Silencer Saturday #394: A No Country For Old Men Homage

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to TFB’s Silencer Saturday, brought to you by Yankee Hill Machine, manufacturers of the new Victra-12 shotgun suppressor. This week, we are looking at a limited edition short barrel shotgun and silencer combo that pays tribute to the legendary film No Country for Old Men. Spoiler alert: this article will give away some plot points.

Silencer Saturday @ TFB:

• Silencer Saturday #393: Deep Dive Into The SAAMI Silencer Standard
• Silencer Saturday #392: Another Week, Another Lawsuit
• Silencer Saturday #391: Silencer Shop Sues ATF To Dismantle The NFA
• Silencer Saturday #390: Resurrecting The Hush Puppy
• Silencer Saturday #389: Can You Thread Your Own Barrel?

Shotgun Silencers, Generally

Out of the types of modern firearms, shotguns are probably the least commonly suppressed. Shotgun shells pose some obvious issues for silencers; a wad containing a load of shot would wreck most traditional silencer designs on the first firing. Imagine 1 ⅛th ounces of shot let loose inside the baffle stack of your favorite silencer. Not a great situation!

Shotgun silencers are designed to keep the wad and shot together as they pass through the baffle stack. The first truly successful commercial shotgun silencer was the SilencerCo Salvo. It was introduced in 2014, seven years after No Country for Old Men debuted. Others have since entered the market, including the JK Armament 195 series and YHM’s Victra-12. Even though there are now multiple options on the market, shotgun silencers are still relatively uncommon.

No Country for Old Men

The movie No Country for Old Men has almost exclusively positive reviews and is regarded by some as a masterpiece. If you have not seen it, you are missing out. This article contains spoilers. Please go watch the movie first, then come back to finish reading the article!

Throughout the course of the film, hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) pursues a hunter in possession of a stolen briefcase containing millions of dollars, as well as others who become intertwined in the story. He is a true psychopath who murders without compunction and has a terrible haircut. But one of the most memorable things about Anton is his signature gun. He weilds a silenced semiauto shotgun, which was an unheard-of combination back when the film was released.

The actual firearm used in the film was a Remington 11-87 with the vent-rib barrel chopped back and a large silencer affixed. Watching the film, the silencer stands out because it has an unfinished appearance. It has a raw metal look, with visible screws. It is also very large, and it draws attention at the end of the gun when it is first revealed. Along with Chigurh’s other signature weapon, a captive bolt gun that uses compressed air and is made for stunning livestock in slaughterhouses, is similarly purpose-driven.

Both of these weapons are clear extensions of the personality and motivations of Anton. He methodically pursues his targets and slaughters them without remorse. His tools are atypical but very efficient. This is a great example of how movie weapons can say a lot about a character without any lines of dialogue.

Stepping back behind the silver screen magic, this video from Brownells features the actual gun from the movie as provided by ISS. As it turns out, the script did not describe the gun other than saying it was a suppressed semi-auto shotgun. At the time the film was made, that was not something that existed for sale. The armorers built a dummy silencer to ride on the end of the barrel, and the film editors added sound effects for the firing. This explains one of my only gripes about the film, which is the sound the gun makes when fired. When I first saw the movie, I was not sure what a suppressed shotgun would sound like, but based on experience with other silenced firearms, the sound that was used did not seem right.

The Gallenson’s Homage

It seems that every time a cool or memorable gun is featured in TV or film, gun enthusiasts want one for themselves. The Chigurh suppressed 12-gauge is no different. Thanks to a collaboration between JK Armament, MK3 Firearms, and Gallenson’s Guns, there is now an easy way to get your own functional version.

This combo is a homage rather than a true clone. The first and most obvious departure is the base gun. It uses a Benelli M2 rather than the Remington 11-87 seen in the film. This was an intentional choice because the 11-87 is a gas-operated gun, and adding a functional silencer would mess with the gas setup and require additional tuning. The Benelli is an inertial-driven gun, so adding a silencer does not impact the gun’s cycling. If the film armorers had needed a functional silencer, they might have considered a different host gun. Also, the 11-87 is out of production, and rounding up enough used ones to take on this project would be an added difficulty.

Another difference is the silencer itself. Though it is also large and shiny, this is a real silencer made by a real silencer company rather than something that a fictional psychopathic hitman would have made in his garage. The JK Armament suppressor is a unique design made just for this homage package. It takes its name, Friendo, from a scene in the film where Anton Chigurh engages in a coin toss with a shop clerk who does not understand the stakes. The build quality is noticeably better than the screen-used example, and the one pictured in this article was used heavily at a range day but looks none the worse for wear.