked his magic on the three of them, and sent me this pic when it was time to pick them up:



Niiiiiice.

He encouraged me to put them to the test . . . get 'em good and hot, and see how the Cerakote holds up. This is C-series Cerakote, which should be good to about 1800 degrees F.

Hmmm . . . so what gun should I use for the test? What's going to get the suppressor nice and toasty? Then I remembered an earlier range trip with my 7.62x39 SBR AR-15 and my 9mm suppressor; that's the short fat one in the pics above.

Here's the rifle with no muzzle device:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kUK_4FKvGw

And here it is with the suppressor installed:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zFrN0mEdfc

Fire shooting out the end of the suppressor? YES PLEASE, I think we have a winner!

I bought an infrared thermometer on Amazon so I could check the temps, then it was off to the range with my mag-loader-in-chief, oldkim. Oldkim was loading mags as fast as he could, I was unloading them as fast as I could, and I kept stopping briefly to check the temperature. I had some troubles with the gun -- mags not feeding well, a gas block that walked out of position by the end -- so I wasn't able to get it as hot as I wanted to, but I got it hotter than any of us would probably get it under normal, responsible usage.

My max temp reading was 900 degrees F.

Some pics before shooting it:







And after shooting it, while still at the range:







As you can see, there's various crap on the outside of the suppressor . . . all of which is crap that melted or burned on the suppressor from my faux Ove Glove and my shop towel that I was using to periodically re-tighten the can.

It's all cleaned up now though, and here's a pic of the family again:



Bottom line . . . hell heah, they look great and I'm really happy with the durability at high temp!

Thanks, Dana!

Looks like it held up well. 900 degree's is plenty hot, but it's good to 1800? That would take full auto belt fed to get there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BczhT1ByrXA

If I could just get oldkim to load mags a little faster . . . .

Yes. You first video was so slow it almost seemed like slow motion.

also....

IMHO the cerakote on the can you tested looks better than the unused cans. Looks like they need to be heated up then cleaned too. awesomeness!!

My only defense was the limitation of magazines. Way too few for me. See I invest in mags and MadPick invest in nice toys.

Right? Minimum 10 mags per Weapon. He had what, three?

The coating definitely reacts to use. It's an air cured product and is a matte finish after curing. A clean up afterward with a drop of oil really brings the luster up.

MAN! I have been debating if I should do a Form 1 build for 5.56 and 300 blackout supers. I have been looking at Diversified Machine / Totally Industries stuff but it really isn't clear to me what I could do for a build that is about 8 inches in length and able to handle rifle caliber stuff. Maybe ASR mount, but open to options.

Any chance you could PM / provide some guidance about building a Form 1 can...
I think I need a Titanium tube and at least the first couple baffles need to be either 17-4 or Ti.
since I am almost 10 months into a wait for 3 pistol cans and I don't feel like waiting another year if I don't have to...

I don't think I'm the right one to help out here. Yeah, I've got three Form 1 cans, all Ti tubes. They are:

- 6" 9mm (the one I tested above), which has freeze plugs for baffles plus a short section of straight pipe for the blast chamber. it works, but I don't love it. I much prefer my commercial suppressors.
- 6" .22, the little one in the photos above. I purchased titanium "cups" for it, but I haven't drilled them out yet. (Gimme a break, that will take at least a half hour! )
- 10" .30-cal, the big one in the photos above. I was planning to do freeze plugs for that too, but I'm reconsidering . . . I might try to get something better. Still gotta finish that one off.

The freeze plugs are cheap and easy, but they're heavy (a lot of steel), suppression is meh, and they kind of shift around inside the tube. Well, maybe that's mostly when you abuse them with 7.62x39 SBRs.

Hopefully someone else can give you good advice on some proper guts for a suppressor . . . and I'll be listening too.

My personal opinion, the bottom line: The Form 1 cans are fun projects, but if you just want a good suppressor then I'd just buy one.

Words to live by.

I, too, have had Dana do cerakote work for me (AR-10 barrel). Top-notch work, and excellent customer service to boot!