When I started fooling with silencers, a pistol in 22 Long Rifle was near the top of my shopping list. Because short barrels are generally loud, shooting a 22 pistol without earplugs is both unpleasant and is asking for hearing loss.

The traditional answer to this problem was a suppressed Ruger Mark II pistol. For several decades now these have been by far the most widely used platform for building up silenced 22 pistols. And I had nothing against them, but. . . I had always used Browning pistols, and I had a Browning Buck Mark that I rather liked.

Then I stumbled upon the website of Doug Melton's company, SRT Arms. He offered suppressed barrels for the Buck Mark! Because it's easy to switch barrels on the Browning, he didn't need to get my pistol and build it into a dedicated suppressed weapon. Instead I could simply buy the replacement barrel with the silencer built onto it, and swap it on or off my pistol as needed.

When ordering my barrel, Mr. Melton asked me how long I wanted it. He explained that he makes these in different lengths, with the longest model being the quietest. I reasoned that I wasn't looking for great stealth, just a pistol that I could comfortably shoot without ear plugs, and I ordered the shortest model he makes: eight inches from breech to the muzzle end of the suppressor tube. This I felt would be more convenient to handle and carry around than the really long ones.

It's a long wait for the silencer to be made, then go through the whole transfer process. After several months time came to pick it up, and I had to visit Steave Wayman (Class 3 dealer) at his office in downtown Dallas -- an anxious trip for a country boy like me! He was friendly and helpful, and even demonstrated an impressive integrally silenced Ruger 77/22 rifle at the nearby indoor shooting range.

Good things come to those who wait. I fell in love with my transformed Buck Mark, as it quickly turned out to be one of the most fun guns I'd ever seen. During my first couple of months with it, I burned through more 22LR ammo than I'd shot in years. Much as I enjoyed it, I also began to learn its quirks.

The pistol is ammunition sensitive. I can only blame that on the very short, ported barrel. The ports were designed to bleed off combustion gasses into a small expansion chamber at the rear of the suppressor, thus reducing muzzle velocity below the speed of sound: necessary to prevent a "sonic boom" of flight noise from the bullet. It was designed to work with High Velocity ammunition.

The first ammo I tried was Winchester Super-X, of which I had a large supply on hand. This was reliable and quiet, but I became unhappy after running some over my chronograph. The velocity varied a lot and averaged only around 850 ft/sec. I asked Doug Melton, "Where's the beef?" He suggested that the Winchester ammo probably uses a slow burning powder and was dumping un-burned grains into the suppressor. He suggested that I try CCI. So, I picked up some CCI Mini-Mags and found out his advice was pretty good. Velocity still varied more than I really liked, but it was averaging well over 900 ft/sec. Today I fired 10 shots over my chronograph with CCI ammo. Velocities ranged from 894 to 978 ft/sec, with the average coming in at 929 ft/sec.

Obviously at these velocities the effectiveness on live game will be reduced somewhat. In particular, hollowpoint bullets can't be expected to open up. I found a .22-SGB Tool from The Hanned Line. It allows me to cleanly and consistently file down a flat point on ordinary 22LR bullets. This should improve their effectiveness on small game.

I tried other brands of ammunition, but without much luck. Remington ammo sometimes cycled the Buck Mark, sometimes didn't, and when it didn't there was often a loud POP as if the breech wasn't sealing right. Armscor ammo wouldn't cycle it at all. I couldn't help wondering if it couldn't make more sense to design these barrels with less aggressive porting and simply use 22 LR Standard Velocity ammunition in them. But, I'm no engineer, so I have to assume maybe there is some reason why silencer manufacturers make them the way they do.

Another problem I had involved the sights. The Buck Mark has a good adjustible sight, but I found myself running its windage over to the extreme right to get it on target. Again I called Doug Melton, and he felt this was an unfortunate by-product of building swap-in barrels for pistols that he didn't have in his possession. In hindsight, it would have been better to send him the gun so he could make sure everything went together straight. He suggested filing the base of the front sight in order to make it tilt to the left. I tried that, and it helped a little -- for a while. Then the sight came off, stripping its threads out completely. The whole mess went back to SRT Arms, where Mr. Melton plugged the old hole and tapped another one for the sight. While doing that he moved it over to the left so I could more easily get on target with it.

Taking a very close look at the gun, it's possible to see that the barrel doesn't connect with the frame exactly straight. Although it's pretty nifty system in most respects, this is the downside of Browning's interchangeable barrels. I also found that when mounting the barrel, it's necessary to torque it down pretty hard, and it helps to apply threadlock compound, otherwise it quickly starts to shoot loose. This would never happen with a Ruger.

In fact, the whole gun had a tendency to disassemble itself during long shooting sessions. The locking washers on the topstrap had their teeth flattened and weren't doing their job. I got some replacement washers and developed a habit of cleaning the screws and applying threadlock compound every time I assembled the gun. I've observed that one of the main complaints about Ruger pistols is that they're hard to strip, but the trick with a Buck Mark seems to be keeping it together.

Despite those problems, I found the pistol had excellent accuracy! Not normally a great pistolero, I sat the gun on sandbags like a rifle and did some testing, whereupon I got nearly rifle-like accuracy from it. On those rare times when I really concentrate and do my part with the sights and trigger, the Buck Mark comes through for me. Swinging steel targets are especially fun, since I can hear the lead splat on them.

How effective is the suppressor? Pretty good. . . With Winchester ammo, I step out my back door and shoot. The loudest sounds I hear are the "plop" of the bullet hitting my sand pile and the "tinkle" of ejected brass bouncing across the hard surface of the patio. The gun itself doesn't make any noise worth worrying about. With the more powerful CCI ammo it's a little louder, with a modest "chock" at the muzzle and a metallic "clink" of the action slamming shut on the next round -- but it's still easy to hear the bullet impact. Keep in mind that this is the shortest and least effective pistol suppressor that SRT Arms makes! The decision to choose a short tube proved valid for me.

22 rimfire ammo is notoriously dirty. SRT Arms suggests soaking the silencer in mineral spirits once in a while to cut the gunk out of it. I tried this, but didn't see any visible evidence of carbon or lead fouling coming out of it. Honestly, it seemed like a strange procedure to me, since I had never before heard mineral spirits described as an effective nitro powder solvent. Since then I tried cleaning with a produced called Wipe-Out, which is aggressive solvent in the form of an expanding foam. This appears perfect for silencers since the foam can expand inside and fill all the gaps between baffles.

I wanted to easily carry this weapon on my hip when I went hiking up and down the creek banks on my farm, so I needed a holster. Needless to say, holsters to fit this rig aren't available off-the-shelf. Fortunately, I was able to engage the services of a local leatherworker right here in Hamilton, who crafted the superb holster that you can see here. It's a variation of the old "Mexican loop" style, and it fits perfectly. A nice feature is the sewn-in toe plug, so I can sit down on the ground without getting the muzzle full of leaves or dirt. Another nice feature, the belt loop is huge and can easily accomodate military pistol belts, cartridge belts, or anything else. My only complaint is the retaining strap, which really isn't necessary and makes it awkward to re-holster the gun with only one hand. I haven't had the heart to take a knife and simply trim off the strap yet, which would leave a bare snap stud behind. I may decide it's best to have the strap after all, since it does provide a small extra measure of retension.

Of the three silenced weapons that I currently own, this Buck Mark has been the most successful and most enjoyable. It was well worth the expense and the hassle of red tape to get it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. For any first time silencer buyers, I can only suggest that a 22 pistol similar to this would be a great place to start.

Comments are welcome, as I always love chatting with other gun cranks. You can return to my home page and find my e-mail address there.