Now, we never watched this jamoke’s TV show, although the promos we saw made motorcycle builder Jesse James look like a self-promoting blowhard. Now his new business is firearms, and he really looks like a blowhard. To wit, here is his new silencer:
Here’s the innards of this deflated-football-shaped suppressor.
Notice that they’re made of aluminum and stainless, but mostly aluminum. We’ll get back to that. Meanwhile, here are one set of claims he has made for the suppressor:
Here’s another set of claims:
Test fired with 5.56 ammo, sound was 78 decibels at the muzzle.
Zero Optic Heat Signature
[tl; shortened to] doesn’t get too hot to touch in one 30 round mag
Zero Muzzle Flash
Zero muzzle flash …from 25 yards in front of the shooter. Filmed from 10 feet to the side of the shooter a very dim flash was visible for the first 2 semi auto rounds fired.
Fired on full auto, NO muzzle flash was visible from the front or sides.
Zero Loss in Round Velocity
Rounds picked up 100 meters per second of velocity.
Aero Sonic equipped guns [are] MORE accurate, showing no typical suppressed round drop.
Most common suppressors have a 2500 round lifespan. We have several active prototypes with 20,000+ rounds and counting.
He did have someone who could spell clean up “gentile manor,” after several days of internet japery, but some of the SHOT show facebook nonsense persists, and other numbers have been transmogrified.
Jesse James’s Velocity Increase Claim is Suspect
The velocity-increase claim (a physical, shall we generously say, unlikelihood) has been circumcised from 200 to “merely” 100 mps increase.
Meters per second is a kind of unusual choice for an American company dealing in the ballistic realm, where the whole industry, for better or for worse, runs on feet per second in ballistic terms and always has. To translate these outlandish claims into the units you usually work with, one foot per second is 0.3048 m/s. That means he is claiming that his magic football accelerates a projectile approximately 656, or 328, feet per second. What’s the science behind this claim?
The inner barrel acts much like a barrel extension.
So, he’s claiming his 8 inch barrel (hmmm, that wasn’t in SI units?) adds 300, or 600, plus, fps. Well, in 2012, we noted in a post on some Swedish magic claims a variety of tests of barrel length vs. velocity show a loss of 12 to 25 or so fps in a shortened barrel — however, that’s for a barrel, not an ersatz barrel with a lot of big slots milled in it. One outlier produced 44 fps/inch-shortened on a .300 Win Mag.
In 2013, we cited Ballistics by the Inch as a Wednesday Weapons Website of the Week. BBTI has done a lot of tests on many calibers; their 5.56 results are here, showing a more extensive drop than any other study; this may have been James’s source for numbers as it shows an accelerated drop off when barrels are shortened beyond usual carbine lengths.
James is claiming his ersatz barrel boosts MV 41 to 82 fps per inch, numbers that disagree with five barrel-shortening chronograph studies cited in our 2012 blog post. His derivation of these numbers, compared to the existing body of data, suggests irreproducible results.
We notice that his claims of sound reduction or sound pressure levels come without any information on standards. There is a MIL-STD for measuring suppressor sound, MIL-STD 1474D (.pdf @ silencertalk.com). We pretty much guarantee he isn’t using this standard. Which standard is he using?
78 dB? The number is almost certainly a produce of the SAE method — Scientific Anal Extraction. As this test video of a Liberty multi-caliber suppressor shows, closing the bolt or slide on most firearms produces from 106 to 118 dB or so (you can see examples in the video below). A 5.56mm rifle with a 16″ barrel produces 164 dB or so, bare. With the Liberty Mystic multi-cal suppressor (at about 5:05 in the video) it produces 149 dB +3 on the first round according to the MIL-STD, and 137 dB at the ear. Now, that’s really a handgun suppressor, but good carbine suppressors (including some of the same vendor whose multi-cal suppressor is tested in the video, Liberty) can get you down to 133, 135 dB or so at the ear.
An important note is that a suppressed AR is significantly louder (anywhere from 3 to 10 dB) on the ejection port side than it is on the blank side. This is a concern for left-handed shooters because a suppressor can come with completely legitimate paperwork indicating that it’s hearing-safe for the user, but the fine print may note that it’s tested for a right-handed user. Someone who left-shoulders a “safe, 135 dB” carbine-can combo may be taking 142 dB at his ears.
So, how does Jesse James’s magic get to 78 dB, approximately 40 dB lower than the sound of the bolt sliding home? Bearing in mind that decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale? His explanations are the mumbo-jumbo of someone who does not understand sound, the decibel scale, or, frankly, physics. At all. Things like:
Our unique design lets the air expand in the pulse shape of a super sonic sound wave. All internal surfaces are machined with organic curves in an effort to reduce turbulence. Turbulence = Harmonics = Sound. The more gently you can slow down the air, the quieter the results.
Super Sonic air pressure is also regulated with our patented inner barrel design. Pressure relief slots are machined in an oscillating pattern. This regulates the outward flowing air to the suppressor chambers. This helps the already expelled air to bleed off, and not be hyper charged as it passes thorough the suppressor chambers.
If, after reading that, you’re saying, “Whaaa…?” you just might have a STEM degree. Or a significant quantity of common sense. Or some experience with suppressors.
If, after reading that, you’re saying, “OMG Take my money!” then he has a magic deflated-football to sell you. And we left out the best bit till now: he wants $4,500 for it.
We call bullshit on the whole thing — but this guy’s whole career has been selling people the sizzle, not the steak, so some chuckleheads out there are going to buy this thing. Don’t be that guy.
Kevin was a former Special Forces weapons man (MOS 18B, before the 18 series, 11B with Skill Qualification Indicator of S). His focus was on weapons: their history, effects and employment. He started WeaponsMan.com in 2011 and operated it until he passed away in 2017. His work is being preserved here at the request of his family.
39 thoughts on “You Can Tell He’s Lyin’, ‘Cause His Lips Are Movin’”
Sir, more about the use of aluminum?
Not a great suppressor material. It’s easy to machine, but it’s very vulnerable to being machined by hot gases. OK on rimfire (especially on rifles, where things are less high-energy and high-temp than they are outside a short pistol barrel).
This is why high-end suppressors tend to use a lot of titanium.
That said, James claims he’s also using stainless steel and Inconel (a high-temp alloy widely used in turbine hot sections).
I haven’t seen that many made out of Titanium. Inconel is what my AAC has for baffles and SiCo is using Hoplon. Yeah a lot of. 22 suppressors use Aluminum. It looks like he’s using Aluminum in his $4500 can. I can say that I would never buy one, even if it was a 1/4 of what he’s charging now
Ugh. Hoplon is a shape. Not a metal. :
Stellite is what you were looking for.
Did Silencerco ever say that their “Hoplon” (i.e., Greek heavy infantryman’s shield-shaped) baffles in the Saker line were actually Stellite, or are they still sticking to “revolutionary material” vagueness? Ah, they are saying Stellite. OK.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/com.silencerco/support/product-specs/saker.pdf
I weld Inconel…at GE…on turbines. I’m not saying that is or is not Inconel, but for some of these guys saying it isn’t, just because it looks like aluminium is just silly.
Inconel can have several different finishes and unless you pick it up, you’d be hard pressed to tell what it is. It’s very dense and therefore much heavier than a comparable part made from Titanium or Aluminium.
It’s also very VERY pricey, so maybe he is loading those things with Inconel, I dunno.
Hey, Rich, thanks for commenting.
I once worked at long-defunct Heald Machine, where they developed the procedures for grinding Inconel. I dunno what it is like to weld but it was quite difficult to cut or grind. The basic problem was they would work harden on one pass and then break the tool on the next. Inconel is an alloy that’s mostly nickel and chromium, although there are numerous versions.
Grinding was used to bring ODs of turbine shafts into dimension and we experimented with using a planetary grinder on the IDs as well — don’t think GE or Pratt (our only customers for Inconel working machines, except the US Navy which had its own applications) ever accepted that.
Yes, Nickel alloys like Inconel (and Cobalts like Stellite) are very pricey. They would not send us a production part to set up a machine, only one that was already a reject. That was never an issue with ferrous, Al or Ti alloy parts.
The part that’s definitely aluminum is the outer casing. Jesse let guys handle it at SHOT.
He certainly doesn’t lack “Ethical Flexibility” ( I had some one tell me they wouldn’t use me as their agent because I lacked it…).
And he certainly seems to have internalized one of Henry Mencken’s aphorisms “No one has ever gone broke by underestimating either the intelligence or the good taste of the American people.”
Lacking “ethical flexibility?” That, sir, is a badge of honor and a mark of distinction.
Well, we need some guy to bite the bullet and buy one, then scientifically test the heck out of it. But I don’t know anyone with $4500 plus testing costs laying around.
Supposedly Liberty has offered to A-B their rifle suppressor against James’s. No word that James has accepted… when their phone doesn’t ring, it’ll be him not calling.
And if you carefully wipe down the insides with mil-spec blinker fluid, this thing will make the Kessel run in under five parsecs.
MC
I am not a silencer engineer and I will not be buying one of these. There may be some advantages to this shape as opposed to a straight tube. Just like a 2stroke engines exhaust pipe is designed to expand and contract the gasses so at a certain rpm of the engine the pressure pulse at the exhaust port is near 0 so the exhaust gasses can be scavenged out of the cylinder. look at modern 2 stroke dirt bike where the design of the exhaust pipe has been optimized for the engine and you get incredible power out of very small displacement. I would like to see more information on alternative design shapes that have been tried for silencers. respectfully RP
That’s a point, Rusty. In a recording studio, in making a “dead” room, walls are designed not to be parallel (or exactly orthogonal) to minimize reflections. Then baffles and goboes can be added to make the room as live as necessary, if necessary. A lot is known about fluid dynamics and about sound dynamics these days. I haven’t seen any indicators that anyone at JJFU knows any of it. The suppressor strikes me as styled, not designed.
I never watched this guys show. The whole bad ass metal fabricator tough guy biker relative of Jesse James thing didn’t work for me. The dude always struck me as a FOS poser. This is more proof.
If these claims are false and JJFU has real engineer(s) on his staff (I doubt it) they will speak out or resign. As a no longer practicing ME who did some fabricating in the past it is tempting to mock a sample. Too bad you need a rectal from the ATF to be able to manufacture such firearms goodies.
I’d happily throw some dollars to crowd source funding a independent test of the product. Who’s in?
http://www.gofundme.com/kzxyt0
When it hits a grand I am in for $250. Maybe more. I am a cheap f#%k and I just can’t shake the feeling of being had.
I’m currently working on getting with both JJFU and the folks that initially made the “shoot-out” challenge with them to offer to BUY one of his suppressors if he’ll provide a written money-back guarantee of its’ performance. The guys that offered up the challenge because they ARE in the business, and have both the understanding AND equipment/expertise to test it properly.
It’s likely going to take a day or so to get talks underway – and I’ll provide copies of all emails (with any personal info like email addies) redacted, so folks will be able to see for themselves. My only dog in the fight is to see for myself if it’s true. If it is, then Jesse will be $4,500 richer, and I’ll have a suppressor that defies the odds.
What say you, folks?
Follow the link below for updates as they happen…
http://texasshootingsports.com/forums/index.php/topic,1292.0.html
“Don’t be that guy.” Where’s all the data from the r & d testing? $4500 for that piece of excrement, with just ole’ JJ’s claims of performance. Uh huh, I’ll pass, and I won’t be that guy.
I thought I read somewhere that the bolt ramming home measured around 100db? I read a tweet that this piece of shot poser sent from the airport after leaving Shot Show where he said that in truth his silencer was probably even a little more quite than the 78db. I gotta wonder at the sanity of an individual that would try and pump this amount of smoke up the asses of the TRUE operators that would stop by his booth.
In the video, you can see one go home and ISTR it’s 116 dB. The two weirdest claims are the 78dB and the +100 or +200 m/s muzzle velocity.
so some one has put time and effort into designing a device, which you have not tested. And you bash the guy? I don’t see any of you building bikes or rethinking weapon systems.
You all sound like a bunch of jealous bitches to me… I say have at Jesse.. And good luck… If it works as you claim.. The market will prove it to be a viable device!
Tim,
I believe the reasons that these gentlemen are casting a dubious eye towards Mr. James’ product has less to do with jealousy and more to do with a concatenation of facts about his credibility.
1), He seems to have little technical knowledge of the physics that govern suppressing a weapon, 2), He appears to be using a less-than-ideal material in his product (aluminum), 3), He has made many questionable claims about the superiority of his product without empirical evidence, 4), He is a television personality attempting to leverage his perceived popularity into another lucrative market.
“zero optical heat signature”????
as an old 11H, who occasionally got to use the AN/TAS-4 thermal sight we used on the TOW back in the 80’s, i believe it shouldn’t be hard to test that claim…
put him in a smoke cloud with a basic load of 30 round magazines, and let him have at it…while we video the event through a thermal sight.
after all, the muzzle blast and propellent smoke, among other things, ought to heat that cute little can right the F up.
no way he can avoid that pesky bit of physics, no matter how awesome his fans think J J is.
PS: you’re right, i don’t build bikes. in my RL career, i w*rk in healthcare & help save lives… which is obviously no where near as awe inspiring as making motorcycles., so yeah, i’m *SO* jealous of him.
how brilliant of you to catch me out on that. /sarc
PS: your hero isn’t Cav, so he ain’t….
We are bashing the guy’s outlandish claims because he’s making claims that his deflated football reduces the sound of a firearm to less than the sound of the bolt.
We’re not very big on machines that violate the first law of thermodynamics: energy must be conserved. To make an equation of it:
energy + work done + waste heat = K where K is a constant.
He’s saying that he can add his passive suppressor to a system where 1+1+1 = 3 and increase the work alone. 1+2+1=3.
Around here we build firearms, and airplanes. And we abide all laws, especially those of thermodynamics.
“And you bash the guy?”
seriously?… did you read the article? do you have a shred of common sense?.
these are JJ words…
“sound was 78 decibels at the muzzle.
Zero Optic Heat Signature
Rounds picked up 200 meters per second of velocity.
Most common suppressors have a 2500 round lifespan. ”
you understand that everyone of those “claims” is a 100% lie right?
you understand that every offer to have it tested, including offering him 10k “if” it passed his claims he has bailed out on right?
Ah, but JJ wrote that it did these physically impossible things in a “Gentile Manor!” Look, fanboys gonna fan.
Yes! Please DO buy it. Then let us do the review! 😀
I’ll buy that for $4.50
78 decibels? Decibels….: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
You think they might be pulling our legs? Inconcievable!
Ugh!!..please..not this butt-jester again! It matters not one bit whether or not this particular product works at all. Its just a lead in to a flood of “branded” merchandise to be sold to tacti-cool fan boys. Soon there will be all sorts of assorted t-shirts and hats and whatever other crap they can find to stick that logo on for sale. Just as they did for the West Coast Choppers junk. I was working part time at a couple of local bars when the “chopper” fad was a big thing awhile back. Seemed like it was mandatory that every dipstick wanna be tough guy would be sportin one of those Iron Cross shirts. The fact that most of them didnt even OWN a damn motorcycle, let alone a chopper didnt mean they couldnt dress the part. Them are the same guys that are going to turn around and buy all the crap he’s peddling now. Sure they might not buy this particular piece of junk be hey! Theyre gonna look ever so cool at the range sporting whatever dumbass looking tshirt they buy with his logo on it.
You were saying? Have a look at his site. It would appear that the customer is paying for a bit of styling and the JJ name.
https://www.jjfu.com/products/clothing.html
zero optical heat signature…..
Jesusfuckingchrist…..
I ‘m rather surprised that no one has asked “and just how much does this thing weigh?” I would really like to see what kind of POI shift this awesome accessory induces.
Also I’m surprised that no one has observed that the thing is BOLTED TOGETHER!!! I imagines that causes no gas leakage what so ever. Or is that part of the cunning design?
As I write this it also occurs to me that since this is an NFA device (or at it is supposed to be an NFA device if it does what they claim) what it the serialized part?
The device in the photos looks to have never been fired. The leads one to ask the question: “have they ever fired a device constructed like this?”
This looks a lot more Art Deco than Art of War.
He says that it has no POI shift. And if you look closely, there is provision for a gasket, automotive cylinder-head style.
They have videos of them shooting something like this, but they’re poor videos.
Ok, this is POS from a self-promoting asswipe.
How about some info on the good stuff, like the Salvo-12 suppressor? I can’t find a proper diagram to grok no matter where I look.
I’m still halfway convinced the videos were doctored and it can’t be that quiet.
This looks like something cooked up on the dearly departed Sons of Guns. This hea’ ain’t neva’ been done befo’!