Hybrid Moments: SilencerCo 46M [Review]

ONE CAN, MANY GUNS. IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE DO-ALL SUPPRESSOR, SILENCERCO 46M MIGHT BE THE ONE YOU NEED

There was a time when silencer ownership used to be infuriating. You might want to put a can on every gun you owned, but between different bore diameters, different thread pitches, and the way most silencers were built, it was an exercise in futility as well as a great expense.

Over the decades, this has changed. Advances in materials, designs, and engineering have given us silencers that’ll work on a diverse variety of firearms.

A .45-caliber suppressor will work on a 9mm pistol as well as a .45-caliber pistol. Pistol silencers will work on pistol-caliber carbines and in some cases with subsonic 300 Blackout.

Likewise, a .30-caliber silencer will work on smaller rifle calibers such as 5.56 NATO. Most modern .22-caliber cans will silence 22LR, 22 Magnum, and even 5.7mm.

Yet finding one to take care of everything eluded us for years. A silencer for 45-70 would be too big to handle 22LR. Most rifle suppressors were too heavy to work on pistols, and there are enough completely non-standard thread pitches in use to make you rethink the whole idea.

SilencerCo, however, kept their nose to the grindstone and brought one out late last year called the Hybrid 46M. It was an evolution of their earlier Hybrid 36 and 46 designs.

The key difference on this one and the Hybrid 46 is its modularity. You can shed about 2 inches in length and a little over 2 ounces in weight by running the shorter version.

The SilencerCo Hybrid 46M will work on just about any firearm with a threaded barrel so long as the caliber of the projectile is under 0.46 inch.

That means it’ll work on 45 Colt, 45 ACP, 45-70 Government, 458 Socom, 338 Lapua Magnum, 308 Winchester, 5.56 NATO, 300 Blackout, 9mm, and so on.

A Word About Endcaps

SilencerCo offers a few different endcaps for the Hybrid 46M. This is good in a sense because the smaller you keep that exit hole, the more gas you prevent from escaping and creating a sound signature.

It may keep your shots quieter by a few decibels if you have a 0.308-inch endcap on your 7.62 rifle as opposed to a 0.45-inch endcap. If you choose to only run a few calibers, that’s fine.

However, it can be easy to forget to swap out endcaps if you’re running a variety of different guns with this can at a range session, and small parts like that have a habit of getting, shall we say, misplaced.

While 5.56 and 7.62 can sail through a 0.45-inch endcap with no problem, the reverse isn’t true.

Your ears may not be sensitive enough to detect a difference between 2 and 5 decibels, so it may be wise to leave the bigger endcap on there because an endcap strike causing damage to the can or to the shooter would be a very bad day indeed.

The Test Guns

To try this on as diverse a variety of firearms as possible to show how effective the SilencerCo Hybrid 46M can be, we tested it with the following guns:

• Stainless Marlin Model 1894 in 357 Magnum
• Anderson Arms AR in 5.56 NATO
• Remington Model 700 in 7.62 NATO
• Glock 19 in 9mm

For these firearms, the choice of endcap was easy — stick with a .35-caliber one to accommodate the 357 Magnum and 9mm. There was no reason to step up to a .45-caliber endcap and no need to step down to a smaller one for .308 or 5.56 NATO.

Marlin 1894

This lever-action rifle is a particularly fun one to shoot. Sometimes, it has issues feeding 38 Special rounds through it, due to the length of that case compared to 357 Magnum.

Which means, with factory ammo, the round is quite loud to begin with. The test rifle is equipped with a Skinner peep sight as a rear sight and the company’s patented bear buster with a white face for improved visibility, which is handy when shooting with a can.

In this case because the Silencer-Co is a true rifle silencer instead of a beefed-up pistol suppressor, the sound signature was impressively reduced even in short mode. This was to be a sign of good things to come with the Hybrid 46M. If it could tame this beast, it should deal well with the others.

Anderson Arms

ARs are typically pretty easy to suppress but can often provide excessive blowback from being over gassed. The SilencerCo Gas Defeating Charging Handle solves that problem, as it was designed with suppressed shooting in mind.

It accomplishes this by using a rubber O-ring on the underside and is machined for a tighter fit. It’s completely ambidextrous and performs well.

This particular rifle is outfitted with laminated wood from Boyds Gun Stocks and a Lucid Optics red-dot sight. Even in short mode, the suppressor was completely hearing safe with 5.56 NATO, and there was no excessive gas courtesy of the SilencerCo charging handle.

An ASR (Active Spring Retention) flash hider from SilencerCo made mounting easy. Once shouldered, a locking ring ensures the silencer won’t rotate or work itself loose under a heavy firing schedule. And their resonance suppression effectively eliminates the tuning-fork effect common with three-prong flash hiders.

Remington 700

One of the benchmarks for testing rifle suppressors is mounting it onto a bolt-action rifle like the venerable Remington 700. In this case, we chose an ASR muzzle brake.

The reason for using a muzzle brake over a flash suppressor is that the construction of the brake acts as a sacrificial baffle to prolong the life of the suppressor, as the initial blast isn’t directly hitting the baffles inside the can.

The can sounded particularly good on this rifle in both long and short mode — so much so that you could easily only run it short.

Glock 19

If this were your typical rifle suppressor, this would probably be the end of the story, but not in this case. There’s a separate accessory available for the SilencerCo Hybrid 46M called the Charlie Piston Mount.

This includes a spring-loaded Nielsen device necessary to run a semiautomatic pistol with the 46M as its silencer. Retail is about $129, and a piston with the correct thread pitch will set you back another $86.

You remove the rear cap, replace it with the Charlie mount, then screw it onto the pistol barrel of your choice. Our test host was a Glock 19 with a 13.5 Metric left-hand pitch.

The SilencerCo was slightly heavier than a run-of-the-mill 9mm can, but its performance in the short configuration was solid with 147-grain ammunition.

It’s amazing that one silencer can finally handle these different firearm types as well as calibers. We’ve still barely scratched the surface on the potential of the Hybrid 46M.

Final Thoughts

SilencerCo doesn’t recommend using rimfire ammunition with the 46M, which is understandable as rimfire ammunition is particularly dirty.

A few rounds once in a while couldn’t hurt though and using it afterward on a high pressure rifle will probably blast out any accumulated lead fouling. In any case, dedicated 22 cans are affordable to keep on hand for that role.

For a single silencer to suppress almost every firearm in your safe (excluding shotguns, .50 BMG, and rimfire), it makes a lot of sense.

This is a great platform for someone to start out with, especially if you have a diverse collection and don’t look forward to numerous tax stamps and wait times. In that sense, the higher price tag of the 46M and its accessories are more justified, rather than filling the coffers of the ATF. 

SilencerCo Hybrid 46M Specs:

• Model: Hybrid 46M
• Calibers: 9mm to 45 ACP; 5.56 NATO to 45-70, 338 Lapua Magnum
• Weight: 12.2 to 14.9 ounces
• Length: 5.78 to 7.72 inches
• Diameter: 1.57 inches
• Materials: 17-4 stainless steel, titanium, and Inconel
• MSRP: $1,117
• URL: Silencerco.com

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