Suppressors are no longer optional

This article was first published in my email newsletter in April of 2026. I've added it to my website, because I think the information is useful in general, not just for the month it was published. If you'd like to keep up with the latest hunting information, including my open dates and available hunts, you can subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of this page.

I’ve introduced a new policy for all my hunts: I require suppressors. I’ve always encouraged them — they’re the smart thing to do — but now I’m making them mandatory. If you hunt with me, you have to use a suppressor.

My reasoning is pretty simple: On the positive side, suppressors protect your hearing and improve your hunt success rates. And on the negative side — well, there just isn’t a negative side anymore.

Let me talk a bit about both the positives and the (historic) negatives.

POSITIVE: HEARING PROTECTION

The single biggest reason for using a suppressor is that it protects your hearing.

I know a lot of professional hunters, and, out of all of them, I’m the only one whose hearing is still intact. From a young age, I took hearing protection seriously. It’s not so much that I was smarter than everybody else; I just found the sound and concussion from a shot to be painful, so I wore good hearing protection from day one.

But as every hunter knows, good ear protection has its downsides. First of all, the best protection is muffs, and they’re great on a range, but you don’t want to wear them while you’re climbing the side of a hill and sweating like crazy. The next best thing is in-ear protection with noise cancellation. They do a pretty decent job. That’s what I wear when I hunt. But I can tell you that I still feel the concussion when one of my hunters fires an unsuppressed round while I’m nearby.

So what’s the best hearing protection? Just suppress that sound right at the source.

POSITIVE: A MORE SUCCESSFUL HUNT

Hunting is what I do for a living, so I see a lot of hunts and a lot of hunters every year. That gives me a good base of experience for figuring out what works and what doesn’t. And suppressors work. They actually improve your odds on a hunt.

The obvious benefit is on recoil. Suppressors significantly reduce recoil and the ‘flinch’ that comes with it. Without a suppressor, all the force of your shot slams back into your shoulder. That, in itself, is something you’d like to avoid if you can, especially with the large-caliber rifles we use on our hunts. But what also happens with that recoil is that the typical hunter expects it and unconsciously flinches in advance, throwing off their shot.

That problem is real enough that we take it into account during shooting classes we sometimes conduct before hunts. We’ll use the hunter’s large-caliber rifle for just enough shots to make sure it’s properly zeroed. Then we conduct the rest of the class with a lower-caliber rifle that will have less recoil and won’t cause the hunter to develop an automatic flinch every time he takes a shot.

It used to be that hunters used ‘muzzle brakes’ to reduce that recoil. Muzzle brakes, like suppressors, attach to the end of the barrel. They redirect gases rearward or to the side, reducing recoil and muzzle rise. But they do nothing to reduce the sound, and, in fact, they redirect the sound and concussion toward your fellow hunters.

I’ve banned them on my hunts for a long time now. Suppressors solve the same problem — recoil — while solving the noise problem at the same time.

So a suppressor reduces recoil and improves your shot. It also increases the likelihood that you’ll get a second shot. And another one after that.

The sound from an unsuppressed rifle spooks game.

Not too long ago, I was hunting aoudad with two brothers. One of them was using a suppressor, the other was not. We found a group of forty or fifty aoudad and got in position. The brother with the unsuppressed rifle took the first shot. He got his ram, but the rest of the aoudad took off. It happened that we were within half a mile of a fence line, and all forty or fifty of those remaining aoudad jumped that fence and were gone.

We hunted for another three days, and his brother never got a shot opportunity.

With a suppressor, those aoudad would have stayed in place, and his brother could have taken his ram, too. The simple fact is that a suppressed shot can’t be heard from much more than 300 yards out. So those aoudad wouldn’t have heard a thing. That’s the reaction I see when my hunters shoot suppressed.

NEGATIVES: THEY'RE PRETTY MUCH GONE NOW

There used to be three major negatives around hunting with a suppressor, but they’re gone now. It’s just that not everyone is aware of the change.

Those negatives were:

1. Getting the required tax stamp and ATF Form 4 approval took forever

2. The tax stamp cost $200

3. Suppressors were made of steel and made your rifle very front-heavy

Let’s start with the first one, the time it takes to get a suppressor license.

Suppressors are now legal in most states (42 of them), but you need an ATF Form 4 to buy one. In the past, applications for that form were all paper-based and the process took a year or more. Now the process is digital, and you can get a license in just a few days.

So we can knock that negative off our list.

The tax stamp fee is gone, too. As of January 1, 2026, the fee has dropped to zero. You still need the stamp, but it no longer costs $200.

How about the suppressor unbalancing your rifle?

In the old days, it was very common to have rifle barrels that were 24 or 26 inches long. At the same time, suppressors were made of steel, and they were heavy. Put a heavy, eight-inch suppressor on the end of that 24-inch barrel, and you’ve got a significant change to the balance.

Things have changed. First of all, barrels have gotten shorter — my primary rifle now has a 22-inch barrel. Second, suppressors have gotten lighter; they’re more efficiently engineered and built, and they’re made with lighter materials. Most suppressors today are made out of titanium, and, in some cases, they are 3D printed. The result is that a modern rifle with a modern suppressor feels right. The balance feels good.

So we can knock balance off our list.

How about velocity? Does the suppressor have any effect on that?

Yes, it does, but in a good way.

Shorter rifle barrels tend to reduce muzzle velocity. In practice, improvements in calibers, bullet design, and propellant mean you don’t need a long barrel to achieve downrange terminal ballistics. But a suppressor adds effective barrel length to your rifle, so, to the extent a shorter barrel might reduce muzzle velocity a notch, the suppressor recovers that velocity.

I’ll mention one other minor negative to suppressors. If you fire multiple shots in rapid succession, they can get hot, and you can get some heat mirage off them. Practically speaking, that’s not an issue for my hunters; it arises primarily on the range. But if it concerns you, you can buy a cover for the suppressor.

So the bottom line is that the old negatives for suppressors have been eliminated by new technology in rifles, suppressors, ammunition, and in the digital technology that now powers license applications.

BUYING A SUPPRESSOR

There are a lot of suppressors out there. You can expect a good one to cost in the neighborhood of $800 to $1,200, and that price is coming down, thanks largely to 3D printing.

Personally, for screw-on suppressors, I use products from Dead Air, specifically the Nomad Ti.

I also use integrally-suppressed rifles; that is, rifles that are made with the suppressor built-in. For those, I use and recommend rifles from Dark Horse.

SUPPRESSORS ARE PART OF MODERN HUNTING

So that’s why I’ve made suppressors mandatory for my hunts.

They protect everyone’s hearing — yours, mine, and your fellow hunters. At the same time, they make for a better hunt — more accurate shots and no spooking of game.

On top of that, all the historic negatives associated with suppressors are pretty much gone — license applications are fast, tax stamps are free, and, with modern gear, your rifle will perform just as well as it has in the past.

It’s time to make suppressors a part of your basic gear.