Savage's New AC30 B.O.B. Lightweight Hunting Suppressor Review

A new era in reflexed, over-the-barrel hunting suppressors

October 29, 2025 By Patrick Sweeney

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Not everyone wants a suppressor that is full-auto rated. Any shooting pace that even comes close is hard on barrels and wallets. Not everyone is happy with a foot-long suppressor that is that long to be quiet. Some want a well-behaved, not-heavy suppressor for hunting, one that won’t break the wallet nor feel like an anvil on the last leg of a hike up to the hunting area. So, Savage makes one. The AC30 B.O.B.

Suppressor Design

Barrel and suppressor for example — Here is how much the Savage AC30 B.O.B. overlaps your barrel. (Photo provided by author.)

This is a .30 suppressor that ticks all those boxes. First off, the B.O.B. part? That’s back-over—barrel, what we called a reflex suppressor in the old days. The mount threads are partway up the suppressor tube, and the extra volume that the design provides (part of the two-inch diameter of the AC30) means more quiet. It also means that the B.O.B. is lighter for its volume because the extra volume permits the use of aluminum for the major parts of the suppressor.

The threads are a titanium (6AL-4V alloy) insert secured to the 7075-T6 aluminum mount assembly. This way you don’t have aluminum threads being abraded by the steel threads of the barrel. Titanium is tougher than that. The AC30 B.O.B. is made of three parts, the mount, the reflex/expansion chamber, and the monocore baffle stack that is removable. All are made of aluminum, given a Type III hard-coat anodized finish and topped off with DLC.

Over the barrel portion of suppressor — The rear cap looks too large to be threaded onto your barrel. That’s because the threads are four inches inside of the tube, and it overlaps your barrel when installed. (Photo provided by author.)

Mounting is easy. The reflex design has a limited clearance diameter (0.94 of an inch max, since you asked) and that means you have to be aware of barrel diameter. Any barrel small enough and threaded to 5/8x24 pitch will work. Remove any thread protector, and screw the AC30 B.O.B. on. That’s it. For cleaning, you unscrew the forward half of the AC30 B.O.B. to remove the monocore, which Savage calls the MonoKore technology. Then you can scrub it to your heart’s content, since you have full access to all the surfaces. Once you have the monocore out, you might notice that the outer surface has a machined ridge in it. That is the tube cleaning edges on the baffle monocore. Suppressors get gunky. The usual “cleaning” method is to shoot it enough to heat the suppressor up and burn out the residues. The AC30 B.O.B. is made out of aluminum, so that approach really isn’t an option, and if you do not control the buildup, you can carbon-weld your disassemblable suppressor into a singular unit. So, each time you take the AC30 apart, the built-in scrapers start the cleaning process.

Outer collar compared to inner baffles — The outer tube has the protective collar that rings the flash-hider prongs on the monocore. (Photo provided by author.)

The front tube simply covers the monocore, it doesn’t even create the exit face of the assembly, but its made-with-wrench-flats collar protects the flash-hider built into the monocore. That, along with the flash hiding projections on the end of the monocore, is screwed into the rear cover. The cover is the serialized part, the actual suppressor of record. So, let’s say you do something you should not have, and have put a bullet sideways through the monocore. Heck, let’s make it particularly gruesome, and you blasted out through the monocore cover. No problem. All of that is forward of the tube that is serialized. You simply have to disassemble the AC30 B.O.B. and send the busted parts to Savage for replacement. You keep the serialized part in your safe. Once the new parts arrive, reassemble and you’re back in business. (With a rueful tale, and a lesson learned, we hope.)

Why Reflex?

The advantage of the B.O.B. and any reflex suppressor is that you do not add a long suppressor to your overall length. While the AC30 is eight inches long, the net added length is four inches. Plus, you are adding the extra ounces right at the muzzle, and not a point four inches forward of the muzzle. So the balance of your rifle changes to a lesser extent than with a non-reflex suppressor.

Now, all these advantages come at a cost (everything does, not that Savage can avoid it), and those are easy to grasp. First of all, a reflex suppressor has to be larger. You can’t fit a suppressor over that barrel, keep it an inch and a half in diameter, and have any extra volume in the over-barrel part. So, it is two inches in diameter. If you want it light, and taking advantage of the extra volume, you have to make it out of either aluminum or fully out of titanium. Titanium, costs, a lot, so that means aluminum to keep from busting your wallet. An aluminum centerfire rifle suppressor has strict firing limits. So, the AC30 B.O.B. is meant for use on rifles up to .300 WinMag, but not SBRs. I’d be happy using it on a .308 or a 6.5 Creedmoor with a sixteen-inch barrel but were I putting it on a .300 Win Mag, I’d stick with a twenty-inch barrel.

Blast baffle of BOB — The now exposed monocore is easy to clean. That’s a good thing because an aluminum suppressor can’t be cleaned by “shooting it hot.” (Photo provided by author.)

The firing rate is twenty rounds at one per second (a zippy PRS rate, a lot faster than anyone will do hunting) and then wait for it to cool off. Clearly, this is not the suppressor for working over a prairie dog town, but then who uses a 6.5 CM or .308 for that anyway? I never got at all close to that when testing, but it still heated up enough that I could not touch it and had to keep it away from any nylon gear lest it melt the cases and such. Once back to the shop, it was easy to hand-loosen and remove the outer tube to inspect and clean the monocore. One thing you might take note of, and that is the threaded portion of the outer tube. The thread extends to just shy of one inch from the bearing shoulder to release. The first time you go to take it apart it will seem like you will be spending all day spinning the tube.

End Result

Savage rifle with AC30 — The Savage AC30 B.O.B. suppressor mounted on a Savage 110 Ultralight Elite rifle. (Photo provided by author.)

The tested reduction by Savage, using a .300 WM rifle with a twenty-inch barrel was to drop it down to 133 dB. That’s impressive, and while it is plenty good enough to take as a hunting-rifle suppressor, I think I’d still be using some kind of protection were I to put this onto a PRS rifle for a match. What I did use it on was the Savage 110 Ultralight Elite, a PRS-like rifle built to be a lightweight hunting rifle. Instead of nearly twenty pounds full-up, (a top-end PRS rifle can be that) the 110 Ultralight Elite was six and a half pounds bare, seven with the AC30 B.O.B. on it. It was a nice, handy package, with a beautiful trigger and the AC30 B.O.B. didn’t change the balance of it enough to notice.

With a list price right at one grand (well, a dollar less than that) and a retail price at your local gun shop of something less than that, you can be hunting in quiet style (where allowed) soon enough.