A $200 decrease in the price of silencers works out, if you assume an average selling price of $800, to a 20% decrease in the overall price of buying a silencer. So at a PED of -1, you’d expect demand to increase by 20%.
Our estimates above work out to 540,000 silencers sold in 2024. Assume sales drop a bit in 2025, to account for the likelihood that the 2024 frenzy just pulled forward some sales instead of really being a new floor for the industry. So suppose we land at 500,000 silencers sold in 2025. A 20% bump on that with $0 tax stamps would mean 600,000 silencers sold in 2026. And it’s important to keep in mind that that’s not a one-off driven by a political scare or a buy-one-get-one-free sale. That’s a permanent 20% increase in baseline demand, year after year.
That “year after year” bit is key, because the market will evolve. This isn’t just a price change in a static market. There are new segments to open up.
Cheap silencers have had a really hard time justifying their existence. We can use the PED lens to guesstimate the numbers. For a $250 silencer, the $200 tax stamp increases the price by 80%. At a PED of -1, that means an 80% drop in demand. A generalization, but it illustrates that at some point the market just isn’t viable. When demand drops enough, you don’t have enough of a customer base to survive. Cheap silencers have been in that zombie mode since the passage of the NFA.
A solid grade 5 titanium rod with the same dimensions as a typical rifle can costs about $300 at McMaster. With those kinds of raw material costs, cans made from exotic materials will be priced in the upper triple digits for the foreseeable future. But there will also be all kinds of aluminum and steel innovation in the low triple digits. That’s going to be the fastest growing part of the industry, and it’ll birth some new silencer startups. The dangers of $0 tax stamps aside, we’re excited to see it.
— Open Source Defense in Napkin math on the NFA market once tax stamps are free
For now the process itself is still a nuisance at least the first time through.
Thankfully good dealers are getting livescan equipment and doing it all in house more and more.
Powerball jackpot winning lucky: Homeowner Shoots Armed Intruder After Suspect’s Gun Misfires During Alleged Attack.
”
…
According to investigators, 44-year-old George Standifur of Elkhorn City entered a private residence while armed and made threats toward the occupants. Family members told troopers that Standifur first attempted to shoot the male homeowner in the head, but the firearm malfunctioned. The homeowner then retrieved his own firearm and shot Standifur in the leg.
Despite being wounded, Standifur allegedly turned his gun toward a woman in the home and attempted to fire again, but the weapon again failed to discharge. The family managed to force him out of the house and called 911.
…”
Ok, twice the bad guys gun would not fire… that’s a little of Powerball jackpot winning lucky right there for the family. But personally, I would not have counted on the bad guys gun to not fire a third time – he was clearly intending murder and showed he was not going to stop trying with the second time the gun did not fire. I would not have shot him in the leg, but if single shot to the leg intended or not in this case it was a big gamble by not shooting in such a manner as to stop the threat (cold) for what was obviously a dedicated attacker engaged in an on-going murder attempt and just shooting in the leg pretty much lets such a threat continue at least for a while as shown here. Thankfully though, the bad guys victims survived.
(also note, basically: this is also why you do not use ‘shoot to wound’ as your defense strategy. You never know if wounding only will be enough or not – so you shoot to stop the threat and you may only have one chance to stop the threat so the best chance is shoot to stop and not trying to pick places to wound especially if the threat is in motion. If that ‘stop’ results in un-aliving the threat then that’s what happens, but the reality is the majority (~97%) of violent attackers who get shot by their victims enough to stop the threat do actually survive.)
https://www.usacarry.com/homeowner-shoots-armed-intruder-after-suspects-gun-misfires-during-alleged-attack/
Semi-automatic guns are worthless if you don’t know how to clear a malfunction. I tell folks if you’re not going to take training classes and practice regularly.
Then it’s best to buy a revolver.
Fortunately for this family. Criminals also don’t learn how to clear a malfunction as well.
Charter Arms and Taurus both have reliable low cost 5 and 6 shot firearms.
I know I am on several government “lists”.
So I have no problem buying a silencer when this stamp tax goes away.
Same for a SBR firearm.
Btw
I look forward to introducing as many children as possible to suppressed guns. They will have no fear.
And that really does terrify the gun grabbers.
Exactly. Cheap aluminum cans that are only good for a few hundred centerfire shots is all most people would need for a deer rifle that maybe gets a dozen shots a year. I expect to see cheap “plinker” cans for .22’s that will similarly be so cheap that no one cares that they are “shot-out” after a few thousand round. These are apparently sold over the counter in Europe and NZ; I bet will be awash in them by the end of the year.
What I expect we’ll also see is a glut of inexpensive parts kits becoming available, such that many people will just Form 4 their cans (especially .22 rimfire cans). Indeed, I can see places like Silencer Shop or Capitol Armory having a program where they help you do the Form 4, and then when it comes in they hand you the parts kit (such that there is no question that you are legally allowed to have / assemble them), and even do the engraving for you.
But what I really want to see is a market for parts that can be used to assemble integrally suppressed weapons. Imagine an integrally-suppressed, magazine-fed 12 gauge SBS. Probably not too difficult to engineer the retrofit kit, and would make for an ideal home defense weapon. Or an oversized slide / barrel that can be slapped onto a G17 frame to make it integrally-suppressed. Or the ported barrel / shroud / baffles for an AR upper.
The raw *creativity* we are gonna see is gonna be amazing… 🙂
“But what I really want to see is a market for parts that can be used to assemble integrally suppressed weapons.”
Shotgun companies like Mossburg making integrally-suppressed home defense guns are gonna sell like hotcakes.
That, and those cheap Chinese ‘Fuel Filters’ being imported by pop-up silencer companies who will only serialize them and re-sell them to people like me with a drill press and a tap.
There’s gonna be a *lot* of 2A news about to flood the gun blogs like SNW…
Aaaaak, meant to say Form 1 for DIYing a can . . . .
“A solid grade 5 titanium rod with the same dimensions as a typical rifle can costs about $300 at McMaster.”
They only craft the baffle from rod, the body they turn from standard tube diameters.
To say nothing of Titanium powder used to fabricate laser-sintered (DMSL) suppressors…
Geoff PR,
And manufacturers should be able to sell/recycle the titanium tailings (from milling rods to make baffles) for a similar price per pound that they paid for the solid rod. So, the cost of the titanium overall should be a small fraction of the total price.