Good morning, everyone, this is John with gun.deals, and today we’re gonna be talking about the SureFire Warden, it’s definitely an interesting muzzle device, it does have some use cases, but it’s also a bit of a niche product.
Full disclosure on the SureFire Warden and actually the entire upper receiver and all the ammunition that was used for testing, all of this was sent out to me by KTactical, both this 5-inch 5.56 upper receiver, SureFire optic, all that sort of stuff was sent out to me free of charge including all the ammunition that I use for testing. I don’t have any sort of relationship with SureFire, I have used a lot of their products in the past, I tend to like their products, they make top-dollar products that also perform towards the top of the stack as well, but, again, there’s no personal relationship between myself and SureFire.
The SureFire Warden is essentially a QD blast diffuser that works with just about any SureFire muzzle device out there. In this case this is on one of their muzzle brakes, a very, very effective muzzle brake on a 5-inch AR, and the SurFire Warden is absolutely necessary.
The SurFire Warden itself is not a suppressor and is legal in band states where you can’t have flash hiders and stuff like that, and that is one of the good applications for it. So, this will attach to, again, any sort of SureFire muzzle device or SureFire compatible muzzle device.
On top of the QD version they also have a direct thread version that is either 1/2x28 or 58x24 for, you know, different calibers or what have you. The SureFire Warden by itself, though it does have some prongs on the front of it, it doesn’t really do any flash reduction, it doesn’t increase the flash and it doesn’t do much on a 5-inch AR anyways, but on certain applications it certainly won’t enhance the flash to a noticeable degree.
On top of that, importantly, the Warden is multi-caliber, so anything from 5.56, 30 cal projectiles, anything that you wanna throw through it, as long as it’s not bigger than 30 caliber, is gonna work just fine. So, again, this will attach to just about any SureFire muzzle device, in this case this is, of course, a brake, you simply line it up, drop it down and then tighten it down using the SureFire fast attach system, which is the exact same that they use on the SOCOM RC2 suppressors, and all of their new suppressors are gonna use the exact same mounting system, so this does, again, interface comes ON and OFF very quickly.
In terms of construction, the entire body and mounting system is made out of stainless steel, on top of that, it has a very nice black Cerakote job, which does look very good. They also make tan versions of it as well. While the Warden will not reduce the decibel rating on whatever you put it on, it does take all that blast, all that conclusive force and throw it down range away from the shooter, and I do happen to have one of the best platforms for testing a blast forwarding device and that is a muzzle brake equipped 5-inch 5.56 AR, and I can tell you with 100% certainty that with the Warden attached, while it’s not what I would consider necessarily a pleasant shooting experience, it is one step above tolerable, even with a 5-inch 5.56.
When shooting this with the Warden attached, while it is certainly loud, it is certainly blasty to the shooter, it’s not what I would consider to be uncomfortable with the proper hearing protection. To people next to it or slightly in front of it, like on the off the side to the right or to the left, it is still going to be insanely loud and insanely concussive in terms of its blast, but nowhere near as bad as if you had the SureFire Warden uninstalled. When you have the SureFire Warden uninstalled with the SureFire brake, your teeth hurt when shooting it, it’ll give you a headache after just a couple of rounds, but with the Warden installed I’m happy to put a couple hundred rounds through it in a range day without much detriment to the shooting performance of whoever is using the gun.
It’s not just usable on short-barreled 5.56 because, of course, it is multi-caliber, so you could throw this on 308, 300 Blackout, 7.62x39 short-barreled versions of those guns to reduce the concussive blast both to yourself and to people around you.
If you’re not in the SureFire family already, meaning that you don’t have a lot of their muzzle devices or suppressors, I don’t really see a good point for picking up a Warden, however, if you are heavily invested into the SureFire family of products and you have a lot of their muzzle devices laying around, then maybe having a Warden for certain applications could make sense.
Another good, but unfortunate application for the Warden is in band states where you’re not allowed to have flash hiders, for some silly reason, so most people are running muzzle brakes. The SureFire Warden is not a flash hider, but it definitely doesn’t increase the flash on your firearms either, so and it is definitely a lot more comfortable to shoot with the Warden on, so if you have to have a gun that’s either equipped with a muzzle brake or nothing, just a bare muzzle, then the SureFire Warden is definitely a much better way to go in terms of shooting comfort of both, yourself and people around you, and, of course, it will throw a lot of that sound and blast away from the shooters ear. Again, it doesn’t reduce the overall decibel level, but it’s throwing a lot of that downrange and certainly redirecting that blast as well.
There are cheaper ways to get blast diffusers and, again, the main point of this is if you’re already invested in SureFire products to begin with or, again, you live in a band state and you want something that can be taken ON and OFF easily because, of course, you can just pick up a large blast diffuser from several companies for anywhere from like 30 to 70 dollars for a decent blast forwarding device and it’s going to do most of what this does, of course, minus the SureFire QD system.
The SureFire is excellent, their products in general are very expensive, I believe these run on sale, I’ve seen these as low as like 150, usually they’re around 200, 225, which is very expensive, though that’s about one-fifth the cost of one of their suppressors and, of course, there’s no waiting period or anything like that. It is definitely a niche application product, it does exactly what it’s described to do, it throws a huge chunk of that blast and concussion away from the shooter, which is good, again, for the shooter’s health and performance in general, but it’s expensive and for a lot of people, you’ll probably be better off with a flash hider or something cheaper.
There’s still a use for the Warden and it is an interesting product in the SureFire lineup, but, again, whether or not it makes sense for you in your specific application, well that is, of course, going to be for you to decide.
