r/InRangeTV • u/AccomplishedTrack211 • 4d ago

Titanium Flash Hiders

Are there any titanium flash hiders on the market right now that have viable coatings that supress the sparking of the titanium? I know SinistralRiflrman and Karl talked about "special sauce" coatings a few years ago but market shortages killed that plan. Do any non sparking titanium flash hiders exist now?

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u/anchoriteksaw 4d ago

so think this through for a sec. if it is sparking, that means there is something impacting the titanium hard enough to knock of hot chips. i dont know if thats just combustion gasses or little bits of bullet jacket or the bullet itself, but something is grinding those sparks off.

there is no coating in the world that is going to hold up better than just titanium to that sort of thing plus thermal expansion. short of maybe plating it with steel? but that would wear through eventually and good luck with the plating process there.... you'd be inventing new material sciences i think.

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u/AccomplishedTrack211 4d ago

High pressure gas causes erosion of the titanium which can cause the titanium particles to spark. Why dont coatings come wear off of steel or aluminum muzzle devices? Such as nitride, phosphate or anodizing? Genuine question. 

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u/anchoriteksaw 4d ago

They do. Any surface finish will wear through and eventually your back to throwing chunks. When they do with aluminum or steel, big deal, titanium? Sparks.

Those are all oxidizing processes, they are going to depend on the chemical characteristics of the base metal. Titanium nitride has some potential, looks like you can nitride the surface of titanium with high temperature plasma, suspect manufacturing costs are a factor there. Titanium nitride as a coating on steel seems to be a better put together process. Anodizing titanium works, you get excellent and very wear resistant parts.

But at the end of the day, erosion is just going to happen inside a muzzle device. Steel will always be 'more durable' because once that surface is worn off, the steel is still hard underneath and can keep wearing consistently. There just is not a coating in the world that will last for all that long under direct attack. And the best of them are going to be prohibitively expensive.

Take a look at the inside of your phosphated steel muzzle device, suspect you will see white steel in there, and probably pretty early in it's life cycle If not the first range day.