Silencer Saturday #443: An Extra-Unique AR7

silencer saturday 443 an extra unique ar7

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to TFB’s Silencer Saturday, brought to you by Yankee Hill Machine, manufacturers of the new Victra 20-gauge shotgun suppressor. This week we are looking at another interesting creation from my friend Collin. He made a nifty takedown .22 with an integral suppressor.

Silencer Saturday @ TFB:

Disclaimer: Even though silencer regulation is changing in the US, these are still highly regulated items. Please understand and comply with the applicable laws before you build your own NFA items. And don’t get hurt using the tools, either.

Before we get into the build, we should include a brief history of the gun. One of Armalite’s varied firearm designs was known as the AR-7. These designs were numbered sequentially. So the AR-7 predates the AR-15, which predates the AR-18 or less-known AR-17 shotgun. This was a unique takedown .22 LR survival rifle. The barrel, action, and magazines fit inside the stock, which also acts as a waterproof and buoyant container. That whole package weighs just 3.5 pounds.

The idea was to create a survival rifle for aircrews to use if they were forced down in remote areas. In case of ditching in water, it would still be retrievable. A .22 rifle may not be up to the job of bear defense for Soviet Cosmonauts returning to Earth, but it is very useful for small game. It is also much quieter than a centerfire rifle even without a suppressor. Henry still sells a version known as the H2. Sadly, it is not threaded. (Henry… If you are out there listening, that would be a cool addition)

Image Credit: Henry Repeating Arms

But Henry and Armalite are not the only companies that have sold versions of this gun. Our own Sam S. looked at the Charter Arms Explorer II in a recent Rimfire Report. Unlike the others, the Explorer II was a handgun. The stock was replaced with a pistol grip. It retained the ability to switch barrels, allowing the user to swap lengths.

Form 1 builds are spiking in popularity thanks in no small part to free tax stamps. My friend Collin, whose interesting projects like the DIY-Lisle and DIY-DF 10/22 carbine have made for interesting Silencer Saturday pieces in the past, let me take a look at another one of his creations on a recent range trip. This time it was an Explorer II going under the knife.

He started with the basic Explorer II and cut off the pistol grip. He then created a picatinny stock adapter and printed it with nylon carbon fiber filament. That is a point of attachment for an AR-pattern grip and an airsoft-grade folding arm brace. The receiver is finished off with a 10/22 rail drilled and tapped to fit.

But the real focus for us here is the front end of the gun. The barrel on the Explorer II is an aluminum sleeve around a steel liner. Once that was cut and threaded, he created a sleeve over the barrel nut the same diameter as the outer sleeve of the silencer. The tube inside the silencer holds the omega baffles, and the outer tube screws into the collar. Here are some pictures with it disassembled:

silencer saturday 443 an extra unique ar7

This design retains the takedown feature of the original. With the barrel off, this is a very compact little setup. It makes a 10/22 Charger look like a large gun. Disassembled, it would fit in a tiny bag or ammo can.

Performance-wise, it is what you would expect for a .22 with a full-size can. Even with very basic silencer internals, the volume of the silencer is large relative to the diminutive .22 cartridge. Subsonic ammo is always the move with a gun like this. Hits on steel targets are louder than the shot itself.

The reliability was poor, but so poor that it was almost good. The ammunition that we had would not cycle at all. But this is much easier than a gun that cycles partially or only sometimes. The bolt would not go back far enough to load another round or cause a malfunction. This rendered the gun into a sort of straight-pull bolt action. Perhaps hotter ammo, a good cleaning, or breaking in the gun further would get the gun cycling. But as it sits, this is a compact and quiet quasi-bolt action that was built on a budget for nothing more than the love of the game.

silencer saturday 443 an extra unique ar7

Thanks for joining us for another edition of Silencer Saturday. Hopefully you found this build interesting. And maybe, if you feel so inclined, you might feel inclined to try building some interesting host gun of your own. Where there is a will, a 3D printer, and a Harbor Freight lathe, very interesting one-off guns are possible!

silencer saturday 443 an extra unique ar7