Is there a way to check suppressor alinement other than a strike?

[usagi]

mk1 eyeball works fine. look down the barrel from the chamber, exit should look perfectly circular.

be sure you aren't keyholing before you put it on though. doesnt matter how perfectly your suppressor is aligned if your bullets tumble out of the barrel.

 

[Just Jim]

The rod is the best way to check, plus when you start threading other guns of the same caliber you will use the tool to check again. What seems to happen most is they don't square the barrel up true enough to get a good thread cut. Have a Ruger 22 pistol that was factory cut crooked as hell.

 

[H2O MAN]

I would think a dowel would work, never tried it but a straight and true dowel of close approximate caliber/diameter should verify if the clearances are there or not.

That's what I did with my AKM.
No obstruction detected - no baffle strikes

 

[Redtazdog]

Doing muzzle work by hand without the correct tools will increase your chances for a baffle strike
because the shoulder or end of the barrel that many cans rest against probably wont be square with the bore.
Threading with a die by hand wont be concentric to the bore and is another way to ask for a baffle strike.
Just because you may be lucky enough to not get a strike now dousnt mean you wont get one later as chances are good the threaded hand job could be on the edge for clearance of the baffles or end cap.
A change with ammo, bullet style or weight, how hot or cold your barrel is or many other things could cause
that one bad luck bullet to leave the barrel just a hair off and then it happens.
With a good thread job the bullet enters the can concentric to the bore and leaves the can concentric or
damn near close that way there is plenty of extra room around that one bad luck bullet to clear the can
without a strike, if you start off concentric to the bore from the start the bullet has less room to clear the can
on one side or another.
For those of you that have done a hand job and so far are lucky to not have a baffle strike put some tape over
the end of your can good enough so it wont blow off and fire a round then look to see how centered
the bullet is leaving.
I don't mean to dump on your pride for the hand thread job you may have done but a spendy can
that gets damaged or destroyed will hurt it more.

 

[CHLChris]

Don't use a crush washer for starters.

But if an alignment rod shows it is, indeed, aligned, then a crush washer isn't a problem, right?

Here's my problem. I've got a 14.5" barrel with a pinned/welded FH. It is actually a BCM Gunfighter Mod1, which is shaped in a way that A2FH suppressors would fit. Problem is, BCM installed this suppressor at the factory with a crush washer. If possible, I wouldn't want to grind off the FH and install another type (pinned and welded, too) with shims. This would be a huge extra cost.

But checking alignment would show me if there is a problem, wouldn't it? Do muzzle devices attached with a crush washer actually move over time?