This project really started before I even owned an Edgun Leshiy. I searched for something like "how to add donnyFL to a leshiy" or something like that. The results were pictures of a gun that kind of looked like a Leshiy, and I later found out was owned by Ernest Rowe (pic below).
I reached out to Donny about it, and he told me this would be a crazy mod cost wise. I was deterred, but for only a little.
I used Donny's Leshiy Extension baffle kit (link below)
This worked great, but as you got up above 700fps in .25 it started to bark a bit.
I went back to drawling board, and through Donny and Brian (edgun west), I got introduced to John Hagan. John is a fellow air gunner, and an extraoridnary talent in the machine shot. John by profession keeps airplanes in the sky as an engineer, so that gave me comfort he'd be up for the job.
Through some back and forth, using Ernest's gun as a starting point, we came up with a plan.
My goal was to make the quietest Leshiy possible without making it really long.
Here's what we ended up doing...
Step 1: cut the leshiy's shroud all the way back to just before the hammer spring tension screw... it's at this point we're at the point of no return ;)
Step 2: cut down 2 350mm barrels to the target lengths. I had two .25's... one ~300mm and the other 280mm. In retrospect, the 1 at 280mm would work fine. The reason for 2 was so that I could have one for the DonnyFL Ronin, and the other for the DonnyFL Emporer. Why?? well, we were borrowing some space within the suppressors to keep the length down. The Emporer had about 2in and the Ronin 1in within that first baffle. Originally I was thinking the longer the barrel the better. The difference between 280 and 300mm is not big enough to justify having 2 In my opinion, but someone had to go first and find out!
Step 3: add a sleeve to the barrel that's threaded 1/2 UNF x 20.
Step 4: Spin a Ronin or Emporer... pull trigger, giggle
Here’s my final thoughts...
I ended up using the shorter of the 2 barrels as my primary. I’m still gaining 30mm Over the 250mm standard, and by removing the shroud, I’ve kept it incredibly short and kept the clean lines by eliminating the offset
The shorter barrel is the one we did a 1/2x20 sleeve on. All the LDC’s from Thuan Donnyfl Du Have a standard cap with 1/2x20. The emporer you can get in multiple. We ended up messing around with the longer barrel so much, the sleeve became a custom size. Going with the 280mm / 1/2x20, I can easily swap between Sumo, Ronin, and Emporer. At 715fps there isn’t much difference at all between ronin and emporer. Once you push above 785, the Emporer definitely distances itself sound wise, keeping things ultra quiet. Don’t get me wrong, the Ronin is crazy quiet, it’s just you can hear the difference once you start pushing FPS.
If you’re interested in doing this, PM me, and I’ll give you John’s contact info. He’s an amazing talent, very fair $$ wise, and an overall pleasure to work with. He and I worked through the initial trial and error together, and whomever follows will benefit.
Lastly, I get it if you’re asking yourself “why”. If you ask that question, it’s because being quiet isn’t a priority. You probably shoot in the woods, or live it the country. For us that are not in that situation, an ultra quiet gun is a necessity. It’s the difference of being able to shoot in our backyards or not at all.
This mod puts the Leshiy in the ultra quiet category without sacrificing knockdown power, accuracy, and maintains the “tiny” backpack friendliness. The transition between The gun and LDC is so carefully done it looks OEM in my opinion. If anything it would make a double tank, or just a larger one look very well balanced.... hmmmm
