This one’s mine. Not “mine” as in a brand we carry, but mine as in I build it. I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas, and Rankin Industries is my own manufacturing line, the stuff that comes off my bench with my name on it. The 16.25 inch suppressed rifle is the build I’m proudest of, so let me walk you through it the way I would if you were standing in the shop.
The idea behind it
I wanted a rifle that’s suppressed all the time, not a rifle that sometimes wears a can. The suppressor on this build is permanently attached to the barrel, and the combined length comes in at 16.25 inches. That number is the whole trick: because a permanently attached suppressor counts toward barrel length, the finished gun is legally just a rifle. No short-barreled rifle registration. The suppressor itself still needs its normal tax stamp, since it’s an NFA item, but that’s the only stamp involved, and in my opinion if you’re going to be on a registry for something, a hearing-protection device is the thing to be on it for. I covered that whole line of thinking in my post on converting AR pistols to rifles.
The practical result is a package about the length of a bare 16-inch carbine that shoots quiet, shoots soft, and never has a can hanging off the end making it front-heavy.
What goes into the build
Because the suppressor is a permanent part of the barrel, I get to tune the whole rifle around it instead of guessing. Suppressors change everything downstream: more back-pressure, more gas, a different recoil impulse. On a build like this I set the gas system up for suppressed fire from the start, so the gun runs clean and flat instead of overgassed and filthy the way a lot of rifles do the first time somebody threads a can onto them.
The suppressor uses a baffle design I settled on after plenty of trial and error, and it takes the edge off both the noise and the recoil. I’ll be straight with you about what suppressed means: it’s not the movie “pfft.” A 5.56 rifle is still loud. But it’s a dramatically more pleasant loud, easier on your ears and on everyone standing next to you at the range.
Inside, the rifle runs my own Rankin Industries SP4-coated bolt carrier group, which matters double on a suppressed gun. Suppressors push carbon back into the action, and the SP4 coating means that fouling wipes off instead of baking on. If you want the background on why I coat my BCGs the way I do, that’s its own post. Furniture and configuration are flexible; since it’s built to order out of a Type 07 manufacturer’s shop, we can set up stock, trigger, and handguard the way you want them.
Trade-offs, because there are always trade-offs
The can is married to the barrel forever. You can’t move it to another host, and when the suppressor eventually needs service, the barrel comes with it. You also wait on the ATF for the suppressor approval before you take it home, and I can’t promise you what that wait looks like the month you order. If you want one suppressor to rotate across five guns, this isn’t your setup. If you want one rifle that’s permanently, properly quiet, it is.
See it and hear it
There’s video below so you can hear what it actually sounds like instead of taking my word for it. If you want one, or want to talk through a variation, email me at [email protected] or call 817-393-4000. We ship nationwide through your local FFL, and the shop has current availability. I build these myself, so when you ask a question about one, you’re asking the guy who made it.
Lance Rankin is the owner and Chief Gunsmith of Western Sport, a family-run Type 07 FFL and Class 3/SOT dealer in Roanoke, Texas, serving shooters since 2007. Born and raised in Texas with over 50 years of experience handling firearms, Lance purchased Western Sport in 2017 and turned his lifelong passion into his profession. He specializes in AR-15 and AR-10 platform rifles, manufactures Western Sport’s own AR-15 line under the Rankin Industries brand, and runs the shop’s in-house Cerakote coating operation. When he’s not behind the counter or the workbench, you’ll find him on his ranch deep into the night, hunting coyotes with an AR-15 and thermal optics. Lance holds an MBA and personally shoots and tests the products Western Sport sells.
