Hands on with Rugged Suppressors’ Surge 7.62

In my efforts to keep my ear to the ground on things silencer-related at SHOT Show 2016, I enlisted the help of my friend Mark Kuczka at Accurate Ordnance. Mark is well versed in the happenings of the gun industry and served me well as my wilderness guide, helping me forge through the miles of aisles and booths. Our first stop was to see Henry Graham and Michael Derdziak at Rugged Suppressors to check out their Surge 7.62 . . .

Given that I’m blissfully unaware of many of the happenings in the gun industry, I often meet people who I’m supposed to recognize for their achievements, but am absolutely clueless about. That’s how I found myself, notepad in hand, wondering why the very young looking man you see in the video above was speaking so authoritatively about silencers.

That’s Henry Graham, president of Rugged Suppressors. Prior to Rugged, he was the president of SWR Manufacturing which you may recognize as being a part of the SilencerCo family. Henry and SilencerCo parted ways in May 2014, and Rugged was born officially at the beginning of 2015. While I’m certain that Henry still gets carded at the liquor store, he has about a decade worth of experience designing and building silencers. My apologies Henry, I didn’t know.

Listening to Henry and Michael talk, it became immediately apparent that they wanted to make robust, quiet silencers that didn’t change point of impact shift. Furthermore, and this is the part that tickles me to no end, they wanted to pay special attention to aligning production with their marketing efforts so that when they announced a can, consumers could go buy it. In their mind, you already have to wait a long time to get your can, why spend even more time doing so while manufacturers sell you on an idea, but fail to deliver? As a consumer, I appreciate that attitude quite a bit.

The Surge 7.62 is Rugged’s first rifle can to be brought to market and it features a robust locking collar that mounts up to a double tapered muzzle device. Henry says that this system allows the Surge to be quickly mounted and dismounted, but the taper mounts allow it to have repeatable point of impact shift with a very tight gas seal. It was during this point in the conversation that Mark interjected to say that their experience with the Surge has lined up exactly with Henry’s statements.

As I’ve covered here before, Accurate Ordnance is in the business of making precision guns. Their reputation depends on their guns shooting well under 1/2 MOA. When a customer demands that a silencer be mounted to the gun as part of the build, that has the potential to affect the accuracy guarantees they can offer customers. However, in AO’s extensive testing, they’ve found the Surge 7.62 to be thoroughly perfect at reducing sound without affecting accuracy. In fact, the rifle this Surge was mounted to belongs to Rick Thompson, sales guy and part owner of AO. The last time I hung out in their shop, Rick was preaching the virtues of the Surge as his POI hadn’t shifted appreciably since mounting it. 

The Surge’s big claim to fame is that it is the first modular rifle silencer to hit the market. Like the pistol cans that every manufacturer seems to offer that allow the user to pick a long or short config, the Surge allows you to fit a nine inch silencer for maximum sound deadening, or a seven inch can for better handling at the expense of sound suppression. The video above details the metering numbers Rugged is seeing, but for the sake of flooding you with information, here’s the overview Austin silencer dealer, Capitol Armory, put together on it.

The Surge 7.62 weighs in at 17.5 oz in the short config and 21.5 oz in the long. It ships from the factory with a 7.62 aperture, but you can purchase a 5.56 aperture as a separate item. It is rated all the way up to .300 RUM on an 18″ barrel. It is delightfully full auto (and belt fed!) rated. I don’t normally find myself drawn to the modular cans, as I’ve generally found that any modular “thing” I own ends up in the configuration I use most, and never changes. That said, I’m not representative of the market at large, and luckily for them, Rugged hasn’t listened to me. The Surge 7.62 appears to be a winner from second hand info, but we’ll hold off on final evaluation until we get one in our grubby hands. MSRP is $1300 (real world is ~$1000) and includes one muzzle device.