Silencers

[model 70]

You see them in movies all the time. I can't figure out how they work. Seems the bad guy is always screwing them into the muzzle end of the pistol. Can anyone break this down for me?

[GoodOlBoy]

Sound from a gunshot is made by expanding gases traveling behind the bullet. What a silencer does is though a serious of baffels and expansion chambers slows the expansion of the gases so that when they leave the muzzle (after the bullet of course) they have already expanded to the point that they don't make nearly as much sound. The great misunderstood truth being that silencers alone do not totally slience firearms like they do in the movies. You still get a crack retort, just at a HUGE cut in decible level. However Subsonic ammunition greatly reduces this retort as well and combined they pretty well quiet the gun, at least to the point that you would have to be standing beside the person and intentionally listening to hear it in most cases.

Thats the quick and dirty answer. I will leave it up to others to expound upon the theory.

GoodOlBoy

[Jack]

GOB's given you a very good answer.
I might add that you often see, in the movies, the feller screwing the silencer onto a revolver.
Revolvers, having a cylinder gap between cylinder and barrel, blow a certain amount of gas (and noise) out that gap. Silencer isn't going to be the least bit effective on a revolver, for that reason.

[skb2706]

GOB gave you an excellent answer.....and technically they are only called "siliencers" in the movies. They are "suppressors" and it is nearly impossible to 'suppress' any bullet that is traveling over the speed of sound.
That is why we see "sub sonic" ammo....it can effectively be suppressed.

[HPBTMTCH]

I saw in soldier of fourtune mag several years ago a company making a suppresser for a revolver, it came back and enclosed the cylinder.

[PJgunner]

About a year ago, I had the privilige of talking and shooting with a group of Army rangers. They were equipped with the M-4 version of the M-16. They were kind enough to allow me to shoot both the regular rifle and the surpressed version. Their ammo was not subsonic, but the normally viscious crack of the .223 round was radically quieted down. I could actually shoot it without hearing protection. It didn't sem to affect the accuracy any as I was able to hit the targets all the way out to 500 meters.
According to them, the surpressor muffles the muzzle blast, but confuses the direction of the sonic boom (loud crack). As far as I can understand it, it's easy to locate the shooter from the muzzle blast, but not from the sonic boom.
They were a nice bunch of guys and were certainly generous with the ammo they allowed me to shoot.
Paul B.

[gumpokc]

Pj what the guys told you fairly correct.

muzzle blast tends to kick up debris, twigs etc around infrontof where it is fired from, IE you have a little cloud of crap around you for a sec after you fire, easy for enemy to spot.

Sounds are much harder to track down, especially if they do not have a regular pattern.

usually it takes a sound pattern of three to locate an unknown sound in an unknown place.

first instance alerts you, second give you general direction/distance, third usualty pinpoints it.

but if you quieten down the sound level, it's not heard as far out, plus the level of sound would make you initially think it was coming from farthur off than it really is.