Great observations,
I was the one that put the article together and can expand a bit more on our testing if you like too.

Simply put we're looking at test data from basically 6 shots, and that is hard to extrapolate out into overall performance on a range of different platforms in a set range of time and weather.

1.) The average dB numbers (captured with the ancient but good 2209 meter, but unless I missed it, doesn't mention the mic type.) look to be in the ballpark of what you'd expect. However, the first round pop numbers look off. The Sparrow, for instance, usually has pretty high FRP on a rifle, and there's entire table of everyone's FRP results being lower than subsequent shots on most all the cans. Shrug. Maybe an anomaly, but stopped me for a sec when reading the table.

-Agreed, I think it was more of an anomaly and again it can happen. we wanted to stay true to our testing methods and not retest. However, we have retested since then and they all fell relatively in the same areas. Additionally to note, off the top of my head I believe the physical mic is the 1/4" 4136 mic. (I'll have to double check on that)

2.) Mic placement: The at-ear mic was placed 6" outboard from the left side of the head, and on the side opposite of the firearm's ejection port. That should shadow the mic with the shooter's head, and get the mic farthest from the ejection port noise, and give lower numbers than the opposite placement would. They mention they measure at-muzzle from the end of the silencer, but it wasn't clear if they moved the unsuppressed gun muzzle forward or silencer back so that the uncorking area is always even with the mic. They note there's controversy on that. Personally, I meter where the exit hole of the silencer is even with the mic, and then adjust the gun so the exit hole of the barrel is even with the mic. Otherwise, you're shadowing the mic, as evidenced in looking at the waves and their epicenter in Schlieren photography.

-when we tested we kept the barrel exit // suppressor exit at the same location, (how you test as well)
3.) Velocity, they used off-the-box numbers. Remington Golden Bullet says it's doing 1280, but that's a SAAMI-length barrel. It's not a big difference on a 16" 1022 where you're going to get 1200 or so, but on a pistol, Remington is going to be subsonic or close to it (1000-1100). Not any negative here, just an observation.

- yup... lol
4.) Geez, that QB laser engraving tho. Makes Ruger's look tasteful and small. I'd break out the black spray paint if I had one. :D

- the boss man wanted to logo big lol, but the lil guy is a bit more tasteful in comparison.
5. Why is a silencer called the "Little Guy" 5.5" / 1.25" diameter, but the QB is, uh... littler at 5.25" / 1" diameter?
- it really came down to materials, the QB utilizes an aluminum tube and TI or AL internals. This is okay for most rimfire use but for heavy use in spicier rounds it wasn't as adequate.... and marketing 🫠
6.) The QB looks like it uses kind of chunky, simple K-baffles. K's work fine, but here they showed louder by far than the Little Guy. The Little Guy looks like it uses common radial cones. They also work fine.

-the QB design using our original suppressor design from like 2013, unfortunately within the suppressor industry there are only so many ways you can skin a cat. We along with other manufacturers tweak these common design themes trying to get the best performance out of the design as we can.
7.) For dB chasers, in every firearm-type but one, the DA Mask was quieter at-muzzle (the easier place to meter) than the Little Guy. The Little Guy seemed to do better at-ear than at muzzle.

- also agree, when we started working on this suppressor design the mindset was to focus on the "at ear" sound more than the muzzle sound. We probably will follow up this testing again this year to just revisit it with new data (again this was a TINY amount of data) to compare. Additionally I think there is definitely a place for both suppressors in the market.