With more and more rifles wearing suppressors these days, law enforcement officers and home defenders alike who have embraced the hearing-friendly trend are noticing one downside: the length and weight a suppressor adds to the front of their rifle.
The length is a problem for anyone working CQB-style in tight quarters — particularly when maneuvering down hallways or making entry through doors. And the weight presents problems in those same situations, as it makes a front-heavy gun more fatiguing to hold in a ready position for any length of time. Even competitive shooters notice how the weight and length changes the handling of their gun — adding weight to the front of a gun changes its natural balance point and can make a rifle slower to shoulder. Obviously, it’s well worth the trade-off for the noise reduction, but even so, a longer, heavier rifle is less than ideal.
It was only a matter of time before someone came up with a solution to this problem, and the result is the Dead Air Silencers Nomad Ti OTB (Over The Barrel). This suppressor actually slips over the barrel of a rifle, as the name implies, so it adds only 4.6 inches to the front of the gun rather than a full 7 or 8 inches. You might be surprised how much of a difference that extra 3 inches can make when it comes to maneuverability, and it’s a major selling point you can pitch to your customers.
The Nomad Ti OTB is perfect for anyone who operates in tight spaces, as it’s designed to be lightweight in the first place at just 10.5 ounces (titanium construction) — but the better news is that the weight bias of the gun is shifted back toward the shooter rather than all hanging off the front of the rifle. This helps improve the balance of the gun and reduces fatigue if your customer has to shoot off-hand or hold a ready position for a long time.
While better balance and a shorter overall rifle length are the most obvious major advantages to the Nomad Ti OTB, there’s another major plus that comes courtesy of the design itself: The blast chamber is expanded over the barrel rather than out in front, which results in less backpressure and better sound suppression overall. It actually fits better and works better.
Now, given that suppressors typically screw onto the end of a threaded barrel, you might be wondering how your customers are going to attach this thing to their rifles, but Nomad has made that easy. In fact, there’s no special modification needed for most standard threaded barrels. Dead Air ships the Nomad Ti OTB with the company’s own Xeno Radial Brake muzzle device. The Xeno threads into a muzzle with a standard 5/8-24 thread pattern, and then the suppressor slips over and screws into the muzzle device. It works on barrels up to an inch in diameter.
The Nomad Ti OTB was originally designed with hunters in mind, but it’s ideal for anyone who wants noise suppression in a lighter, tighter package. This can has a bore diameter of .30 caliber, and it’s rated for cartridges up to .300 RUM and 7mm Backcountry (muzzle energy of up to 4,400 ft./lbs.), so it’ll appeal to a wide range of customers, from 5.56-equipped operators (12.5-inch barrels or greater) to bolt-action precision shooters. With the Xeno, installation is simple and repeatable, which helps reduce point-of-impact shifts if your customers are taking the suppressor on and off a lot.
Overall, the Nomad Ti OTB weighs 10.5 ounces and is 7.65 inches long, though it adds only 4.6 inches to the rifle’s overall length thanks to the innovative over-the-barrel design. It comes in black as well as FDE Cerakote, and MSRP is a very competitive $1,049. Any shooter looking to save their hearing while also saving length and weight should be shown the Nomad Ti OTB as a well-priced suppressor that represents the next wave of innovation and a solid value.
Read the full article here
