Can You Hear Me Now? JK 12 Gauge & 20 Gauge Shotgun Suppressors Review

Dan and I went down, down, way down into the southernmost tip of Texas, mere minutes from Mexico, to do a little dove hunting. The tools? Four shotguns, two from Beretta and two from TriStar, one 12 gauge and one 20 gauge from each company.

You know what sucks? Not shooting suppressed. So we borrowed four suppressors from JK Armament — two JK 195 SGX 12 gauge cans and two of the brand new JK 195 SGX 20 gauge cans — plus I brought my personal JK 195 12 gauge shotgun silencer just in case.

Ain’t that a thing of beauty? We simply removed the factory choke tubes from the four guns, installed the JK CRMDs (Choke Replacement Muzzle Devices) in their place, and then had a simple and quick QD mounting system for the suppressors.

One of the Berettas had some carbon crud in its choke tube threads and that made removing the factory choke and threading in the CRMD more work than it should be, but the large wrench flats on the CRMD made it easy enough.

The JK 195 series was really the first shotgun suppressor that was usable for bird hunting or for shooting trap, skeet, sporting clays, etc., because the patented design properly controls your shot pattern. At the muzzle of the 195 suppressors is a screw-on front cap, in this case called a Choke Cap, and it behaves exactly like a shotgun choke tube.

Available in Cylinder, Improved Cylinder, Modified, and Full, the Choke Caps control your shot pattern constriction just as they should. We ran Modified chokes for our dove hunt. (since our hunt JK has released the Widowmaker End Cap in both 12 gauge and 20 gauge, which allows you to install any Accu-Choke footprint choke in it, whether flush or extended, which is pretty sweet)

In addition to offering legitimate shot control with multiple restriction levels, the JK 195 innovated one other mechanism that made it the first truly practical shotgun suppressor: wad-friendly baffles. The trumpet-style mouth on each of the modular baffles allows the shot cup / wad to enter without damage while it simultaneously controls the wad to keep it closed all the way down and through the suppressor, whether you’re running one baffle or all of the baffles.

Previous shotgun suppressor designs were not so friendly to the plastic shot cups. They didn’t control the cup as well and even tended to damage them by shaving off plastic. Shoot a couple boxes of shells through those cans and you’ll often find little plastic bits collecting in the action of your shotgun because of this. Not to mention they were cylinder bore only and didn’t pattern very consistently.

I’m not trying to knock on previous shotgun suppressors here so much as explain why I thought the JK 195 series was so dang cool when it was released a couple years ago, and why I got my hands on one as my first shotgun can as soon as I possibly could. It’s fun to shoot suppressed under any circumstance, but doing it in a truly practical, usable, effective scenario is just that much better.

And that’s precisely what Dan and I did in the southern tip of Texas!

Check out the video above for some highlights and banter from our trip.

Yes, that’s right, banter. Dan and I could hear each other. We could talk at low volume. Hearing protection becomes far more optional rather than mandatory with the addition of a decent suppressor. It’s much more comfortable, practical, and enjoyable to make your gun wear the hearing protection for you!

That said . . .

None of the 12 gauge shotgun suppressors on the market are what anyone would call “quiet.” They push right up against or, in some scenarios (gun model, ammo type, etc), slightly exceed the generally-accepted 140 dB “hearing safe” threshold. Hearing damage is also a cumulative thing, so your shooting volume (quantity, not sound) and duration matters.

JK Armament considers their shotgun suppressors (and their JK 105 CCX 9mm suppressor) to be “special use” suppressors, which means they’re physically smaller than they’d truly have to be in order to reliably suppress the host firearm down below that 140 dB threshold without being run “wet.” The 195 series comes with Vaseline pre-applied inside the baffles in order to show the owner how much and where to apply it, and to ensure each owner experiences shooting the suppressor wet.

Thanks to the relatively low pressure and heat generated by shotgun shells plus the large amount of air volume inside the 195 series suppressors, petroleum jelly applied in the baffles lasts through at least a 25-round box of shells before you’re likely to notice the sound level creeping up.

I don’t let Dan get within 100 yards of Vaseline so I didn’t bring any on this hunt, which meant we got to experience the entire lifecycle of the suppressors going from wet to dry. On our first evening of dove hunting we didn’t wear hearing protection and it was perfectly comfortable. Thanks to slightly more airspace inside the suppressor and the smaller powder charge, the 20 gauge is a bit quieter than the 12 gauge. We both shot slightly fewer than a full box of shells and didn’t notice the sound volume level of our shots changing.

On our second day, Dan wore his customary electronic plugs and I started out without ear pro but put plugs in after a combined ~dozen shots. Mostly this was due to Dan’s 12 gauge firing from 10 to 15 feet away from me, not from my own 20 gauge. From directly behind the gun it’s quieter than from assorted angles off the muzzle. Had I been farther from Dan or hunting alone I may have forgone the ear pro.

Even with hearing protection in, hunting with the suppressors was more enjoyable than hunting without them, and for multiple reasons.

These things reduce felt recoil pretty effectively and they completely eliminate blast and concussion. You know, the overpressure whump that you can feel in your chest and sinuses and whatnot. The “bass” from a 12 gauge (or a centerfire rifle)? That’s totally gone. Sound suppression aside, a suppressor’s ability to eliminate muzzle blast and concussion as well as reduce recoil — on a centerfire rifle it’ll cut 50-60% of the felt recoil — is worth the price of admission as it makes the shooting experience much more pleasant.

Dan and I both agreed that the weight of the suppressor — about 22 ounces with the JK 195 in its longest possible configuration, including the CRMD muzzle device — aided our shooting. Our swing and our aim was smoother, we swung through the target more consistently and more smoothly, and the suppressor dampened out little jitters and shakes and such. It’s a lot like how shock absorbers control and smooth out the motion of the springs on your vehicle.

Visually the suppressor gave me a big ol’ aiming point and a smooth swing that helped me lead the quick doves accurately and consistently. I’m not particularly great with a shotgun and my hit percentage on this trip was, I felt, markedly higher than normal for me.

It’s a little wild to look at that sewer pipe and realize the JK 195 is particularly small and lightweight for a 12 guage suppressor, but apparently it is. There’s a lot of gas volume coming out the front of a shotgun and this thing is skirting the limits of how small a 12 gauge suppressor needs to be in order to bring sound levels down an acceptable amount — again, accomplished best by running it “wet.”

If you’re looking for “Hollywood quiet,” you won’t find it with a suppressed shotgun (not even with JK’s No Country For Old Men-inspired “Friendo“), but if you’re looking to hunt and shoot far more comfortably with advantages beyond the obvious sound suppression, I’d highly recommend it. Heck, in a manual action shotgun (as opposed to a semi-auto) with the suppressor run wet and with subsonic ammo (whether birdshot, buckshot, or slugs) it does get pretty close to movie quiet territory for the shooter.

Doves, turkey, ducks, quail, pheasant . . . get out there and hunt suppressed! It’s great. It’s better. The JK 195 series makes it possible and practical thanks to how it properly controls shot patterns, and now’s the time to take advantage of it.

ATF wait times are down to a couple days to a couple weeks now. Beginning January 1st the $200 tax is completely gone. Head over to Silencer Shop to find the 12 gauge, 20 gauge, or other suppressor that’s right for you and for the simplest suppressor-buying experience possible.

Specifications: JK 195 SGX Shotgun Suppressors

Length: 3.375″ to 12.2″ (configurable)
Weight: 3.0 oz to 21.1 oz (configurable, not including mount)
Material: 7075 billet aluminum
Caliber: 12 gauge or 20 gauge
MSRP: $945