Aka I’ve been reading Fight Club again. In the novel the narrator says;
*"I can feel the silencer holes we drilled into the barrel of the gun. Most of the noise a gunshot makes is expanding gases, and there’s the tiny sonic boom a bullet makes because it travels so fast. To make a silencer, you just drill holes in the barrel of the gun, a lot of holes. This lets the gas escape and slows the bullet to below the speed of sound.
I’ve never heard of this and imagine that blowing off ones hand would be the only occurrence resulting from said action. In the movie the gun is a Smith & Wesson 4506, but the drilled holes are omitted.
Did the author make this detail up, or does it have a basis in fact?
No gun expert, but if all you want is to slow down the bullet to sub-sonar velocity, why not instead reduce the charge? That way, you don’t have to ruin the gun!
Drilling holes in the upper side of the barrel might be a way to reduce the tendency of the weapon to rise for each shot. I imagine this would be most useful for full-auto guns.
Drilliung the holes in the downside of the barrel might result in the gun turning 180 degrees and blowing your head off…
If you google “springfield ported v-10” you will see images of a semiautomatic pistol that has holes drilled in the barrel by design. I can attest that they are not noticeably less loud than guns without hose holes.
If I understand what the OP posted, then it’s pure bullshit and just the opposite.
Putting holes in the barrel is how to make a compensated gun. The escaping gases reduce felt recoil but the weapon is actually louder. The flash at the end of the barrel is also more noticeable. Some companies, like Glock have models that already come equipped this way.
Except those have another metal sleeve that contains the exhaust. The gasses leave the barrel & expand a bit in the air pocket, reducing the pressure inside the barrel, and hence the muzzle blast. But without that extra sleeve, I would think think there would be more noise. Like a tea kettle effect.
As far a slowing the bullet down, so it does not crack the sound barrier, I suppose it would work. But as Ignotus said, reducing the amount of powder would be easier. Either buy, or make, subsonic rounds.
Suppressors generally work by containing the exhaust gases put out by the gun and releasing them more slowly than they’d normally come out of the barrel, thereby reducing noise.
Combine this with a subsonic round and you can get relatively quiet operation- you’ll still have the sound of the action working unless you’re using a bolt-action rifle.
Just drilling holes wouldn’t do it- like others have said, that’s a lot like having a compensated barrel or a muzzle brake. You have to contain the gases as well- drilled holes AND a baffled sleeve of some kind would do well I think.
(as an aside, I’m pretty sure none of those napalm recipes Palahniuk listed would work for shit; the easiest and closest to the real thing would be roughly a 50/50 mixture of gasoline and styrofoam, considering that actual modern napalm is a mixture of 21% benzene, 33% gasoline and 46% polystyrene)
