I have been making silencers as a hobby for about ten years. While the US government requires registration and the payment of a $200 tax prior to making or buying them, it is a routine matter and not denied to anyone who can own a gun and live in one of the 38 states that allow them.

Silencers are one of the most beneficial accessories that a shooter can attach to their firearm. They can make a high powered rifle safe to shoot without hearing protection and eliminate nearly all the the noise of a 22 rim fire rifle shooting subsonic ammo.

I made a video on silencer construction you can watch here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYrlxPCmbmU

I have other videos here; http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhee Youtube does a very poor job of recreating the noise of firearms that are suppressed or unsuppressed, but they can be interesting to watch.

Anyone familiar with my posts on this forum will see that I am fanatically devoted to silencer use; probably a result of spending three years working to amend the WA State law banning their use. We finally had our rights restored in July 2011.

Ranb

Congratulations on your work to amend the WA state law! Lots of folks will enjoy the benefits.

Have thought about trying to build one ... with the appropriate FORM 1 of course ... but haven't the facilities to do accurate threading.

Do enjoy the commercial cans though!

Do silencers require subsonic ammo to have any effect on the noise level?

Subsonic ammo is not needed. There are several source of gun noise. Action, muzzle, bullet flight and impact noise; silencers only reduce muzzle noise. For most guns, the muzzle noise is louder than supersonic bullet flight noise.
I feel that the 22lr using high velocity ammo has a bullet flight noise (sonic boom) about as loud as the muzzle blast. But this is very subjective.

I feel that center fire cartridges have much more muzzle blast than bullet flight noise as heard from the shooter’s position. Standing down range as a supersonic bullet passes by your ear can be very noisy though. Shooting a suppressed firearm indoors will cause ring your ears also, even suppressed 22lr pistols using subsonic ammo. Pistols are much louder than rifles using the same ammo. Shooting a suppressed rifle with subsonic ammo indoors might not hurt your ears, but everyone will hear it.

If a silencer can reduce noise by 30 decibels (typical) then it will do so for any type of ammo, subsonic or supersonic. For example a 308 bolt action rifle using subsonic ammo will be less noisy due to the smaller powder charge and lack of sonic boom compared to the same rifle using standard (high powered) ammo, but the silencer will reduce noise by the same amount. The subsonic load will be much less noisy when suppressed because it started out much less noisy to begin with.

Online videos of suppressed and unsuppressed firearms are a very poor way of evaluating how well a silencer works. Unless your camcorder has a very sensitive microphone that will pick up all of the high intensity short duration impulse noise and your playback speakers are capable of over 160 decibels, then the playback of gunfire will be very distorted even if it does not sound that way. Standing next to a high powered rifle being shot without ear plugs is a painful experience, but use a silencer and it is much more bearable even if you still need to wear ear plugs. There is no substitute for actually being there.

Ranb

Thanks for the quick & excellent explanation.

so the people claiming silencing effects that allow to only hear the action cycling are exaggerating their success?

quote:

Originally posted by 724wd:
so the people claiming silencing effects that allow to only hear the action cycling are exaggerating their success?

I think so. Check out this link. http://www.srtarms.com/selecting.htm The lowest decibel reading of any suppressed 22lr firearm I have seen claimed when using a proper meter/microphone IAW MIL-STD-1474D is 110 decibels. I do not know about others, but I can hear a noise at that level even if it is impulse noise.

I have heard high quality silencers on 22 rimfire rifles using subsonic ammo. The muzzle report is obviously present. It can be covered up by ambient noise, hearing protection and action noise, but it is still there and you will hear it if you are paying attention and if you have good ears.

The muzzle report on a suppressed pistol with a short non-ported barrel is going to be much louder than a rifle with a 16 inch or longer barrel.

Do not misunderstand me though. I am impressed with silencer performance in general, but I am very familiar with their limitations.

Ranb

In 1983, my hearing was tested after joining the Navy. I could hear as low as 0 to 10 decibels depending on the frequency. My most recent test shows that my hearing threshold is now 5 to 15 decibels, still good, but not great. I have been careful to use ear muffs/plugs when shooting and working around loud equipment.

People that say they are becoming accustomed to loud noise are actually going deaf.

Ranb

My hearing loss falls in the range of young females talking. As much of a blesing that may be I do need to ask Grand Daughter to repeat.
To much shooting, the plugs and mouse ears don't stop conduction.

Jim

That is a GREAT video! Thanks and I hope to be able to do that someday. Thank you.

Jim I have the problem from the opposite direction, I can hear my daughters but my wife I have a hard time listening to

I of course live in a state where you can't have silenced weapons, but I shot an MP5SD one time in Nevada, I was really impressed by how quiet it shot, of course it is also a 9 and I was shooting it against un-suppressed 308, 30-06.

Red

Ran: Your video has been removed?

There is no such thing as a gun "silencer", the best we can have are modestly successful suppressors.

I had one rendered at low rez and another at higher rez. I deleted the low rez, here is the one I have remaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYrlxPCmbmU

You can see my other videos by searching for ranb40 on YouTube.

Ranb

quote:

Originally posted by Jim C. <><:
There is no such thing as a gun "silencer", the best we can have are modestly successful suppressors.

In the USA a silencer is any device that suppresses the noise of a portable firearm by any amount. The word is a noun and a legal term, not an adjective.

I am not sure what kind of silencers you are used to dealing with, but most of the ones I make are more than moderately successful. My bolt action 22lr rifles and handguns are entirely safe to shoot without ear plugs. While my WASR and 458 socom are what I would call moderately successful, my high powered rifles are greatly reduced in noise when suppressed.

Ranb