I am sure there are many here who have shot more different calibers than I, so I would like you to rank the smaller cals in order of noise- I'm interested in a quiet, centefire, woodchuck possibly fox or 1 time in great while coyote gun. Things I know to consider - 218 bee, 22H 22 K Hornet, 17 remington, 223, 222. Assume they'll be in a reasonable length rifle barrel. Are there any tricks to handloading for quieter ammo? Any other cals I missed would be great to hear about.

check out these links to the use of blue dot powder in .223. it is quieter, and also has less recoil.
http://www.reloadingroom.com/page33.html
and

http://www.jamescalhoon.com/

The big trick would be to use a cast bullet. I shoot the RCBS(mold)58 grainer in .22 centerfires down around 2000-2200fps and it does a job on jackrabbits. Very low noise and recoil.

Once you let something like a 243 go it shakes the windows. The load has to be a lot less than that one.

Besides the advice above I find that if one just fires a single shot it does not get noticed much.

Silencers are legal to own and legal to hunt with in my state.

Savage are you sure I thought it was a federal offense on the silencers. Which would supercede any state allowence.

Just curious.

DuB

You might want to add the 221 Remington Fireball and the new 204 Ruger to your list!

I have a TC Encore in 221 FB and it doesn't seem to be awfully loud and it'll work on 'yotes to 300 yards + !

penrod -

For such we've always gone the other direction, ie, a larger slow bullet, eg, 170gr from a 3030 just subsonic, a 140gr gc from a 6.5 swede, either using fast pistol powder loads. By using a fast pistol powder where Pmax is very early, the muzzle report is minimized; and likewise, by running subsonic there's no sonic crack. For the 6.5, 6gr of TiteWad under a 140gr gc at 1050fps, sd=7.1 es=30fps and puts 10 shots into 1" at 50yrds; for the 3030, 6gr GreenDot under a 170gr 311041, at 1070fps sd=8 es=21fps putting 10 at 50 into 1.1"... on the other hand we've also been known to use a 800fps 405gr from a 4570 to chase field rats (which only leaves a fur lined hole in the ground).

do shoot straight,
greg
www.gmdr.com

ps. there's a goodly collection of low velocity/subsonic lead loads on our website [url above, look under levergun studies/data].

I live "in the city". When we garden, groundhogs/woodchucks and squirls get in ther and eat the green beans and tomatoes. We have to city loads that we have used at 25 yards.
All are for 55 grain bullets:
.223 Remmington--5.6 grains of UNIQUE
.22 Hornet 4.1 grains of UNIQUE
.22 Hornet 7.3 grains of IMR 4227 [This load has been tested at 150 yards.
All these loads have an approximate velocity of 1850 fps.

Accurate, quiet, inexpensive to load, you can't go wrong shooting the exceptional 221 fireball cartridge. With the right bullet, primer, powder, combination you can achieve tack driver accuacy with nearly the velocity of the 222 Remington case, and get it with less powder expended per round.

Silensors are illegal by Federal law, state has nothing to do with it...They are a felony to posess without a BATF permit.....

I don't believe silencers are illegal to own. They are regulated by the federal government as was stated. A tax needs to be paid and a permit is required. Some(many) states regulate their use for hunting. I don't know if states can ban them if the owner has a legal permit from the BATF. I would suspect they can since Kalifornia seems to ban anything fun.
Depending on the ranges you are shooting at, I have used 2gr of HS-6 behind a 22 cal pellet in 22hornet. It works well out to 50yds. I get the best accuracy using pointed pellets lubed with liquid alox.

Ken

Suppressors are indeed federally regulated but states can (and do!) enact local prohibitions. I played hell leaving a silencer-friendly state moving to a silencer-prohibiting state (Maryland to Montana - go figure!) while waiting for ATF to approve the transfers to the new owner in MD. Had to hire an attorney, leave devices secured in safe-deposit boxes, yada yada. Long story. Of course, soon afterward Montana OK'd silencers.

Anyway, my quiet load is .223 with 12gr of 2400 and a 35gr V-Max at about 2300fps. It's not quite as loud as a .38 wadcutter I guess and seems to quietly electrocute anything I point it at. I sight in for 100 yards and hold over a skoshe out to 175 or so.

HTH

Redial