Silencer Saturday #375: Will It Run Without A Booster?

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to TFB’s Silencer Saturday, brought to you by Yankee Hill Machine, manufacturers of the new YHM R45 Multi-Host Suppressor. This week, we are seeing if we can get a Glock 19 to run without a booster in the silencer. There is no real practical reason to test this, but I was curious and decided to try it out.

Silencer Saturday @ TFB:

• Silencer Saturday #374: Hands On With BOE Suppression
• Silencer Saturday #373: A "Class Tree" Wooden Silencer
• Silencer Saturday #372: Centurion Arms Maximus-L
• Silencer Saturday #371: PSA Gets Into Silencer Sales
• Silencer Saturday #370: Silencer Mounting Overview

Test Setup

This experiment is similar to the earlier article with the FN FNX-45. In that Silencer Saturday piece we looked at what a Nielsen Device (aka booster assembly) does, and we viewed some super slow-motion video showing the firing cycle. In that piece, I tried the setup without the booster to see if it would function, but it did not. Even the heft of the mighty .45 ACP was not enough to overcome the weight and size of the silencer used in that test.

But what if the silencer were smaller and lighter? Some recent pistol silencer designs omit the booster assembly because they are so light that they don’t cause malfunctions. One example of this is the Silencer Central Banish 9K, which I got to shoot at SHOT Show 2025 on a Glock 18, among other things. That silencer is fully constructed from titanium and weighs less than three ounces.

Weight is not the only factor at play. Where the weight is distributed also plays a role. Imagine there are two silencers of identical weights, but one is 3 inches long, and the other is 12 inches long. The shorter silencer is more likely to function than the long silencer because it creates a shorter moment arm than the longer silencer. As the barrel tilts during the firing cycle, the shorter silencer has less “leverage” on the barrel than the longer silencer.

For this test, I used my trusty old Glock 19 Gen 4 with a SilencerCo threaded barrel with an Omega 9k suppressor attached. I used the piston with a fixed barrel spacer to deactivate the booster. This replaces the spring in the piston assembly with a rigid spacer that prevents any movement during firing. I set up a table with a sandbag to rest the pistol on and filmed using the super-slow-motion setting on my phone. The phone was held in a tripod for stability, but I had to press a button to start filming at almost exactly the same instant that I fired. That necessitated firing the gun with only my left hand while sitting off to the side at a slightly awkward angle. Don’t try this at home. I am a professional, and I performed this test in a safe location with ample berms surrounding me. There were no other people in the vicinity.

I am currently working on a review of the Lipsey’s exclusive Glock 17L Gen 1 reissue and I had a wide array of ammo for velocity testing that gun compared to a Glock 34. Stay tuned for that article in the future. But this also meant that I had an interesting array of ammo to use for this experiment. I picked the loads that I thought had the best chance of cycling, namely those with heavier bullets and/or running on the hot side.

Result: Fail

Fiocchi Target Max 115gr

This ammo goes on sale regularly at Scheels, and I use a lot of it in reviews. It runs a little hotter than some plinking-grade 9mm, but not by much. The box lists an advertised velocity of 1,200 FPS, but this was still not enough to get the gun to cycle fully.

Result: Fail

Blazer Brass 124gr

This steps up to the next common bullet weight, but Blazer ammo is not known for having impressive muzzle velocities. Once again, there was simply not enough “oomph” to cycle the gun.

Result: Fail.

Winchester White Box 147gr

This was the first load that I guessed might cycle. 147-grain ammo has a long history in suppressor use, and this projectile weighs about 28% more than a 115-grain bullet. Sadly, this was still not enough to make the grade.

Result: Fail.

Hornady Critical Duty 135gr +P

We have now left the realm of affordable ammo and are into expensive defensive loads. I like the 135-grain +P load and have carried it in a Glock 34 for many years.

Result: Fail, but closer

Hornady Backcountry Defense 138gr +P

The final contestant is a newcomer. Hornady’s Backcountry Defense loads try to wring as much penetration power as possible from common handguns to help defeat thick-skinned dangerous animals. I was hunting nothing worse than steel plates and water jugs on this range trip, but this seemed like it might actually work. This ammo was $35 for 20 rounds so it would be a pricey way to plink with a piston-less silencer. Fortunately for my wallet, this also did not work. However, it was really close! In the video you can see the mouth ofthe case is clear of the chamber, but the brass remains hung up on the extractor and the ejector can’t pop it loose.

One More Test

I tried the Critical Duty 135 +P, holding the gun with a proper two-handed grip to see if my left-hand-only shooting position caused the malfunctions. The results were the same; the slide would come back like it wanted to eject the round, but it just could not get there. This also tested having multiple rounds in the magazine to see if single loading the earlier test rounds was a factor, but I observed no difference. Cycling each round manually after firing felt like a modern Welrod, or perhaps a more practical version of that scene in Inception where Leo DiCaprio shoots a silenced pistol and catches each piece of brass as it ejects.

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