Former AAC guys working at Sig:
Kevin Brittingham in fact started AAC. There is a good summary of how he ended up being fired from his own company after Remington (Freedom Group) took it over etc… over at Truth About Guns site. It’s a really good read… basically has all the workings of a movie or at the very least a Dateline episode I’d be glued to. At the very end it talks about how he received over $10 Million in compensation from a lawsuit he won against Freedom Group. Hahah damn son, $10 Million and you want to work FOR someone still? If I was a suppressor god with that kind of lawsuit settlement cake and Sig offered me a job, I’d tell them I wanted complete autonomy and a high 7 figure salary + performance bonuses or else they could shove it. I don’t know Kevin, but I’m pretty sure that’s what must have went down. I bet Sig was more than happy to oblige because they know it’s ultimately a good move to gain market share in a steadily growing industry.
To comment on the video now, it looks like Sig is headed in the right direction at least. I’m not 100% up on what’s new and what’s old in the realm of silencers, but I bet they have state of the art equipment and with Kevin’s brain and whoever else works there I’m sure they will come up with some interesting stuff moving forward.
Thoughts?
Comments
23 responses to “Politics Of The Firearm Silencer Industry”
Wow. I wasn’t aware just how badly freedom group have been running things.
If not for fanboys, Remington would be gone. They’ve been coasting on their 1960s reputation for at least 30 years. Colt is following close behind.
Fanboys? I suppose you’re going to tell me that the only reason I bought an R51 is because I’m a fanboy and not because it’s an engineering marvel?? Ohhhh…. Yeah. Sorry.
Haha. I agree with you. I have an old 870 wingmaster and a 700 that have been good to me, but looking at quality control issues with new 700s has solidified my belief that savage is the best bolt gun option for my budget.
FG has the reverse Midas touch: turns gold into isht. After they took ownership of Marlin the “Remlins” they put out have noticeable quality issues compared to the older Marlins.
Anyone know how that (don’t call it a) recall of every Model 700 ever made is coming along?
Screw Team Green.
My Colt LE6920 is a great first AR. Would I buy Colt again? Sure. But now that I’m familiar with the AR platform via Colt, I’m aware of the superior brands out there.
Yeah….I’ll never buy remington anything ever again.
“We’re not a flashlight company making silencers.” BOOM! Shots fired at Surefire methinks.
haha good call. Surefire suppressors seem pretty legit though, and decent competition to Sig’s Suppressor business.
I couldn’t tell if he was referring to Silencerco, or AAC with the “marketing company” comment. The “flashlight company” comment is an obvious Surefire jab, but it doesn’t really ring true, because until recently SF was the obvious king of Suppressors in terms of performance, and yes also the most expensive. Silencer Co. seems to have really stepped up their game recently and made great advances in commercially available silencers, so again a dig at them doesn’t really ring true. The old product line at AAC wasn’t that innovative or even best in class at anything, so I don’t know where Kevin Brittingham gets all of his confidence from.
Guy from old mediocre suppressor company now in a new division of a shitty gun company talking trash in a shiny new video about other companies being “marketing” companies? Irony much Mr. Brittingham? Why don’t you just put your new products out and let their quality speak for themselves and keep the trash talking to yourself? I admire your confidence, but you haven’t released anything yet and haven’t topped SF or Silencer Co. with anything you’ve put out in your career yet. One could easily say that Sig Arms making suppressors is just a shitty gun company now making suppressors, so there, take that Kevin Brittingham! Seriously Sig has been doing nothing but ruining formerly good pistols with their shit quality control over the last 10 years or so. Not to mention their Gawd awful special edition pistols that look like blinged out hammered whale turds. This certainly could be game changing for the suppressor market, but knock off the jabs just let your new products speak for themselves.
Flashlight Co was/is hardly the best. The gun rags swing off their nuts but the core is a copy of an Ops Inc (not a bad can but not great). They meter louder than pretty much every other accepted manufacturer. Their one saving grace is their mount is solid. So you’re paying a $600 up-charge on an Ops Inc (now Allen Eng) for a little bit better mount. They also got away with a glorious marketing ploy, the POI shift thing. It’s BS, any modern can won’t cause a huge POI unless you have non-concentric threading. The biggest factor for POI is weight at the end of the barrel or effed up harmonics.
It’s the “KAC effect.” The are expensive and have a battle-hardened persona so the must be good, right? Nope, loud as fuuuuuuuh.
AAC was making some extremely competitive rifle cans pre-Remington. You have a ton more options today than you did in 2008… Gemtech… AWC? If you came into the suppressor world in the last couple of years, you wouldn’t have noticed it since there is Silencer Co, Griffin Armament, Liberty, TBAC, Dead Air, yadayadayada…. and you won’t go wrong choosing from any of those. Though, the 18T mount sucked and the early 51T did too (I have one that will jump teeth and will bind when attaching).
The Brit/Sig cans don’t look too bad so far since they are reportedly light and sanely priced. SilencerShop metered them at it looked good but that’s to be taken with a grain of salt until a third party meters them. I’m not say that Silencershop is JJFU but they do plan to make money off of Sig cans.
I’m not surprised that even with 10 Million bucks the guy still wants to work. People forget that at the core of our culture, long ago, a major value for a man is his work, what he does, and a lot of us go nuts when we have nothing to do. I sort of understand, even if I was loaded, I’d want to be productive, and a guy making silencers is probably doing what his passion dictates. He’s not a bean counter with a countdown to social security, he’s a guy producing a tangible fruit of his labors and creativity. Quite an admirable quality.
Go on a vacation for two months to some place crazy and then get right back to it. That’s what I would do. I’d drive myself absolutely nuts (along with everyone around me) if I didn’t have a job to do.
I’m not surprised at him wanting to work, because he probably doesn’t even consider it work. I’d do ENDO if I had $100 Million in the bank because it’s what I enjoy. What I wouldn’t do however is work for someone ever again, which is why I’m surprised Kevin is. I think most entrepreneurs / self employed people would echo that sentiment. It would be pretty hard to go back to being told what to do even if you “mostly” had freedom.
Then again, maybe he sees suppressors becoming so mainstream that they become deregulated as his major goal, and he feels that helping a massive company like FG or now Sig Sauer is much more conducive for those conditions to be met.
You’re definitely right about that!
I sure hope that’s his major goal. I dream of a day where I can pick up a can as easily as I can pick up any other rifle accessory. Having a major company (regardless of our opinions of them) like SIG cranking out cans will help the cause of getting cans off the NFA enormously.
You missed out, Mike. You should have tried to pick Kevin up to make ENDO silencers. Given him full creative license and everything!
Realistically though, he believes that, in an ideal world, every gun would come with a silencer. He is a proponent of removing them from the NFA, and Sig has a habit of constantly challenging ATF ambiguity. It’s a great match. I believe he also had a hand in Sig’s new ammunition line.
I have to say, if Illinois passes this silencer legislation, I think I will probably get a Surefire. The Sig is kinda ugly.
haha ENDO silencers FTW! I agree, those SIGs are ugly compared to the competition. I’m surprised they didn’t spend more time on aesthetics considering how important that is to buyers in basically every industry.
Tubeless supressors? Interesting. But if something ugly happens to any part of it your going to have to pay the 200$ tax stamp again right? Also no .22 unless you can somehow soak them and shake them clean
No not really, send it back to the maker and they make it new. Only new stamp if new serial #.
Nothing to see here sir. Just 10 silencers with one serial… Move along…
Not if the portion that was serialized is damaged. You have to eat it at that point. Sig already had one come apart when demo’ing for Bortac. The baffle stack is just copies of the high back pressure cones that he did at AAC, so I don’t really see much innovation here, but a lot of risk in the way it’s built.
Throwing shade at Silencerco & Surefire in the beginning, ha ha.