Strike Industries Carbon Fiber Suppressor Alignment Rods [REVIEW]

With so many new suppressor owners joining the quiet ranks of NFA ownership, it’s a good time to look at some of the common and useful suppressor accessories floating around the market. To kick that off, let’s talk alignment rods. 

Strike Carbon Fiber Suppressor Alignment Rods, “Send-It-Sticks”, are a new offering from Strike Industries to cover all of your normal alignment rod needs in one simple kit. And it doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars. Nice.

WHAT

Carbon fiber rods manufactured with a +/- 0.003 inch straightness tolerance. 6 rods in the set to cover 5.56/.22LR, 6.5 mm, 7.62mm/.300, 8.6mm/.338, 9mm, and .450. 

Plus, a cardboard box with some foam to keep the rods organized and protected when not in use.

MSRP: $85

WHY

Suppressors are awesome, but if you shoot them enough, you will eventually find that they come with a whole new family of possible problems on top of whatever weapon system they are mounted on. Two of the worst are baffle strikes and front-end strikes. As the names imply, this is when your bullet hits one of the internal baffles or the front end cap instead of exiting the suppressor correctly. 

This might be as minor as nicking the baffle to blowing out the side and making a new exit hole where one shouldn’t exist.

Either way, if it happens, it probably means your suppressor is out of commission until you can at least inspect it. You might need a new front cap, or you might have to send the suppressor back to the manufacturer for repair, which can take weeks or months.

By far the most common way for these failures to occur is simple user error. Not all suppressor mounts are created equal, and not everyone tightens them/locks them down as they should. And by their very nature, suppressors often loosen up and walk off their mounts. 

To this last point, if you don’t witness mark them and check regularly, your suppressor might decide to walk off at the worst time.

A less common problem is to have the suppressor perfectly mounted, but still not aligned with the bore. If everything isn’t concentric to the bore, you’re in for a bad time. This can occur when the muzzle threads themselves aren’t cut correctly, but it can also happen at any connecting point. Muzzle thread, thread to mount, mount to HUB, HUB to can. If any of these are off, the problem remains.

An alignment rod is a rod held to strict tolerances for straightness that you drop down the bore of the suppressor and barrel to make sure everything lines up right. If the rod isn’t touching the sides of the suppressor, you’re good.

STRIKE CARBON FIBER SUPPRESSOR ALIGNMENT RODS: SEND-IT-STICKS

There isn’t much to be said for this review since these are sticks. The set Strike sent me was straight, all worked well in my firearms and the guns I tested checked out.

Super lightweight and easy to use, since they are just CF rods, they work. Nothing weird or interesting to talk about since, as I said, they’re sticks. 

I like the cardboard box that comes with them. It’s thicker and harder than normal cardboard, so it does a good job of protecting the rods, but it’s not so overbuilt as to add too much to the cost of the package. The foam and clear markings make keeping them organized stupid-proof.

It’s a simple set that gets the job done well and comes in at a decent price. I dig it.

Optics Planet	$82
MidwayUSA	$80

WORTH IT?

Depending on who you ask, you’ll either be told alignment rods are critical tools or almost useless. There is some truth in both. Manufacturing standards have risen over the years, and what was once a more common problem of having misaligned threads is now pretty rare, even on budget firearms and cheaper mounts.

However, while you’ll probably never notice a misalignment when using a compensator or brake, adding a suppressor makes even a small misalignment a potentially major problem. 

When NFA wait times were 10-20 months instead of the current week's average, the thought of damaging a suppressor was more worrisome and problematic. Thus, alignment rods were good insurance against it.

In the year 2025, do you need alignment rods? In my opinion, probably not. I was 10 suppressors deep before I ever got an alignment rod. This was mostly because of cost, since alignment rods can be weirdly expensive.

Geissele sells alignment rods that start at $77 for each rod. SureFire runs more than $99 a rod. At those prices, it’s a hard pass for me. 

The other end of the spectrum is precision rods from McMaster-Carr. If you can navigate their website, Tight-Tolerance Multipurpose Tool Steel Rods can be had in a wide range of diameters and held to +/- 0.003 inch tolerance. These are pretty cheap at ~$10-15 per rod. If you only want one or two sizes, this might be the best option. Just be careful because these are steel and you don’t want to damage your barrel, even if this is technically softer steel.

For a full set of 6 rods like what is in the Strike Carbon Fiber Suppressor Alignment Rods, for me, in my state, a set from McMaster-Carr would cost $91 shipped to my door.

The Strike set, with free shipping from several retailers, is $88 to my door. For a complete set of rods, plus a nice little box to hold them in, and carbon fiber has no chance of hurting my barrels — the Strike set gets my vote.

But still, do you need them? If you have one suppressor and/or one gun you want to suppress, pass. But if you’re growing your suppressor collection or want to move the suppressor from gun to gun, or want to suppress something older, a set of rods is a quick and easy tool to add a layer of safety.

LOOSE ROUNDS

If you’re in the market for a one-stop selection of alignment rods that will cover 99 percent of people’s needs 99 percent of the time, the Strike Carbon Fiber Suppressor Alignment Rods are a great option. The price is reasonable, the little box is handy, and it’s a nice check to make sure and protect your investments. 

I wouldn’t call it required for suppressor ownership, but if you’re going to collect tax stamps — I’d highly recommend this set.

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