The Dead Air Sandman K is one of the best and shortest fighting 7.62 suppressors on the market. It’s incredibly durable, and only adds a few inches onto the end of the barrel. This makes it an excellent choice for home defense as well as military or police use. Check out this Dead Air Sandman K review, to see why it might be the best all around suppressor for 7.62 and 5.56 use.
I’ve been waiting quite a long time to write this review. If you’ve read any of my other firearms or gear reviews, you know that I like to test gear for a reasonable amount of time before I publish a review. You’ll never see a gun / equipment review after a box of rounds and a quick glance! Here’s an overview of the Dead Air Sandman-K.
Dead Air Sandman K Overview
- Only adds 2.9 inches past the muzzle device
- Full Auto Rated for ultimate durability
- Overall length of 5.4 inches
- Rated for 300 RUM / 300 Win Mag
- Stellite® Baffles and 17-4 PH Stainless Steel Welded Core
- Stainless Steel Tube (17-4 Stainless Steel)
- Overall weight: 12.8 ounces
- Quick disconnect muzzle device
- High temp Cerakote finish
- Solid weld stellite® baffle core for hard use cases
- Backed by Dead Air’s lifetime warranty
- Amazing assortment of endcaps/brakes
I originally ordered this suppressor in the spring of 2020. Due to the vagaries of the ATF, had to wait a year for my tax stamp to get approved. I will say that I ordered this Sandman suppressor and a single shot trust through Silencer Shop, and I found it amazingly quick and easy to do so. I will be using them in the future because they made this process so easy.
Fast forward a year, and I’ve got my new Dead Air suppressor. When I purchased the can, Silencer Shop included the amazing keymount muzzle brake with it. I promptly mounted the device on my home defense gun, the excellent POF Renegade Plus in 300 blackout, and took it to the range. Here are my initial impressions.
Initial Impressions: Dead Air Sandman K
After mounting the can to my POF Renegade plus, I was very happy I’d chosen this suppressor. It adds very little length to the 10.5 inch barrel. Personally, I never quite understood the point of a short barreled rifle if you plan on adding an 8 inch suppressor to it.
Moreover, the can is very light, coming in at only 12.8 ounces. This was another requirement for my home defense gun. I didn’t want to feel like a brick was hanging off the end of my barrel. In my experience, heavy suppressors can slow down target acquisition, as you have to move that extra mass around.
Because my POF is a DI gun, I’ve found it’s much lighter than my piston guns, even before adding in a suppressor to those rifles. Needless to say, I did test this can on a piston gun, and I’ll cover that a little further on in this review.
I was curious how much point of impact shift the Dead Air Sandman K would show with my setup. I was pleasantly surprised that there was no detectable shift. I should mention that this gun is a red dot only gun, without magnifier.
As such, I’m sure there’s some amount of movement, but my shooting error probably eclipses the minimal point of impact shift. I saw no reason to re-zero my Trijicon MRO after shooting this can. If I’d mounted this suppressor to a bolt gun or other precision rifle, I’m sure there would be some correction needed.
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Shooting the Dead Air Sandman K: Gas Blocks and Pistons
Most of my experience shooting suppressed rifles is on piston driven AR15s. These rifles are very easy to shoot with a can. You switch the piston setting to suppressed, and off you go. Because this can will live on my 300 blackout DI gun, I was curious about what effects the Sandman K would have on the rifle’s operation.
If you read the POF Renegade review, or are familiar with their products, you know that the have a great option called the Dictator Gas Block. This allows you to fine tune how much gas is going back into the action for reliable operation.
I fully expected to have to fiddle with the gas block to achieve reliable functioning. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that no adjustment was needed. The gun worked well, and I didn’t notice the bolt carrier group slamming around at warp speed due to over gassing.
I even found that I didn’t need to adjust the gas block for subsonic 300 Blackout rounds. These rounds shot like a dream, and had almost imperceptible muzzle blast. It felt very similar to shooting 5.56 ammo.
I’m sure I could adjust the gas block to get the 300 blackout POF pistol to shoot a little softer, but I’m not sure if that juice is worth the squeeze. The only downside to shooting on a direct impingement gun is the amount of cleaning the bolt needs afterwards!
Dead Air Sandman K on Piston Driven Rifles
I purchased another muzzle device for one of my LWRC piston driven guns, as I wanted to use this suppressor on that firearm as well. It’s important to note that this is a 7.62 mm can, which I purchased so I could shoot it on any rifle I owned.
After mounting the muzzle device to the rifle, I took the setup to the range, and I noticed a difference after just a few shots. The 5.56 round gave off a lot more muzzle flash than the 300 blackout round did.
This makes sense, as there is a lot more room for gas to escape through the end cap. This might be a problem for some silencers, but this isn’t the case for Dead Air silencers. You can purchase any number of detachable front caps to help tame flash, and mitigate recoil. To my mind, the swappable end caps are a great feature. More on that later.
I found the suppressor functioned very well on a 5.56 rifle, and I really appreciated the tame recoil on my LWRC. The front end is already heavy due to the piston setup, and I found that long strings of fire are much more controllable than shooting unsuppressed. Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, noise and flash reduction.
Dead Air Sandman K Noise and Flash Reduction
Anyone who has experience with suppressors knows that very rarely are they Hollywood quiet. If you read the review on Silencershop.com, you’ll see that the Dead Air Sandman K measures 140 decibels with supersonic ammo. This is right under the pain threshold for loud noises, and as such, I do not recommend shooting without ear protection.
Some of you may be asking why even bother if the suppressor doesn’t obviate the need for hearing protection. Well I’m glad you asked. The primary purpose of this suppressor is to allow you to shoot it in an emergency situation, without hearing protection.
If you’re in a law enforcement or military capacity this would allow you to engage with no hearing protection for short durations. It won’t be good for your hearing, but it’ll allow you to maintain situational awareness much better than hearing 180 decibel shots from an unsuppressed short barrel rifle.
Dead Air Sandman K Flash Reduction
The other important factor to consider is the amount of flash reduction you can expect from the Sandman K. I found that when shooting 300 Blackout the amount of flash was about average. There was quite a lot of flash when I put the same can on my 5.56 gun, without swapping in a replaceable end cap for 5.56.
I probably wouldn’t recommend using this can (without an end cap swap) for a lot of night shooting. You’ll find that the flash is lower than without a can, but it’s just too short to make the flash imperceptible, like it might be on one of the longer offerings from Dead Air, like the Sandman L.
As I alluded to earlier, Dead Air makes some amazing accessories for this suppressor. Some are designed to mitigate flash, and others are great at reducing recoil. Let’s take a look.
Dead Air Sandman K Accessories
While doing my homework for this article, I came across the Dead Air E-Brake, and it blew me away. Part of me is mad that I hadn’t found this sooner! The E-Brake is a compensator that you can add on to the end of any of the Sandman series of suppressors.
It acts as both a flash mitigation device, for low light conditions, and most importantly, it reduces the recoil, acting as a brake. Having shot hundreds of subsonic and supersonic 300 Blackout rounds, as well as 5.56, I can say that having a brake for 300 Blackout supersonic rounds would definitely allow for quicker follow on shots. Having even better flash signature reduction is just icing on the cake.
Similarly, different end caps will change the performance of the suppressor. Because this can ships with a 7.62 end cap, you may want to swap that out for a 5.56 variant to help tame muzzle flash. You can also purchase a specific cap that is designed mitigate flash. Check out this youtube video covering the E-brake
Final Thoughts
This has been a lengthy review so let’s wrap this up. I’ve been very happy with my purchase of the Dead Air Sandman K. Currently the Sandman-K ships with a great QD system muzzle device from Silencer Shop, including the tax stamp, and Single Shot NFA trust for about $800. Given this units durability and stellite baffles, as well as it’s full auto rating, I think this is a great bargain.
It’s even better considering that you can modify this suppressor for your exact purposes. The Sandman K is light and adds very little weight or length to the rifle. I can definitely give this suppressor two thumbs up as one of the best fighting suppressors on the market.
This silencer is for serious users who need a light weight durable suppressor that can be modified to meet your specific needs. You can’t do any better than the Dead Air Sandman K. Now get out there and get training!
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Make sure to check with your State Laws, and Federal Laws, as the Dead Air Sandman K or other suppressors may not be legal where you live.
