With the $200 tax stamp a thing of the past, suppressors are selling better than ever, as you’ve no doubt noticed. No longer just tactical accessories, they’re showing up with increasing frequency in hunting camp, as hunters have caught on to the tremendous benefits of suppressed rifles.
For all their benefits—noise reduction being the most impactful, obviously—suppressors do come with a few trade-offs, particularly on hunting rifles. The first is the length they add to a gun, which makes a rifle a little unwieldy, particularly in brush or other tight conditions. The second is the added weight, which is a particular concern for backcountry hunters who might be carrying their gun for miles and who take great pains to reduce the overall weight of their gear. Combine the length and the weight and you run into the problem of balance—adding weight to the front of a gun changes its natural balance point and can make a rifle feel front-heavy and a bit slower to shoulder.
Of course, it hasn’t taken long for someone to engineer a solution to these relatively minor quibbles, 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 hunters, designed to be light weight 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 field-shooting position for a long time waiting for a shot opportunity.
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.
If you’re wondering how your customers are going to attach this thing to their rifles, fear not: 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 OTC 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. 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. You can stock it in black as well as FDE Cerakote.
The final big question, then, is price: MSRP is a very competitive $1,049, which puts this solidly in contention to be your customer’s next hunting suppressor. Any hunter 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.
