Silencer Centrals Banish 22: The Best .22 Suppressor?

It will get new shooters hooked!

March 24, 2025 By Patrick Sweeney

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In talking with a bunch of silencer makers, I found that the rimfire offerings were a larger part of production. In the case of some companies, the majority of what they made and sold. Why? Well, pretty simple, really. Rimfire suppressors usually cost less than other calibers, and you get a lot more quiet for your bucks.

Rimfire handgun with Banish 22 Suppressor attached — Put the Banish 22 on a .22LR pistol, and new shooters will be very happy. Put a red-dot optic on there, and they will entertain visions of James Bond exploits. (Photo Provided by Author)

Case in point, the Banish 22. The Banish 22 is a high-tech rimfire suppressor, but one that sells for not a lot of money. Made mostly of Titanium, which makes it both light and strong, the Banish 22 tips the scales at a smidge over four ounces. Four ounces. So, it weighs less than the three-
dollar cup (Size: small) of black coffee at the local drowned-bean-store. It is disassemblable, as it should be and has to be, if it is going to be used on rimfire firearms. That first. To disassemble, grab the knurled lug on the back and, hold the tube tightly, and unscrew the rear cap. If it has been a while, and you haven’t cleaned it regularly, you may have to carefully (and I do mean carefully) place in a padded vise and get both hands on the tube. Or even use a plastic strap wrench on the tube. (You should have cleaned it before it got to this point. ‘Nuff said.)

Now, you can let the baffles slide out of the tube. If you’ve really neglected cleaning, then you’ll have to use the included tool (that’s the red-anodized aluminum cylinder that came with the Banish 22) and unscrew the front cap. The three-lugged tool nestles into the recess machined in the front cap. You may have to exert some force here as well, if it has gotten to this point, so be careful. If you lose the tool, the rear cap is also machined to act as the wrench to remove the front cap. Silencer Central thinks of everything.

Silencer Central did their best to make it easy for you. The baffles are machined with a recess and lip. So they nestle inside of each other. They also fit snugly inside the tube. These steps are done to keep the gases, as much as possible, from getting between the baffles and the interior tube wall. They are serious enough about this that the rear cap also nestles over the rear-most baffle, so as to maintain that seal between the gases and the tube wall. Nothing is perfect, so you will get gas and powder residue in-between anyway, which is why you have to be just about as diligent in cleaning the Banish 22 as you are any other rimfire suppressor. It will just be easier to exercise that diligence. For cleaning, once you have the Banish 22 apart, drop the parts into your ultrasonic cleaner and let it run long enough to loosen the gunk, then wipe the gunk off. Reassemble and stash in the safe until the next range session.

Baffles from the suppressor — The baffles are the same except for the front-most one. That one nestles into the front cap, to maintain the stack seal.(Photo Provided by Author)

The baffles are also interesting in their design and construction. The baffles have indexing lines so you can get them lined up when you reassemble the stack. Each baffle has the entry port machined with a notch at an angle, to induce turbulence in the gas flow, which knocks the noise down a bit more than non-turbulence baffles would. Do you have to line up the index marks? Not really. The baffles will fit together even un-indexed, and while it might (and I say might) add an extra decibel or two to your muzzle blast, you won’t be able to hear the difference. It will still be quiet.

All of the baffles, but one, are identical. The one that differs is the one that is the last one in the stack (muzzle end) and it is there so it properly fits to the front cap and seals the stack to the tube. So that one goes on the top of the stack, all the others go in any order you wish.

Now, the Banish 22 is a rimfire suppressor, but not just a rimfire suppressor. It is rated for other cartridges as well, within reason. How about the .22 Hornet? OK, not a lot of Hornet shooters these days (Even I don’t have one, imagine that), but were I doing vermin control in farm country, I’d be looking at a Hornet to use, and the Banish 22 would be great there. .22HMR, .17 HMR, even the 5.8x28 are something the Banish 22 can handle. And just when you were thinking that Silencer Central had made the Banish 22 cover as much as it possibly could, I find out that the Banish 22 is full auto rated. Even I had to stop and think about that. So, I can put my 5.8x28 conversion onto my select-fire AR-15/M16 lower, and use the Banish 22? At the mere thought of that, the ammo cans in my shop holding 5.8x28 ammo began shivering.

The mounting system is simple: direct thread. I’m not sure anyone even makes a QD setup for rimfire, and why would they? So the rear cap is threaded ½-28, the common .22LR muzzle thread. Be aware, however, that this is also the common thread pattern for .223/5.56 and 9mm as well. If you get careless, or let your buddy assemble things at the range, getting the Banish 22 on something chambered in those and touching off a round will instantly cause heartache, and lead to a repair bill. Not Silencer Central’s fault.

four images of the suppressor's features — (top left) The disassembly tool is machined to fit the front cap, and this lets you un-screw the front cap. (bottom left) This is where you grasp to unscrew the rear cap. If you have kept your Banish 22 reasonably clean, you can do it with your bare hands. If not, a padded vise and a plastic strap wrench. Be careful. (Photo Provided by Author)

Quiet? The .22LR doesn’t make a lot of noise even when left bare. Oh, it is snappy enough to harm your hearing if you shoot unprotected, but it doesn’t have a whole lot of horsepower to that snap—taming muzzle blast on a rimfire is pretty easy. Silencer Central makes it even easier and fun. In testing, Silencer Central put the Banish 22 on a .22LR rifle, and got readings below 120 dB. In case you need a reference point, I have metered the bolt closing on an empty chamber of an AR-15 at 125 dB. Silencer Central got readings of just under 117 dB on the rifle, and from a Ruger Mark IV, just under 118 dB. The weight of the Banish 22 is so little that you won’t notice a change in the balance of whatever firearm you put it on. Getting back to the beginning, the cost of shooting has gone up, a lot, but even as prices have gone up, the cost of rimfire ammunition has stayed at the bottom end of the rising prices. You cannot shoot anything else for as little as it costs to shoot .22LR. And the recoil is minimal, always a good thing for new shooters.

If you have someone who is interested in shooting, and wants to give it a try, you start with rimfire. (Unless you are obnoxious, and want to show off, and then you deserve to have no friends. I’m looking at you, the guy who hands his new girlfriend a .44 Magnum. Don’t be that guy.) A rack of steel plates at a safe distance, a .22 pistol, and a suppressor, and you will have them hooked in short order. The Hollywood-level suppressed sound will be quieter than the bullet hitting the steel plates. Once you hear them giggle, you will know you’ve made a convert.