Well, if you have enough energy available, you can make almost any mechanism do almost anything. With enough lube.
One of Garand's orginal designs also had a muzzle cap to trap gas. Another one was unlocked by allowing the primer to set back and unlock the mechanism, whereafter it operated on recoil.
Even Browning's original "potato digger" and his flapper-on-the-muzzle machine guns were pretty awkward.
And look what developed from those ideas.
Same story with internal combustion engines. Comparing some of the originals, with poppet valving and brush carburetors with today's slick, compact injected powerhouses gives you pause.
Jim March was the one who built that weird sight for (I think) an SAA. I've got a picture of it somewhere --big brass tube atop the barrel. You gotta hand it to the guy for being able to think out of the box. I gotta admit, I've done a lot of things in iron and steel and brass and aluminum just for the sake of seeing if I could make them work, practical or not.
Right now I'm tiddling with a hot-wire anemometer made out of a 1004 automotive lamp for really slow air flows. Just diddlin' around. Sensor (1004's filament) is one side of a Wheatstone bridge.
"Why?" you ask?
"Jeeze, I dunno," I answer.
Some people make enormous and incredible projects out of Lego bricks.
"Why?" you ask?
"Jeeze, I dunno," they answer.
My main concern with Jim March's effort is that somebody from the BATFE would consider that a suppressor somehow. After all, he's not bleeding off the barrel, but off the muzzle. And I don't want to sign on to TFL to ask about that. Seems to me he'd'a been better off drilling through where the ejector housing screw is and rigging something to tap the gas thataway.
Terry, 230RN