T.J. Miller, owner of Silenced Weapons in Battle Ground, holds one of his many guns in the walk-in gun safe he has in his 2,500 square-foot shop, which he’s designing as a headquarters for anything related to survival, weaponry, adventure and tactical.
T.J. Miller starts a fire in his Battle Ground shop, Silenced Weapons, last week. The walk-in gun safe seen to the left was put in after the foundation, with the walls and roof being built around it.
About seven years ago, T.J. Miller, of Battle Ground, discovered that his wife’s discomfort around guns was primarily because of their jarring sound, not the guns themselves.
A gun company had come through town and held a silent shoot, and during the whole thing she sat and played Words With Friends, completely unfazed, he said.
Although already an advocate for suppressors himself — noting that when he was younger he would tell people he was “saving his ears for rock and roll” — Miller took an extra interest in suppressors from that point on and was inspired to design one that was better than anything on the market.
He started designing and building in his garage, using equipment he originally bought to build guitars. He eventually decided to open a business in 2011, which he called Silenced Weapons.
Today, he runs Silenced Weapons out of a 2,500 square-foot shop next to his house in Battle Ground, and suppressors are only a portion of what it offers.
“I don’t even make suppressors anymore,” Miller said.
Instead he now focuses on four areas: survival, weaponry, adventure, and tactical — or, S.W.A.T.
He noted that the “A” originally stood for ammunition, but he couldn’t keep up with the high demand for it.
In the middle of Miller’s shop is a walk-in gun safe that was put there with a crane, and the walls and roof were then built around it.
Inside the safe, four walls are covered with a variety of guns, like one of Millers’ favorites, the Baikal from Russia, which doubles as a 12-gauge and a 30-06. He dreams of building a suppressor that will attach to both, something that doesn’t exist, as far as he knows.
“That thing will take down anything in North America,” he said.
The Baikal is joined by an assortment of other semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, pistols and a cane gun that looks to be straight off the set of a James Bond film.
Silenced Weapons as a vendor took off when Miller was recruited to build a survival van for a reality show called Doomsday Garage. It was advertised as a mix between Monster Garage and Doomsday Preppers, with the concept of modifying vehicles for survivalism.
So he bought an old ambulance and started “building it up.” The show never got off the ground, but he had built a lot of relationships with different companies in the process and began selling for them.
A self-described pacifist and strong Christian, Miller points to being the only boy in a family with five sisters as the reason for his interest in, and passion for, weaponry.
“A lot of this is how to protect and teach people how to protect. I don’t want people to use other people,” he said.
Protection is part of overall survival, he explained, which is the centerpiece of his business and why he decided to expand beyond just suppressors.
“Although I have a firearm’s license, that’s only one of the many things you need to survive,” he said.
He’s also designed his shop to be self-sufficient, relying completely on solar energy. His ultimate goal is to use the shop, not just its contents, as another way to teach people how to better understand survival and self reliance.
It would be fair to say that Miller is somewhat of an expert in this area. Almost 30 years ago, after hitting a rough patch in life, Miller decided to step away from civilization. That was the start of a 10-year period of living “off the grid.” He lived about 12 miles from the Canadian border and about 14 miles from the Idaho border in the wilderness. He said that for the first five years he barely spoke to anyone and that any time that wasn’t spent “surviving on the land” was spent studying the Bible.
As one might think, after living alone without electricity or water for 10 years, Miller managed to learn quite a bit about survival. Once he was back “on the grid,” friends would ask him about survival tips and Miller said he realized that his unique experiences presented him with an opportunity to teach others.
And that’s what he’s building towards out of his home property in Battle Ground. From a walk-in gun safe to harnessing solar energy, when it comes to survival, weaponry, adventure or tactical, Miller’s resources seem to be endless and only growing.
