The Suppressed .223 Remington 700

Its a curious thing that when talking on the various forums about suppressing a .223 that not many people seem to want to talk about it. The comments are always the same…”its no better than a suppressed .22 Long Rifle” or “why?” or even “its a waste of time” and its mostly by people that have never tried it.

XCaliber Firearms LLC, a company based in Mena, Arkansas decided to market a new can that is meant to suppress any .22…all the way up to the .223. What makes this different than all others is it’s size. Its exactly the same size as their .22 LR offerings but with a .223 rating. This one is called the Genesis TI…and its made of Titanium.

To be honest, I didn’t really expect that much out of a can that small. I was pleasantly surprised when I mounted it on my .223 Remington. Using SS109 ammo, it was hearing safe and in fact it made the gun very pleasant to shoot. Of course, being supersonic, the downrange “crack” from the bullet going supersonic was evident but no hearing protection was needed at all. I was impressed, enough so that I shot about 30 rounds of it into one small group.

Happy with that, I decided to experiment a bit with some subsonic rounds. First I tried 55 grain bullets and I was supprised at the accuracy of them putting 10 shots into one hole at 25 yards. I was using Red Dot powder which was very quiet.

This rifle has the “tactical” barrel which is a 1 in 9 twist and since I had a box of 500 Sierra Match 69 grain bullets I loaded some of them up just to see. I wasnt sure of the results that I would get with a heavy subsonic bullet, but the box stated that it was specifically for rifles that had from a 7-10 twist and since it was a 9 I figured it would be OK.

This too showed excellent accuracy and the predominate sound was the bullet thumping the berm. It is as quiet as any suppressed .22 LR that I have several of, but the fact that the bullet is almost twice the weight of the standard .22 LR gives it almost twice the kinetic energy and since its a spitzer type bullet, penetration wise it isn’t even in the same league as the Long Rifle.

Using a Nikon .223 scope I was pleased to see that when the rifle was sighted in with the SS109 ammo, it was a simple matter of using another spot on the reticle when shooting subsonic. The beauty of that is that one can shoot the supers for the long range stuff and simply by using moving to a lower reticle point they can accurately shoot very quiet with out have to guess where to hold.

The Genesis TI is user servicable, meaning that it can be taken apart and cleaned. This is necessary when shooting the .22 LR which is typically filthy to shoot and it can gunk up a can rather quickly. Its also rated for all the 17 calibers, anything .22 and even the smoking hot FN 5.7 as well as the .22 Hornet.

If you are looking to suppress your bolt action and was reluctant to stick a big heavy can on your rifle, you no longer have that excuse to use. This can is light and it works extremely well. It retails for 500 bucks and has a lifetime guarantee.