Machineguntony said:
Sure looks like one to me.
Machineguntony said:
What caused the bullet to strike the front of this suppressor?
Bullet stability issues are always a possibility, but most likely your can got misaligned slightly.
With pistol cans, the weakest part of the can is where the tube is attached to the piston housing. I've personally seen a torture test where the can got so hot that it came loose at that point and sagged a little bit, and therefore it suffered a massive baffle strike that blew the whole can off the end of the pistol.
On your MP5s, you're getting the can hotter faster, but you're using a fixed mount, so there's less physical stress on the can per shot; there's no piston bouncing back and forth and the barrel isn't tipping up with each shot, causing extra stress on the can right where it meets the piston housing.
This could definitely happen on your MP5s, but this could also happen on your SIG if you were doing multiple mag dumps and you got the can up to the same temperature as if you were shooting full-auto. It takes a lot of shooting to see this happen on a can as strong as a Mystic, though; I'm talking hundreds of rounds in rapid succession through a pistol.
Another possibility is that the can came loose a little on the threads while you were shooting, causing it to mislign just enough to cause an endcap baffle strike. I've seen this happen too. Though I'm guessing you're using a 3-lug mount on all your MP5s, so if that was the cause it must have happened on your pistol.
Machineguntony said:
Can I still safely shoot this suppressor? Do most manufacturers cover/repair this damage?
I wouldn't shoot it if I were you. Send it back to Liberty, they'll almost certainly fix it free of charge.
Machineguntony said:
Is a baffle strike more prevalent with full auto?
A baffle strike is more likely the faster you shoot; excessive heat can cause the can to warp or fail, or it can simply back off the threads enough to mislign and you don't notice it right away because you're shooting too fast.
And, given the same amount of rounds in a similar time frame with a similar amount of heat build-up, the failure I mentioned is more likely to happen on a locked-breech pistol with a tilting barrel. That's why you should be careful if you ever put a can on a Glock 18.
Machineguntony said:
Is there anything that one can do to prevent this in the future?
Make sure the can doesn't get too hot. You'll know when it's too hot, the finish will change color a bit and sometimes the can will start smoking. At this point it will be hot enough to melt an oven mitt. At this point don't cool it down by dunking it in water or anything, just let it air cool.
Also, make sure it doesn't start to come unscrewed while you're shooting.
There are other possibilities we can explore also, but those are the first I though of, and they're the first ones I wanted to run by you.