I was reading a book recently, (Tripwire, Lee Child), and the main character who was supposedly ex-military mentioned that “real silencers are much louder than in the movies, more like dropping a phone book onto a wood floor from a great height” - is this true?
Depends. I was once at a shooting range near a guy with a silenced Ruger Mark II .22 pistol. I took my earmuffs off long enough to see just how loud it was, because I could barely hear a pop. Turns out what I was hearing was the click of the bolt on the pistol! Other than that, it was virtually silent.
Supposedly the DeLisle carbine from WWII was absolutely silent as well.
I think with a lot of cartridges, the supersonic bullet is what makes a silencer kind of pointless- the bullet itself makes its own sonic boom.
Depends on the can or the silencer. As far as pistols are concerned, I’ve heard some that sound as loud as hitting two yard sticks together, and some that all you can hear is the bolt.
Also has a lot to do with the ammunition. Sub-sonic ammo is gonna be much quieter obviously.
I just got back from a bachelor party in Las Vegas. We went to place that lets you shoot fully automatic sub-machine guns (man, I guess everything is legal in Nevada!)
Anyway, we got an Ingram Mac-11 with a silencer (which was longer than the whole gun). It put out 1,300 rounds/ minute so the pause between shots was practically non-existant. With the silencer on, it was about as loud as someone clapping. They told us that it is started to get fouled however because it’s been shot quite a bit. Interesting that someone used the ‘phone book analogy’ though because we were told that when it was brand new it sounded “like someone smacking a phone book” (i.e. like a muffled clap)
That was definitely an experience…
One thing that the movies do is to put silencers on revolvers. I would think that the blow-out between cylinder and barrel would make a silencer relatively ineffective.
A few years ago there were some police at the shooting range where I was taking a gun saftey course. They were shooting (among other interesting guns) an M14 with a big ol’ silencer on it. It was (recalling from memory here) a bit larger in diameter than a 12 oz soda can, and about 2’ long.
Running down the left hand side of the range is an earth berm that’s held up by a wood wall made out of heavy wood slats with telephone pole supports every 20 feet or so.
Instead of hearing the usual loud “crack” when fired, we heard the shockwave from the bullet being reflected back at us from the telephone pole supports. It was quite loud, and sounded like a machine gun rather than a single fire rifle. You could also hear this effect if you listened closely to normal rifles, but it was difficult to hear because the original muzzle report usually drowned out any quieter sound.
According to the police guys, the silencer wasn’t there to make the rifle silent, it was to make it harder to find the shooter’s position by cutting down on the report and muzzle flash.
But what about the official “silencer” noise that you always hear in the movies? Sort of a “peeeerr!!!” noise - is that what the majority of them sound like? I think most movie guns with silencers aren’t that exotic - just your basic 9mm…
usually I hear the silenced guns in 007 go ‘pee-oop’ really fast
The MP5SD submachinegun has an integral silencer where the only thing you hear is the click of the bolt. It’s a pretty loud sound if you’re near it, but otherwise it’s relatively silent. I think that as a jumping point, silencers cut sound by around 45 dB. That was a figure stated in something I read, and is in all probability not true.
Supprssors can be remarkably effective even with supersonic ammunition. I had a chance to hear a suppressed .308 rifle with standard velocity ammunition. It was quiet enough to shoot without hearing protection even under a shed roof which amplifies the sound. Natually it would be even quieter with subsonic ammunition but the muzzle blast is often a greater noise than the sonic boom.
I’ve shot at matches where suppressed 9mm submachineguns are sometimes used. They are so quiet that sound activated shot timers sometimes don’t work so I have to loan the club mine which has adjustable sensitivity.
In addition to this topic, does the ammo get slowed down any bit from the silencers?
Thats the idea, I believe with silencers- they slow the bullet to subsonic speeds to eliminate the little sonic boom generated by the bullet.
Its a muffler for your gun
buckgully said :“According to the police guys, the silencer wasn’t there to make the rifle silent, it was to make it harder to find the shooter’s position by cutting down on the report and muzzle flash.”
Well I’m not sure about that bit. The “report” is the sound AFAIK. Also there is a specific device for suppressing muzzle flash, called oddly enough a “flash suppressor”. If sound wasn’t an issue then they are smaller and lighter i believe.
Does this trade-off chart make sense to any of the resident gun aficionados? Personally haven’t fired a gun since I was 12-13(quite a while ago).
I read an account where the author had fired a silenced gun using a test stand (so he could stand some distance away, it was a home built silencer and he wasn’t sure how well it’d work…) and he claimed that he thought the gun had miss fired until he saw the hole in the target. Supposedly, the Mossad uses silenced weapons that have a rubber “jacket” around them so that you can’t even hear the bolt action when the gun fires.
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- Silencers don’t slow the speed of the bullet, you have to use sub-sonic ammo to get the maximum benefit.
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- This gets into things not-legal, but back when I was a kid, I saw people make them just for the L of it. For a .22, the tube would be about 2 x 14 inches or so, for larger calibers it’d be larger. They do work well when made properly, but you really have to weld them together. How “loud” it is is difficult to really give an example, but I’d say it’s perfectly safe to shoot while not wearing any hearing protection, as far as your ears are concerned. Of the books I’ve seen that told how to make “improvised silencers”, all of them were crap, they just wouldn’t work except to get you arrested. It seems almost like a joke to see how many idiots will get busted with faygo bottles stuffed full of steel wool on the end of their Mac-10’s.
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A lot of movies have this “zipping” noise–you don’t hear that, at least near the guns I heard. Maybe if you were downrange you might.
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What is the legality of Silencers? I always thought they were absolutely illegal. I mean, can you just walk into a gun-shop and buy one, or does someone with the knowledge have to machine one specially for the weapon of choice?
Also, I notice (in movies of course) silencers seem to “screw” into the muzzle of the guns, how does this work? Since these guns can’t be designed to carry silencers they should lack the threads to be able to screw anything into it.
I suppose when you apply pressure and twist the silencer a “clamp” grabs the muzzle. Hence the lack of use of threads.
My wag as someone whos never even got close to a real gun =P
There are a handful of obscure revolver models that mechanically close the gap between the cylinder and barrel for various reasons. Other than on these few oddities, a sliencer on a revolver is as useful as the proverbial “screen door on a submarine”.
Is anyone going to answer my question? Is the sound silencers make in the movies (“peeer!!”) bullshit or not??
Sound suppressors are tightly regulated under the 1934 national firearms act. As with machine guns, short barrel shotguns and other similar items they must be registered with the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. The owner must submit a photo and fingerprints for a rigorous background check. When approved there is a required transfer tax of $200 to purchase the suppressor from the dealer/manufacturer. A new tax stamp must be purchased every time the suppressor changes ownership. Sound suppressors are not legal in all states.
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There is a nugget of truth but as usual Hollywood gets it wrong. Many types of weapons like most semiautomatic handguns have barrels that are trivial to replace. A longer barrel with threads would be used to attach a sound suppressor. The H&K USSOCOM and USP tactical models have threaded barrels for suppressor mounting on the standard barrel. It would be foolish to attach one only hand tight though as vibration of firing would cause it to quickly come loose.
Threaded barrels are one of the “naughty” features listed in the 1994 ban on so-called semiautomatic assault weaopons but this does not apply to an overwhelming majority of handguns. A semiautomatic handgun with a threaded barrel is only prohibited if the weapon has at least one other of the listed features such as a barrel shroud, a magazine well outside of the pistol grip or empty weight more than a specified amount. I have a Tanfoglio/EAA .45 caliber pistol with a threaded barrel for attaching an intergal recoil compensator. I’m considering buying a .22 suppressed pistol as they are a hoot to plink with and there are several manufacturers of them in Phoenix.