Why You Should Always Buy a Threaded Barrel When Getting a New Gun
David Higginbotham
The Boy Scouts have it right with their motto: Be Prepared. It is that simple. If you think you might add a suppressor to a gun someday, consider a threaded barrel part of your gun-buying decision now. You won’t regret the decision.
If you are new to shooting suppressed, or—like many of us—dedicated to preserving your hearing, you will need to add a suppressor to your guns. Duct tape is good for many things, but this isn’t one of them. A solid mechanical connection is the way to go, and that begins with a threaded barrel.
A Short History of Threaded Barrels
Early silencers required complicated attachment systems to the guns they were intended to silence. The early Maxim design used pins and front sight dovetails to keep it in place. While it worked, it wouldn’t pass muster today.
I have no clue how long folks have been threading barrels. It isn’t new—not by a long shot. If you go back to the post-war development of the Stoner family of black rifles, you’ll find barrels threaded for muzzle brakes and flash hiders.
But silencers are far older than that. The first commercially available suppressors date to the early 20th century. What shooters faced back then is like what many face today—you have a gun you want to suppress, but the barrel isn’t threaded. Most of these early designs clamped onto the barrel and anchored off, or to, the front sights. That didn’t last long, thankfully.
How to Get a Barrel Threaded
There are a few ways to get a threaded barrel: do it yourself, take it to a professional, buy one from an aftermarket supplier, or buy a gun with a threaded barrel.
DIY Barrel Threading
The first is to do it yourself. Pop out to the garage, grab a die that is threaded to your desired pitch, clamp the barrel down, and risk destroying the barrel (or worse), all in the name of your over-confidence. You may come away with a chuffed sense of accomplishment. Or you may bugger your barrel.
Professional Threading
If you aren’t extremely confident in your DIY skills, I’d choose option number two: take it to a professional. But be warned–the same risks are assumed by the average gunsmith.
What can go wrong with aftermarket threading?
Here is a list of what to watch for:
Barrel Concentricity
The bore of your rifle or pistol needs to be concentric with the threads on the outside of the barrel for the suppressor to mount correctly. By correctly, I mean with a minimal risk of a baffle strike.
What could go wrong? Baffle strikes are not usually dangerous to the shooter, though they are hell on suppressors and can send rounds on a wild and unpredictable ride as they are deflected by the impact inside the suppressor. Best not to risk it.
Mangled Muzzles
Rifles that are built for accuracy have delicate muzzle crowns. This is the last contact point with the gun, and the spinning projectile should exit the barrel without having to pass over any small imperfections, burrs, or even scratches. Many guns come with muzzle attachments to help shield that last contact point. Suppressors protect them very well.
What could go wrong? This isn’t a safety issue, but a mangled muzzle will show at distance. Repeat accuracy may suffer. Accuracy matters for ethical kill shots, and for those punching paper. Any serious work done to this part of the gun runs the risk of accidentally damaging the barrel.
Bent Barrels
While this one is also not common in professional shops, it does happen. To hold the barrel sturdy enough to do the threading, most smiths use a vice. This wouldn’t be such a concern if barrels were not so oddly shaped—tapering as they do down their length (some of them).
What could go wrong? I’ve seen smiths clamp barrels at the breech, where there are two perpendicular, flat surfaces, and then apply uneven pressure on the tap. The wrong amount of pressure in the wrong direction can bend a barrel—imperceptibly. Not good.
These points don’t need much justification. You don’t want a bent barrel or muzzle imperfections that kill what’s left of your gun’s accuracy. And you certainly don’t want to add a suppressor to a gun with misaligned threads, only to have your suppressor take one for the team the first time you pull the trigger.
All of this above here… this is why many of us won’t buy guns at gun shows or pawn shops.
Threaded Barrels from the Factory
Option three: buy a gun with a threaded barrel.
I’m old enough to remember the shift. As late as the 2010s, there were only a few gun models that came threaded from the factory. And then, you needed to buy something that was so common in a company’s catalog that they were able to justify multiple SKUs of the same gun.
The Ruger 10/22 comes to mind (in 2012, I think). There were numerous variants, and a few came threaded (but without brakes or bird cages—a sign that they were designed to be suppressed). There were larger center-fire rifles, too, coming with threaded barrels. Both Ruger and Savage began to stock options across their catalogs.
Peer pressure exists, even between gun manufacturers. Henry threaded barrels on their more modern lever guns, beginning in 2017, and the practice caught fire. The success of these guns preceded tactical lever-actions from Smith & Wesson and Marlin.
Why Is a Factory-Threaded Barrel Better?
My main argument here will rely on a complex understanding of risk. If you buy a factory rifle with a threaded barrel, you can be reasonably sure that it will work, as intended. Most all companies do quality inspections that catch the odd imperfections. And now, this far into the age of machines, most of the milling is done by CNC.
Taking a gun you’ve already bought to a smith is a time-tested path to a threaded barrel. There isn’t any reason why a competent smith should mess it up—but there is always risk.
There’s also added cost. Factory barrels are threaded at scale. The action is repeatable. The troubleshooting is all done once, then repeated.
Barrel threading services are the middle ground—smiths that specialize in precisely this. But there will always be a cost associated with the add-on service.
What About Handguns with Threaded Barrels?
This one gets tricky. Let’s assume for a moment that we’re not talking about revolvers. We’re talking semi-automatics. Here you will typically find a couple of distinct options.
Fixed-Barreled Rimfires
Guns like the Buckmark and Mark IV have fixed barrels. If you buy one that isn’t threaded and then want to add a suppressor, your only choice is to take it to be threaded. Technically, you could swap out the whole barrel for a threaded one, but that isn’t really a logical option in this price point.
For those rimfires, think ahead. Pick up a threaded version right from the start, and you won’t have to do anything when the time comes to add a Sparrow or Switchback.
Traditional Semiautomatics
The first gun I bought with a threaded barrel was a 1911—a Springfield TRP. I didn’t have a .45 suppressor at the time, but I had the feeling there was one in my future, so I shelled out a bit more for the longer barrel.
This is where the buy-once-cry-once concept comes in. Semiautos often have barrels that sit flush with the slide. The only way to thread these is to add a thread adapter. You tap the barrel and add a short extension sleeve that extends beyond the slide.
Taurus has done this at the factory on some rimfires, but the practice is almost unheard of for centerfire pistols.
Most of us take a third route and buy a threaded aftermarket barrel. I’ve got threaded barrels from various companies on GLOCKs, a P226, P365s, and 1911s. Even before I had the right suppressors, as I mentioned before, I made that investment.
More About Threaded Pistol Barrels
And it isn’t what you think. They’re perfectly safe. The problem I see most commonly is that the threaded barrel extends the length and makes holster fitment problematic. A GLOCK 19 with a threaded barrel will fit in a GLOCK 17 duty holster. While most of the math is usually that simple (the threaded barrel adds .5”), this isn’t written in stone.
Common Barrel Thread Pitches
Buying a gun before you’ve even picked out a suppressor might seem backwards to some, but I like to think of it as planning ahead.
Part of that planning means knowing your thread pitch. While there are always exceptions, most common calibers follow some predictable patterns:
| Calibers | Common Thread Pitches | Common Hosts |
|---|---|---|
|
5.56 NATO / .223 |
1/2×28 |
Rifles |
|
.30 Caliber |
5/8×24 |
Rifles |
|
9mm |
1/2×28 |
Handguns |
|
.40 S&W |
9/16×24 |
Pistols |
|
.45 ACP |
.578×28 |
Handguns |
SilencerCo’s barrel thread specs are available here. You’ll find proper shoulder dimensions and thread length details for every centerfire thread they offer.
Conclusions
Once you know your thread pitch, you can decide whether to stick with direct thread—like I prefer on the Scythe Ti—or use something like an ASR mount that incorporates muzzle protection, compensation, or flash-hiding functionality to the mix.
Either way, when you are ready to add a suppressor, you’ll feel like a genius.
David Higginbotham
