About The Discovery & Development Of The Silencer

When you say the word silencer, instantly, visions of a highly controversial and illegal device for silencing the muzzle blast of a firearm comes to mind. Thoughts of 007, secret service agents, and professional hit men surround the word. But the word silencer here is applied to something only slightly different but perfectly legal. We are still talking about silencing a noise, staying stealthy, and not attracting attention to yourself. Just like a gun silencer, this Silencer has internal baffles that absorb sound waves and eliminate noise. The difference is this Silencer silences a human cough.

The Silencer can take your loudest cough and turn it into a faint whisper totally undetectable just a few yards away. It's easy to imagine the application this invention could have while hunting or observing wildlife. It goes unsaid, animals have extremely superior hearing, and some of the slightest sounds in a quiet woods can be enough to alert a deer or turkey to one's presence. A cough is much more than a slight sound. Test have shown that hunters can hear each other coughing at over 500 yards apart under the right conditions. Imagine how far an elk could hear that same cough - Maybe three to four times that distance.

Coughing is a normal function that every human has. It's natures way of clearing the airway. With a human, the cough goes through the voice box which projects a loud sound. It's hard to predict exactly when a cough may occur although there are many common causes. Dust, pollen, colds, flu, medical conditions, change from humid to dry climate, blood pressure medications, excitement, anxiety, and swallowing the wrong way can all lead to a sudden cough. Sometimes just knowing you have to be quiet can lead to a cough. This is purely psychological, but it happens. Whatever the cause a cough can totally destroy what you are hoping to achieve - success on a hunt.

The idea of the Silencer came about in the early 90's in a fire station in Duluth, Georgia. Two Firefighters and long time hunting companions, Craig Ellington and Rhett Rush, were setting around the station talking hunting and problems they had while hunting. Rhett mentioned he had always had a problem holding back a cough. He said, "It never fails...when everything is perfectly quiet and I get that feeling that a big buck is just about to step out at any time, it hits me....that annoying tickle in the back of my throat....you know, the one that the more I try to suppress it the bigger it gets....and eventually after fighting it as long as I can, I cough anyway....after that my hunt is over....I might as well just go to the house." He added, "If someone would just invent some kind of device that could solve that problem, it would make me and alot of other hunters much more successful." Craig said, "You know....I've had that exact same problem, and there's no telling how many deer and turkeys I've ran off." Then Craig got that far away stare and walked off.

Sometime later he mentioned taking the idea to his brother Steve Ellington. Steve is very mechanically minded and is good at solving problems. When Steve heard the idea of a cough device, he instantly began working on the invention. Rhett, Craig, and Steve vowed not to talk with anyone about their idea until they had a perfect device.

After just a few months Steve announced he had a cough device, but it still had some bugs. It was basically a piece if pipe with one end plugged with pillow stuffing inside. It looked pretty crude and there was nowhere for air to exit. When you coughed into the device your eardrums would pop, and you went around with the hiccups for a while afterward. Steve quickly scraped it and went back to the drawing board. After several unsuccessful attempts at using some sort of stuffing the idea was put on the back burner.

Months went by, and it seemed a cough device would never become a reality. Then as Steve was riding home from work one day, he drove past a Midas Muffler. Light bulbs went on in his head. He thought if a car engine can be silenced, I know I can silence a cough. He turned around and went strait back to the muffler shop and asked the manager if he could have a few of their old used mufflers. He disassembled several and saw exactly what made them work....BAFFLES!

With a new angle for their invention and the knowledge of baffles, he went back to work. Steve soon came up with a device that took the sound out of a cough and did it without backpressure!

Now that they had a cough device that worked, the next step was how to mass produce it? First, they tried a wood lathe which took about six hours to produce a finished product. A dowel had to be cut the right length, hollowed out and a series if baffles had to be cut out of plywood, drilled out and fitted with small diameter tubes. This baffle system had to be glued in place inside the hollow dowel. This was much too time consuming.

After several failed attempts at mass production, the idea was again put on hold. The future of the Silencer looked bleak. Three years went by, and while Steve was working part time for WASCO taxidermy supply, he accidentally stumbled onto a process used to form tongues and teeth for taxidermy. He began experimenting with this process for forming the, hard to make, baffles needed to produce the Silencer. It worked. Again enthusiasm became high. The baffles were molded to fit the inside of a 11/2" PVC pipe. Then the pipe was cut to the right length. A few more steps and you had a Silencer.

The production rate was about 10-15 per hour. In order to greatly increase the production rate the newly formed company Ellington & Rush decided to build several molds, buy a large quantity of liquid plastic and stockpile the baffles. After about a month of building baffles, another disappointment happened. After so many cycles of producing baffles, the molds had expanded slightly- just enough so the baffles would no longer fit into the PVC pipe. Thousands of baffles had to be tossed. At that time the decision was made to find a better way to manufacture the baffles. Ellington & Rush then contracted with Small Wonders in Roswell, Ga. to use a router to produce the baffles. Eight hundred Silencers were produced and stockpiled in preparation for their big debut in 1998 at the Atlanta Buck-A-Rama. A prototype of the perfected design was built, and a mold company was put on hold pending the outcome of sales at the Buck-A-Rama. Sales were great. Coughing was a much more common problem than Ellington & Rush had ever thought. The go ahead to build the mold was given. Two patents and the trademark Silencer were applied for. The Silencer was definitely on it's way to mass production and distribution.

To date the Silencer has been to 51 trade shows throughout the United States and is sold in stores from New York to California, including Alaska and Hawaii. The Silencer has also been featured on several TV shows including; "O'Neill Outside" with host O'Neill Williams, Ted Nugent's "Spirit of the Wild," "Gone Hunting With Keith & Tony," "Eastman's Hunting Journal," "Extreme Hunting Adventures" "Inside The World of Hunting," and "American Outdoorsman." Most can be seen on the Outdoor Channel.

When asked about the future of Ellington & Rush, President Craig Ellington said, "After such a success with the Silencer, we have a few other inventions we would like to develop that can help fellow hunters be more successful in their sport. After all, nothing can be more rewarding than having a job helping others enjoy the outdoors as much as I do."