Silencer Saturday #343: YHM Maxim Woodsman .22LR

Welcome back to another installment of Silencer Saturday. This week we are taking a trip down memory lane with the long-discontinued YHM Maxim Woodsman .22 LR suppressor. It’s an interesting design, albeit a little dated. Let’s look at this silencer and what it has to offer.

Silencer Saturday @ TFB:

• Silencer Saturday #340: The SHUSH Act Reintroduced In Congress
• SILENCER SATURDAY #337: The HUXWRX FLOW 556 Ti Preview
• SILENCER SATURDAY #327: YHM Mounts & Muzzle Devices – Locking In The Bad Larry
• SILENCER SATURDAY #306: The KAC QDC MCQ-PRT Ultra Compact 5.56mm Suppressor
• Silencer Saturday #339: SilencerCo’s Little-known A2 ASR Flash Hider

Disclaimer: NFA items like silencers are highly regulated. You can end up in prison if you break the law in this space. Please speak to a competent attorney if you need advice on your specific situation. I am not your attorney, and I do not and will not represent you. I do not have any relationship with YHM other than buying some of their parts at retail.

What is it?

The YHM Maxim Woodsman is a rimfire suppressor designed for use on handguns. What separates it from the crowd is the eccentric design. While the word eccentric usually refers to rich people who do weird things, in this case it is used in a more technical sense and is defined as “deviating frmo a circular form or path, as in an elliptical orbit” or “not having the same center.”

Unlike a traditional tubular silencer, where the bullet passes through the exact center (assuming things are square, which is not always a safe assumption), in the Maxim Woodsman the bullet passes along the top of the suppressor. Most of the bulk of the silencer sits below the bore line, out of the way of the sight picture. This layout means the factory sights are usable, there is no need to add extra tall sights for use with this suppressor.

Yankee Hill dubbed this the Maxim Woodsman silencer because the inventor of silencers, Hiram Percy Maxim, made many eccentric models. The “Woodsman” part of the name comes from the classic Colt Woodsman .22 LR pistol. Here are some specifications, and pictures of the manual included in the box.

Specifications:

1.25” Diameter

5.67” Main Tube Length

6.15” With Threads

5.7 ounces

How does it mount?

Being that the Maxim Woodsman is an eccentric design, the mouting process is a little different. Typical silencers simply tighten staight onto the muzzle. The mount is in line with the middle of the silencer tube, and for a direct thread mount it simply screws on like any threaded fastener.

With the offset between the middle of the silencer and the bore, an eccentric silencer needs some way to “time” it to the gun. If it is upside down it would block the sights even more than a regular silencer, and off to the side would be unbalanced and would look stupid. Directionality matters with this kind of can!

Yankee Hill uses a fairly simple method of timing for the Maxim Woodsman. Like a standard silencer, there is a threaded portion that extends from the rear of the tube. But there is also a small threaded jam nut. To install the Maxim Woodsman, first screw the jam nut onto the barrel with the unthreaded portion facing forward.

On The Range

I shot the Maxim Woodsman on a Ruger Mark III with a few types of ammo. Sound is not terribly impressive, it is louder than the last generation, let alone the current crop of rimfire silencers. The manual states that it can be run wet to reduce the sound as much as 30%. I tried it wet, and my totally subjective impression of the sound was much less than a 30% reduction. It may have been more like 10%. The Maxim Woodsman is an interesting, if dated silencer. Its mounting method is more interesting than the performance of the suppressor.

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DEALERS: If you want your link to buy YHM suppressors included in future Silencer Saturday posts, email:  silencers@thefirearmblog.com

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