Silencer Central Banish 9K [REVIEW]

Suppressing pistols has always been a tricky business. To begin with, many semi-automatic pistols have narrower operating windows than you might think, depending on factors such as the type of ammunition, mass of the parts and attachments, springs, and the shooter. 

On top of this, the Browning tilting-barrel design is ubiquitous in modern pistols. With these types of pistols, the barrel tilts when the breech unlocks and allows the slide to cycle, kick out the spent case, and feed the next round — hanging a heavy weight on the end of the muzzle can cause cycling malfunctions. 

Muzzle boosters, or Nielsen devices, were developed to mitigate this problem. They use gas pressure from the blast along with a piston and spring to essentially temporarily uncouple the weight of the silencer while firing, allowing the gun to cycle consistently. These boosters became nearly universal in modern pistol suppressors to provide more reliable operation. 

SPECS: Silencer Central Banish 9K

• Caliber: 9mm
• Length: 4.1 inches
• Diameter: 1.3 inches
• Weight: 2.7 ounces
• MSRP: $699

However, in recent years, more companies have released ultra-light silencers that can function on pistols without a booster. Silencer Central’s latest 9mm suppressor is exactly that, making use of the latest technology and materials to create an extremely light and compact silencer. The new Banish 9K is 3D-printed, allowing for complex geometry with eight baffles to optimize performance, and composed of titanium to minimize weight.

It weighs just 2.7 ounces, and is 4.1 inches long and 1.3 inches in diameter. It’s rated to bring 9mm down to 132 decibels at the ear, and can be used for .380 to 300BLK, including full-auto for 9mm supersonic and 300BLK subsonic. It’s all one-piece, so you can order it with either a 1/2-28 or M13.5x1LH direct-thread mount. Silencer Central offers the can in black or tan Cerakote.

Despite all these advances, running pistol cans still isn’t a plug-and-play no-brainer process. Unfortunately, you can’t escape physics. Some guns make better suppressor hosts than others, and everything from your ammunition choice to spring rates can make a difference. 

Smaller pistols can be trickier too, as many are already pushing the limits of a reliable operating window. Generally speaking, hotter and heavier loads tend to work better, and it’s important that you test the exact gun and ammunition that you wish to use to ensure they work well. Even better, bring extra recoil springs to the range with you to see if a different weight provides consistent cycling. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to practice your Luigi immediate action drills in case of failures to cycle.

We tested the Banish 9K on the Matador Arms MAT-9 PDW build shown here, and it was as much of a blast and worked as well as you’d expect. Moving on to a few Kimber TFS pistols, we indeed experienced the issues we described above. 115-grain range ammo was inconsistent, with multiple failures to eject. While shooting off the bench with a relatively looser grip while checking zero shift, we also had failures to eject. Winchester RA9T 147-grain duty ammo worked the best for us, cycling reliably. Unfortunately, we didn’t have different recoil spring weights for these guns to experiment with. 

As for zero shift with and without the Banish 9K attached, we saw excellent results with a little over 0.5 MOA shift. You can’t disassemble this can, so you’ll have to soak it. And you should clean it often, as Silencer Central recommends a 50- to 100-round maintenance schedule.

With a diameter of 1.3 inches, the Banish 9K didn’t fit any of our holsters, so we couldn’t test it for everyday carry. 

But theoretically you could carry this puppy if you were so inclined. We’re looking forward to testing it further with 300BLK subs, which should be a ton of fun. A 300BLK or 9mm shorty with the Banish 9K would be an amazingly nimble PDW and defensive gun, and simply running the little can on a home defense pistol would help protect your hearing and allow you to communicate better with family members in case you needed to use it in an emergency.

Silencer Central delivers straight to your doorstep in 42 states, so check it out and find out how much self-discipline you really have.

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