We often get people reaching out to us, hoping to get information on an old OPS INC can they purchased. Sometimes, the can is easy to identify because it has a specific model designation, like “12th Model” or “15th Model.” But other times, we encounter what we call a “Seberger Special.”
Back in the OPS days, most of the suppressors were made for military contracts. The military isn’t like the civilian market—they really don’t care how the equipment looks. As Ron mentioned in our recent interview, the military would never reject anything and send it back. So when the knurling was off, the coating didn’t sit right, or the stampings were crooked, it didn’t matter. This mindset carried over into the suppressors they made for civilians. That’s why every OPS suppressor you see looks completely unique.
This applied not only to the appearance of the suppressors but also to their construction. Since OPS/AE legacy suppressors were handmade, they were easy to customize. This was ideal when working with the military—Phil and Ron could quickly adapt designs for specific requests. Depending on the platform, they could lengthen or shorten the first sections and baffle stacks, which resulted in a wide range of suppressor variations.
People already get confused by the different models of AE suppressors, but during the OPS era, there were dozens of variations. Of course, there were contract models like the 12th and 15th Models. But there were also odd suppressors built from a random accumulation of parts.
Instead of creating a new model name for every variation, Phil would often use generic designations like “M4” and “3rd Model.” Today, we often associate the M4 suppressor with the Gordon Carbine and the 3rd Model with the M24 suppressor—but that wasn’t always the case. Back in the OPS days, Phil would mark some cans as “M4” without much rhyme or reason. We’ve seen suppressors with the same construction as the 12th or 15th Models marked as M4, and we’ve also seen unusual suppressors that don’t align with modern models bearing the same mark.
When OPS INC shut down and suppressor production continued under the Allen Engineering name, Ron selected a few of the more common OPS designs to carry over. He then standardized both the construction and naming. Most of the one-off suppressors weren’t included in the transition. These oddly built and inconsistently marked suppressors that don’t fit into the AE system are what we now call “Seberger Specials.”
What makes Seberger Specials particularly challenging is that they often don’t conform to any of the standard AE mounting systems, such as the A-Mount, B-Mount, or direct thread mounts. This essentially renders them unusable to the customer without custom barrels and mounts. If you have a Seberger Special (or any OPS can) and want a different AE suppressor, we offer a trade in program.
