Considered one of the founding fathers of the modern American suppressor industry, Dr. Philip H. Dater, MD, has quietly passed.
The New York-born Dater, a radiologist and Vietnam-era U.S. Air Force veteran, started designing suppressors in the 1950s, later “dabbling off-hours in his hospital’s machine shop.” He founded Automatic Weapons Company, or AWC, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the mid-1970s to pursue his designs before leaving to co-found Gemini Technologies, now Gemtech, in the 1990s.
As noted by Gemtech, “Dr. Dater merged his passion for guns and his knowledge of ultrasound to create solutions that would silence skeptics and improve the overall shooting experience.”
Even after stepping away from manufacturing suppressors, Dater penned numerous technical papers in firearms journals and magazines. He continued to patent new designs, consult with industry partners, and hold classes on suppressor history and development well into his 80s.
I remember hanging out with Mark Serbu— no slouch when it comes to being a “mad scientist” in the gun space– who told me at the time that Doc. Dater was the smartest man in the gun industry.
Dater’s death was first noted by JK Armament last week, who described him as “the most influential innovator in the world of firearm silencers since Maxim.”
If you have a few, sit in on Jk’s interview with Dr. Dater last year. It is worth your time.
The terms “silencer” and “suppressor” are used interchangeably in the firearms community, and we are here (hear?) to tell you the story of how this came about and which term is more correct.
Going back to the 19th century, “devices for the lessening the noise of firearms” were patented as far back as 1894. However, it wasn’t until Hiram Percy Maxim, a man uniquely obsessed with making loud things quiet for the sake of hearing protection, that the first trademarked “Silencer” (big S) came about in 1909.
Dr. Shush
Why was Maxim interested in hearing protection? A big part of this was because his father, Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, generally regarded as the inventor of the modern belt-fed machine gun, went quite deaf after long periods of exhibiting his guns for interested clients sans ear protection.
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim seen showing Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII, around his gun, and depicted in a 1904 caricature.
The junior Maxim began working on his acoustical mufflers in 1902 and by 1909 started securing a series of patents on “Silencer” and “Silent firearm” devices. His Connecticut-based company first was branded as the Maxim Silent Firearms Company, and later the Maxim Silencer Co.
Maxim, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, even marketed himself as “Dr. Shush.” Following in his father’s footsteps, he was his own best spokesman for his products and stressed how they made shooting safer and more enjoyable.
Maxim was a showman. (Photos: SilencerCo)
He successfully landed a series of large newspaper interviews in 1909.
The allure of a “noiseless gun” was sure to draw headlines. (Photos: Library of Congress, Chronicling America newspaper archive)
The company sold not only a series of Silencers but also couplings to attach them to barrels and instructions for gunsmiths and hardware shops to thread barrels for the screw-on devices, interestingly advocating a rather fat (by today’s standards) 20-thread pattern. Silencers could be purchased by mail order for $5, about $160 in today’s inflated dollars.
Were Maxim’s designs truly silent? Not at all, but it was great branding, especially when he had to fight for market share against a crowded field of contemporary competitors. Matthew Moss, writing for Small Arms Review, notes at least nine inventors at the time (Harry Craven, Anthony Fiala, Charles H. Kenney, Herbert Moore, Robert A. Moore, Eugene Thurle, R.M. Towson, Andy Shipley, James Stinson, et. al) were seeking patents for similar devices, with several ultimately going on to market them with mixed success.
There are few period tests between these 1910s-era firearm mufflers. The Army’s Ordnance Bureau, which ordered 100 of Maxim’s devices and 100 from Robert A. Moore’s firm for tests on the M1903 Springfield, preferred the former, noting that “it was possible to give perfectly audible instructions when the Silencer was used.” It was estimated to have reduced noise by as much as two-thirds. Given the technology of the era, that had to be what could best be described as a wild guess.
World War I era cutting edge: M1903 Springfield with the M1913 Warner & Swasey Musket Sight mounted. It also mounts a Maxim Model 15 “Government Silencer,” October 1918. The Army maintained its stocks of Silencers until 1925. (U.S. Army photo via National Archives)
Common Vernacular
In the end, Maxim’s Silencer (which wasn’t silent), won the marketing war and emerged as the Dr. Pepper among a crowd of Mr. Pibbs. Teddy Roosevelt used one to quietly zap tin cans around the yard without disturbing the neighbors and exchanged personal correspondence with the inventor. Period cartoons even gagged about noisy diners being offered “Maxim Soup Silencers.”
Maxim’s company went on to market Silencers for motorboats and automobiles on much the same principle.
Maxim upsized his Silencers for other applications.
The public had so associated the Silencer with firearm report moderators by 1934 that the National Firearms Act hearings – which largely started as an effort to ban most guns in the country, including all common pistols and revolvers – used the term no less than eight times. While handguns escaped the government regulation, silencers (little “s”) did not. Never being banned outright on the federal level, they were instead hit with a $200 tax, which adjusts out to $4,800 in today’s terms. The silencer term, enshrined in 1934, is still on the books in the U.S. Code, retained in the 1968 Gun Control Act, and used by the ATF today – an organization that was only established in 1972.
In the meantime, the repressive tax largely killed the American suppressor industry until the 1970s, when companies like Mitch Wer-Bell’s SIONICS and Dr. Phil Dater’s AWC (now Gemtech) began quietly (see what we did there?) operating. By then the stifling NFA tax, frozen at $200 since the Depression, had been whittled down to a more manageable outlay thanks to the federal government’s habit of printing fiat currency in an economic pinch after Nixon ended the gold standard.
What About the Term Suppressor?
In today’s terms, “suppressor” has largely supplanted and replaced “silencer” in use, starting with patents filed in the 1980s. The term is more correct as, while the devices moderate and reduce the sound signature of a muzzle report, they do not remove it. In most cases, despite what Hollywood would lead us to believe, while suppressors paired with subsonic ammunition that removes the “crack” of a projectile breaking the sound barrier can be made hearing safe, you can still hear the gunshot, albeit muted.
As detailed by the American Suppressor Association, suppressors typically “reduce the noise of a gunshot by an average of 20 to 35 decibels, which is roughly the same as earplugs or earmuffs.”
Even the most effective suppressors, on the smallest and quietest calibers (.22 LR), reduce the peak sound level of a gunshot to between 110-120 dB. To put that in perspective, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), that is as loud as a jackhammer (110 dB) or an ambulance siren (120 dB). For normal caliber handguns and rifles, suppressed sound levels routinely exceed 130 dB, just shy of OSHA’s “hearing safe” threshold of 140 dB.
For reference, check out this Taurus TX22 with a SilencerCo Switchback, one of the better rimfire cans on the market, firing standard velocity .22 LR ammunition.
It’s quieter, but you can still hear it.
In addition to noise abatement and hearing protection, the use of a suppressor can also help with firearms training, especially as it curbs the traditional “crack” to a more manageable “pop.”
Is it a “silencer?” Not really.
Is it a “Silencer?” Only if made by Mr. Hiram Percey Maxim’s Silencer Company.
Is it a suppressor? Yup.
So in other words, to turn a phrase, a Silencer is a suppressor but a suppressor is not a silencer, despite what the media says about potatoes.
Held Veterans Day weekend at the 17 South Rod and Gun Club in sunny Savannah – where the temps hovered in the low 80s in November! – the event is now in its second year. Organized by the fine folks at Recoil with the support of more than 60 industry sponsors including some big players like B&T, Daniel Defense, FN, KAC, Kalashnikov USA, Maxim, PTR, SIG Sauer, SilencerCo, and Staccato, you can bet that it had something for everyone.
Open to the public, a $50 general admission ticket got you on the range for the day for unlimited shooting at every lane with all ammo included, while VIP and Premier tickets got you into the whole weekend including night shoots with both white light and NVGs and a swag bag that included a free suppressor (not a misprint).
While I’ll have several follow-up articles this week diving deeper into some cool new developments in the quiet space that I ferreted out at the show, check out this preview to get a general feel for the event.
Who doesn’t love a suppressed M2 50 cal?
Dead Air was there doing Dead Air stuff. We call dibs on the Spiker.
What’s your pick?
B&T had their Station SIX? (AKA the modern Welrod)
As part of this complete breakfast
Gemtech, one of the oldest names in the suppressor game, was there with lots of goodies all on parent company S&W’s new stuff, including the new FPC folding 9mm carbine.
Kalashnikov USA was out in force with lots of cool guy stuff…
Recently celebrating their 15th anniversary, SiCo did a short run of Titanium Sparrows that sold out in a day. Maybe it will become a regular item. Maybe.
SIG brought lots of stuff Including the MCX line, which the Army is putting through its paces currently for the Next Generation Squad Weapon program.
I’ve been in the gun industry off and on for some 25 years, spanning from working the counter at a small-town FFL in my early 20s to full-time writing and editing. In that time, I’ve met some really smart and pioneering guys in the gun world, such as Mark Serbu and Jim Tertin.
However, probably the biggest brain guy in the gun industry in terms of suppressors is Dr. Phil Dater, MD, founder of Gemtech and a man considered by many in our industry to be the modern-day godfather of silencers.
Dater back in the day
Jake Kunsky, who developed quiet products for NEMO Arms, Gemtech Suppressors, Smith & Wesson, and Maxim Defense and now runs JK Armarment, recently sat down with the gun world’s “Dr. Phil” — now 86– and talked about a wide range of subjects for an hour.
Topics include
Where Gemtech got its name?
How Dr. Dater, a Radiologist by training, brought silencers out of nearly a century of obscurity?
How a microphone’s diaphragm affects decibel measurement?
What arguably the most experienced man in the industry thinks about various methods of measuring silencer performance?
How military and consumer requirements for a silencer differ?
Why the ATF Form 4 approval process took only a few weeks back in the 70s?
How John Wayne inspired the modern silencer renaissance?
If you have an hour and are interested at all in gun culture or suppressor history, check it out.
Mmm, look at that sweet, sweet bore alignment from the breechface to the suppressor end cap.
Regardless of whether you call them silencers, suppressors or mufflers, these Class III sound moderators have never been more popular but come with their own host of special considerations to keep them plugging along.
In addition to regular care and maintenance, you want to make sure you have a good bore alignment with your can– because a baffle strike can ruin your whole day.
The number of National Firearm Act items saw a huge jump in the past year — including a 50 percent increase in suppressor registration and 39 percent bump in short-barreled rifles registered — according to new data released by federal regulators.
The report provides an overview of the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, which is the federal list of all items, such as suppressors, SBRs, short-barreled shotguns, destructive devices and any other weapons logged under the NFA as of April, and updates figures released in February 2016.
In the 14-month period between reports, the total number of NFA items of all kinds has climbed to 5,203,489 — an overall increase of more than 800,000 items.
While the numbers of AOW’s, machine guns and SBSs all saw negligible increases, the biggest jumps in the 14-month interlude came in the numbers of registered SBRs and suppressors.
Gemtech’s own Alexander Crown did a quiet little rundown (see what we did there) on their old school “Pill Bottle” .22 suppressor.
Back in the sweet old days of Mitch WerBell’s Sionics, the British Welrod of WWII and the Navy’s Mk 22 Hush Puppy of Vietnam, most suppressors worked by using internal wipes out of leather or some other material (except notably for the De Lisle Carbine which had 13 rigid baffles made of Duralumin). A few years ago many suppressor companies advertised their wares as “wipeless” but it’s gotten to the point to where almost everything is these days, so you don’t even see the term anymore.
The tiny Pill Bottle is such a device, using a ¼” rubber wipe with a lifespan of about 50 rounds or so.
For those of you not familiar with wipe technology, it is essentially some sort of pliable material that a bullet can pass through but gasses can’t. In the very early days of silencers, these could have been made of leather, cotton, or usually plastic/rubber. These wipes have a limited life span and have to be replaced periodically as they wear out, and this poses a problem in our modern day since the BATFE considers them silencer parts. Manufacturers cannot simply ship them to your door, although they can be made by the user. Just not in surplus.
So how big was the Pill Bottle? Try 1.25 inches long and weighing just one (1) ounce.
Oof.
Do yourself a favor and read Crown’s write up, it’s a good look behind the curtain. Makes me want to get my Beretta M21 threaded.
Yes, that is a suppressed AR with the suppressor attached. (Photo: Chris Eger)
Gemtech last month brought out a sweet new production Nemo Arms AR upper that includes a pinned suppressor body and titanium core– with an all up barrel length that’s still firmly in the carbine arena.
I shot the Integra, shown off for the first time in public, at the ASA Suppressor Shoot in Knob Creek and have to admit its wicked quiet in .300BLK when using one of Gemtech’s suppressor optimized BCGs which reduces carrier speed to non-suppressed levels and reduces felt recoil.
How quiet? It mics at 128dB, and for comparison, dry-firing an unloaded AR is 124dB…
The upper features a 10.1-inch barrel with suppressor tube pinned and welded onto the end to make it 16.1-inches overall and thus a “one-stamp” device.
The core can be removed for cleaning and maintenance. Removal is by a 3/8″ socket.
It costs a good bit more than the similar concept over at Hardened Arms, but this is Gemtech here and we are talking about a Nemo upper for a base, so there’s that.
When I was at an ASA shoot in Nashville back in April, I first heard about this and have been researching this for a bit. Its a little personal to me as I learned to shoot in the scouts and have taught rifle marksmanship at several local camps off and on for the past decade.-CE
Scouts in Maine are getting a chance to participate in the shooting sports with an increased level of safety on behalf of new suppressors, rifles and ammunition contributed free of charge.
This spring, the Boy Scouts of America’s Pine Tree Council, which serves ten counties in central Maine, took possession of a windfall of gear with the help of gun rights groups and the shooting industry. That equipment is allowing the scouts at Camp William Hinds, a 280 acre facility in the state’s Sebago Lakes Region, to use suppressor-equipped rifles, pistols and shotguns during its week-long summer camps this year.
The equipment came from a variety of vendors to include Sturm, Ruger & Company, which chipped in eight American Rimfire .22 rifles with threaded barrels; a local federal firearms license holder, Furlong Custom Creations, who handled the transfer paperwork; and two suppressor companies, Gemtech and SilencerCo, who contributed both devices and ammunition.
Venture Scouts, aged 14 and up, are using suppressor-equipped Smith and Wesson 22s in their pistol course. (Photo: Gemtech)
