The Dead Air Ghost is a multiple-role can our boy Mike the Mook has been wanting to check out. Here’s what he has to say ’bout it.

Stamp Collecting and Wait Times – Not Too Much Fun

This article first ran in March of 2018. 

There are two things that make people hesitant to purchase a silencer these days: the $200 tax stamp and the wait for approval from the ATF. We find the best way around these obstacles is to find one can that will fit multiple roles. The most obvious of these is the 45 caliber pistol can. We reached out to Silencer Shop to try out one we thought could contend for Best in Breed – the Dead Air Ghost.

First, let’s look at that $200 stamp. For many of us, it’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing that gets our jimmies in a rustle. We’re law-abiding citizens, and we obey these laws with their tax implications, but we don’t have to like it. So we always try to get one silencer to perform many tasks in order to get more bang for our buck, if not just on the silencer cost, then on the stamp cost too.

Take a good look at a modular suppressor like Dead Air’s Ghost M and you’ll see it as at least two silencers in one because you can change the overall length. It can be run long or short.

That’s only half of its modularity, though. This silencer is full-auto rated and can be used across multiple hosts other than as a .45 ACP muffler. It can handle 9mm, .40 S&W, 10mm, 300 blackout Subsonic, or even .22 long rifle.

The problem is that most silencers are threaded to a specific pattern, which means that the shooter needs to have the same pitch threaded to all his firearms on which he wants to run the silencer.

Thankfully, most of the good manufacturers have stepped up their game in this regard over the past few years by offering interchangeable end caps, pistons, etc. Dead Air uses an interchangeable piston system that allows a multitude of firearms with differing calibers to act as hosts. Other manufacturers offer similar conversions, but Dead Air’s seems to be the most comprehensive.

They offer the following pistons that act as Nielsen Devices for your pistol: 1/2 x 28, M13.5x1LH, 9/16×24, M14.5x1LH, .578×28, M16x1LH and M16x1RH. For using the Ghost M on a rifle, carbine, SBR, etc. they offer the following fixed mounts: 3-Lug, 1/2×28, 1/2×36, 5/8×24, M18x1 and M13.5x1LH. The only downside to the mounts is that they run about $90 each.

Silencershop.com sent us the Dead Air Ghost M with one mount in .578×28″. We were able to fit this on two of our firearms: SIG Sauer’s Tac-Ops Carry 1911 and the Hi-Point Firearms’ new 10mm carbine (you read that right – we’re lookin’ at the Hi-Point).

According to Silencer Shop, the Dead Air Ghost M is “…full auto rated and features a unique patent-pending modular design. Break it down to the short configuration and you have the smallest and quietest .45 can in its class. When it’s time to be scary quiet, the Long configuration is the way to go.”

The Ghost is constructed of a combination of 17-4 stainless steel, titanium, and anodized 7075 aluminum. We were able to break ours down and reassemble it by hand without tools, although a spanner to remove the front end cap is included.

We ran both lengths on both firearms.

On the SIG Tac-Ops, we preferred the shorter length for shooting. This was not a weight issue; it just seemed to balance well for us. Longer was quieter, but if we had to go with one size, it would be the shorter version (and reckon most of you would too, though that might not always be the case, and the difference wasn’t vast in any event).

The Hi-Point 10mm Carbine was going to be interesting. It is a blow-back operated 10mm. We fired it unsuppressed and it felt fine. We were sure the extra boost from the can would up the felt recoil, but in both configurations, it was not only quiet but just as soft shooting as it was unsuppressed.

It might be a by-product of the 16” barrel, and we’ll continue to experiment and let you know down the line, but both versions sounded the same on the noise level. We wished we would have had more pistons to run the Ghost on different hosts, but maybe we will get that chance in the future.

The Dead Air Ghost M is a pricey can and the pistons are not exactly cheap, but if you’re looking for one of the most versatile and quietest pistol cans out there this one is hard to beat.