Silencer Shop Authority: Innovative Arms Interceptor 556 Review
When I was at the NRA Annual Meetings back in May, I had the good fortune of meeting with plenty of great people from the industry and saw a litany of awesome products in the process. Though everyone was friendly, a few companies stood out for taking the time to explain, in detail, how their offerings work and the philosophy behind each. One of these brands was Innovative Arms.
While Innovative Arms isn’t new to suppressors, they’ve recently overhauled almost every part of their lineup. From rimfire on up, everything has been refreshed, and most of the latest releases hit during 2016. My talks with the company back in May left me with a strong desire to give their silencers a spin, but only recently has Silencer Shop been able to bring some examples in for a demonstration. When the demo silencers finally did arrive just over a month ago, I managed to secure time with several of Innovative Arms’ products. Today, we will take a closer look at their durable, quick attach Interceptor 5.56.
Size & Weight
The Interceptor 5.56 is dimensionally comparable to most other full-size 5.56mm suppressors. It’s 6.625″ long and when mounted, adds around 5″ to the rifle. The tube itself is 1.5″ in diameter, but the Exoskeleton shroud that encases the rear half of the silencer adds to the can’s girth and brings the overall diameter to around 1.6″.
Since I’ve mentioned the Exoskeleton, I may as well point out that Innovative Arms sees the feature as a heatsink and grip. While it theoretically reinforces the silencer’s blast chamber, it doesn’t translate to shorter barrel support. I’d argue that it serves no real function. It also adds two ounces to the overall weight of the Interceptor. Considering its dubious utility, I’d probably opt for the slightly lighter, smooth version of the Interceptor 5.56.
According to my postal scale, the Interceptor 5.56 by itself weighs 20.5 ounces (the smooth version is apparently in the 18-18.5 ounce ballpark). The included flash hider mount adds three more ounces to the package for an overall weight of 23.5 ounces. That’s heavy for a modern 5.56mm silencer. Five years ago, I could probably live with the heft of the Interceptor. After all, my SilencerCo Specwar is only marginally lighter. The market has changed, though. With many 7.62mm options hovering around 15-17 ounces and several 5.56mm cans falling below the 15-ounce mark, a 20.5-ounce suppressor is a tough pill to swallow.
Materials & Design
The Interceptor’s tube and core are constructed entirely of 17-4 stainless steel. 17-4 is a hard tool steel that is nearly as durable as Inconel alloy, but weighs around 10% less. It has become somewhat of a standard for stainless silencers and works very well.
The outside of the can is finished in what looks to be a ceramic paint, perhaps Cerakote. Innovative Arms offers the Interceptor in black (seen here), OD green, FDE, and brushed stainless. The black paint on my test example looked great, seemed durable, and was evenly applied.
Since I’ve already addressed the Exoskeleton on the outside of the Interceptor, let’s dig into the silencer’s core. Inside the tube is a fully machined, one-piece monocore with three baffles. I managed to snap a photo of a cutaway Interceptor at the NRA Annual Meetings, which I’ve embedded below.
Generally, each of the baffles feature flat faces that have been stepped at their midpoints. The steps cause create oblong bore apertures that allow some gas particles to advance more rapidly than others, causing cross-jetting, or turbulence, inside the tube. It’s the same general concept employed by ported, conical baffles, but the monocore approach is often reserved for low-pressure rounds.
Part of the reason that monocores like the Interceptor’s are most often found in pistol and rimfire silencers is that as a very general rule, they don’t perform as well with high-pressure rifle cartridges. As far as I can tell, fast-moving gas particles are less affected by the flatter baffle style used by this type of monocore than they are by conical ones. Though I’ll talk more about the Interceptor’s performance in the Range Report, I did take time at the NRA Annual Meetings back in May to discuss the design with the guys from Innovative Arms. According to them, the moncore was chosen because, with it, a baffle strike is far less likely to cause a catastrophic failure. With cones, a bullet that strikes a baffle will often ride the cone’s edge and will exit out the side of the suppressor’s tube. A strike inside the Interceptor is more likely to exit through the end cap.
Mounts
The Interceptor series is Innovative’s first to use their phenomenal quick attach mounting system. Somewhat like AAC’s 90T mounts, the Interceptor QA mounts feature a prominent tapered surface followed by coarse threads and then teeth, which interact with a ratcheting gate on the suppressor. Innovative’s approach is much better than AAC’s, though. The reason for this is that the Interceptor mount only has teeth where they’re needed. The threads on the mount and can are timed so that the locking gate hits the teeth right as the suppressor bottoms out against the mount’s taper. This minimizes the amount of ratcheting needed to secure the silencer, and it reduces wear on the locking piece.
Moreover, because the locking piece mates with the teeth perpendicularly, Innovative claims that the wear caused by attachment is far less than AAC’s system, which employs a rotating arm to lock the silencer in place. Overall, the system is remarkably quick and very easy to use. It’s probably one of the three best in the industry.
Back in May, I also asked Innovative Arms if they had plans to release a muzzle brake for the Interceptor series. Surprisingly, I got a strong “no” in response. According to them, because brakes affect the way gas flows in the suppressor, they don’t like to use them and won’t be making one. While they’re correct that brakes change gas flow, I can’t get behind not making one for those who would like it.
Range Report
For all its weight, I was a little disappointed to find that the Interceptor isn’t the quietest 5.56mm can I’ve heard. In fact, it’s noticeably louder than my admittedly fantastic SilencerCo Specwar. That’s not to say that the Interceptor doesn’t work – it definitely does suppress the rifle – it just doesn’t justify the extra weight. Without official decibel numbers, I can only guess, but I would estimate that the Interceptor is around three to five decibels louder than my Specwar.
Presumably, the Interceptor’s performance lags in large part because it features a monocore baffle assembly. Stepped monocores like the ones found in almost all of Innovative Arms’ silencers work well to disrupt gas flow from slower rounds, like pistol and rimfire cartridges, but they often struggle to capture and/or redirect the more energetic gasses expelled by common rifle ammunition. Whereas low-pressure gasses seem to take advantage of the cross-jetting caused by the monocore’s stepped baffles, higher pressure ones seem less affected. For this reason, conical baffles usually reign supreme in rifle cans, and I’m not sure that Innovative Arms’ Interceptor offers a compelling counterargument.
Since the Interceptor is relatively heavy, I expected it cause some point of impact (POI) shift. On my AR’s short, rigid 10.5″ barrel, the measured shift between a bare (with flash hider) muzzle and suppressed was around 2 MOA. That is, the suppressor shifted my shots around 2″ to the right at 100 yards. That’s not terrible and it’s actually very much in line with the sort of results I get with my Specwar. Your mileage may vary as POI shift depends heavily on barrel profile and length, as well as thread concentricity.
Conclusion
While the Interceptor 5.56 is a well-built suppressor, it ultimately is not one of my favorites. The mounting system is easily one of the best out there, but the silencer itself is too heavy for my preference and the performance doesn’t quite make up for that fact. I’m also not in love with the Exoskeleton. Sure, it looks cool, but it doesn’t really offer up any additional utility. Regardless, if you’re looking for an exceptionally rugged silencer with superb mounts and you aren’t bothered by extra heft, the Interceptor 5.56 might just be your ticket.
Jeremy Mallette is co-founder of International Sportsman. An avid hunter and outdoorsman, he has spent more than a decade in the outdoor industry, from hiking and camping to silencers and hunting. His father taught him to shoot at age six, and he received his first firearm at age eight — a 1942 Colt Commando .38 special revolver. He enjoys yearly trips to Kansas for pheasant hunting, spending time with his children at the deer lease, and collecting unique firearms.