barrel with offset bore ???
- Thread starter Magnum Wheel Man
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Actually, they dont muffle the gas, they simply delay its escape just long enough for it to cool. Its the hot gas, and bullets moving past the speed of sound that make the noise.
I have a suppressor for my AR's, that eliminates 97% of the muzzle blast, and lowers the report to the point I can fire it in my carport, without hearing protection. If I shoot a .22 from a rifle there with out ear plugs, I cant hear for days.
The .223 bullet does leave the gun past the speed of sound, and does make its own noise as it goes downrange.
When I shoot a subsonic 9mm in the same spot from one of my Glocks with a suppressor mounted, it sounds like someone slammed a car door. The only other noise, is the bullet hitting the target, and the clatter of the empty brass on the concrete floor.
If what you were saying is true, youd be seeing suppressors mounted on revolvers, like anything else. Have a look around YouTube (or anywhere else for that matter), and see how many you come up with, that are mounted and fired on anything but a Nagant.
As stated earlier in this thread, government agencies did have revolvers with silencers on them. If you would like to find one of them and put a video of how loud they are on youtube, that would be great.
In the meantime, suppressor sales are to military units (that haven't used revolvers in a century) and the tacticalrific civilians who emulate them. The revolver crowd doesn't seem like they feel the need for suppressors, weapon lights, camouflage paint or flash hiders. So you're going to have a hard time finding a revolver guy who is going to mess up one of his guns to do something which every internet/gunshop/video gamer believes isn't going to work.
I am certainly not saying that the cylinder gap isn't a factor, but no one has ever stated with any authority how much additional noise a cylinder gap produces.
We know that revolvers have been suppressed in the past, so it couldn't have been that much worse than a high pressure .38 Super or 9mm, or a large bore .45. And cylinder gaps account for less than 50 fps of lost energy, and that energy is what makes the noise.
I just think it is ridiculous to keep repeating something that is entirely unproven, especially when it used to be done.
In the meantime, suppressor sales are to military units (that haven't used revolvers in a century) and the tacticalrific civilians who emulate them. The revolver crowd doesn't seem like they feel the need for suppressors, weapon lights, camouflage paint or flash hiders. So you're going to have a hard time finding a revolver guy who is going to mess up one of his guns to do something which every internet/gunshop/video gamer believes isn't going to work.
I am certainly not saying that the cylinder gap isn't a factor, but no one has ever stated with any authority how much additional noise a cylinder gap produces.
We know that revolvers have been suppressed in the past, so it couldn't have been that much worse than a high pressure .38 Super or 9mm, or a large bore .45. And cylinder gaps account for less than 50 fps of lost energy, and that energy is what makes the noise.
I just think it is ridiculous to keep repeating something that is entirely unproven, especially when it used to be done.
Youre the one telling us it works, so its up to you to prove it. Dont make us do your homework for you.
The only suppressed revolvers used that I ever remember ever seeing, were those used in Vietnam, and they used self contained cartridges to accomplish it, no suppressor at all.
Dont know about the CIA, I can only find fleeting mention of Dan Wessons and maybe some 625's being used by the Germans, and all of them addressed the "gap" by either screwing the barrel back to the cylinder, with the DW's, or using ammo with some sort of sleeve that sealed the gap. Nothing here would be considered common.
Can it be done? Sure, anything "can" be done if you work at it, and throw enough money at it.
If youre so sure it entirely unproven, it seems it up to you to prove it, if you want to keep telling us it works to the point of being efficent. So far, the only ones Ive seen that do, that actually work like an unsuppressed revolver, are the Nagant, and those few "Tunnel Rat" guns that didnt use one at all.
If suppressing stock revolvers worked, why do any attempts to suppress them (like the DW's mentioned above) talk about custom barrel gaps, limiting ammo to jacketed stuff and all that? Do we assume that those folks didn't at least TRY to suppress a standard revolver before making all those expensive and limiting changes?
Larry
Larry
If you have a .22 revolver, a quick way to prove it to yourself would be pretty simple.
Stick a 2 liter pop bottle on the end of it and seal it up good with tape. The 2 liter does a pretty go job of suppressing the .22's for the first couple of shots, any other noise you hear, will be coming from the cylinder gap.
Stick a 2 liter pop bottle on the end of it and seal it up good with tape. The 2 liter does a pretty go job of suppressing the .22's for the first couple of shots, any other noise you hear, will be coming from the cylinder gap.
Theohazard
New member
You're right, I haven't tried it. But I worked at a major silencer dealer for two years, I tested countless silencers on various hosts, and I've talked with many silencer manufacturers, so I know a little bit about what I'm talking about.RX-79G said:
On a semi-auto there is no clear, open gap in the chamber like there is on a revolver. The closest thing is a blow-back operated semi-auto; but -- while those tend to be noticeably louder when suppressed than locked-breech semi-autos -- by the time the brass is extracted enough to allow a lot of gas to escape the chamber area, the pressure has dropped and the gas has cooled considerably to the point where it's not terribly loud.
Suppressors produce considerable back-pressure; a single round from my Octane 9 gets my Glock 19 host dirtier than scores of rounds shot un-suppressed. But by the time the back-pressure comes out of the chamber, the bullet is long gone and the gas pressure and heat has dropped considerably. But with a revolver the cylinder gap is always open, and therefore the amount of gas escaping the cylinder gap would be magnified with a silencer attached, and that gas would all be hot, high-pressure gas that hasn't had time to slow down and cool.
You clearly don't understand how a silencer works.RX-79G said:
Revolvers that were suppressed in the past had some form of gas-seal system for the cylinder gap.RX-79G said:
Cylinder gaps offer a unobstructed channel for the gas to escape. There's nothing like it on a semi-auto, period. And considering the suppressor traps the gas and slows its exit -- sending some of it back down the bore -- this open gap allows for a large amount of hot gasses to escape immediately, something that simply doesn't happen on a semi-auto.RX-79G said:
I think it's ridiculous to have strong opinions on a subject you obviously know nothing about. Do you own any silencers? How many different silencers have you fired on how many different hosts? If you had a basic understanding of them, you'd realize why revolvers make such bad suppressor hosts.RX-79G said:
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Yeah, just like the big hole at the end of the suppressor.
At this point, no one in this thread has ANY experience with a suppressed standard revolver. Even people who have worked with lots of suppressors. So this is just a bad physics argument between two points of view.
Most people say the cylinder gap is too big a leak to ever be quiet enough for a suppressor to be useful.
I say that the cylinder gap is just another leak in a system that terminates with 9mm hole aligned with the bore. Given that it isn't at all a sealed system, and energy loss to cylinder gaps are known, why are you all so certain that a silencer on a revolver is useless?
I'm sorry I'm not buying the argument that we know "because its obvious" or "because no one does it". Government agencies DID do it, so it must have done something.
And this is not my assertion to prove. "You can't silence a revolver" is just another one of those firearms "common knowledge" things that is repeated so often that everyone now accepts it as fact, and piles on to anyone who says "Prove it".
It's little different than the lead bullets in polygonal barrel thing. Just because Glock's weird 1982 polygonal barrel doesn't like lead, it doesn't mean that all those HKs that have been using polygonal barrels since the '60s are retroactively dangerous.
A good 9mm suppressor will take subsonic 9mm from 165 down to 125 dB, but .45 has trouble getting down below 140 dB - because it has a bigger hole running through the suppressor. So all the "leaks" in the system matter, but no one here can quantify how much a cylinder gap is worth compared to an extra 2mm of bore diameter.
I'd be willing to bet that a 3" .38 Special revolver, firing normal pressure subsonic loads through a good 9mm suppressor, will be about as loud as a .45 with a good suppressor. Both the .38 and .45 are leaking more gas than the 9mm auto, but there's no reason to assert that a cylinder gap produces more noise than a much larger bore does. But that's just my gut feeling, which is equally as worthless as 10 people on an internet forum repeating the same old half truths instead of citing a single reference to verify their claim.
It appears this is where your lack of understanding of how a suppressor works comes in.
On the revolver, when the bullet enters the forcing cone, a portion of the "hot" gas behind it, is directed out of the gap between it and the face of the cylinder.
On a suppressed gun, the gas is redirected into "ports" in the suppressor, each time the bullet passes one, in effect, trapping and taking the "hot" gases out of the equation. By the time you get to the end of the can, those gases are reduced considerably and effectively.
Ive shot suppressed guns in the dark, and you dont get a flash out of the muzzle like you do a revolvers cylinder gap. That flash equates to noise.
Another thing is your theory of the size of the hole in the end of the can. I know a number of people who use suppressors made for larger calibers with smaller ones, and have suppression very close to what a caliber specific can gives. A round of 5.56 fired through my buddies 300 B.O. can, is not any louder that I can detect, than a 5.56 fired through my 5.56 caliber specific can.
The purpose of the chambers in the suppressor is to redirect, slow and cool the gases, which in turn, lowers the sound signature. That gap on the revolver does none of that.
Since NO ONE seems to have any experience with suppressing revolvers, in either direction, leads me to believe it isnt a feasible undertaking, and the reason you have nothing to back up your assertions.
If you were right, there would be a ton of videos showing it on YouTube, which we all know, is the most current and verifiable "put up or shut up" documentation of anything. So......put your evidence up on YT, or shut up!
ETA: I still say a .22 and a pop bottle will readily prove this out.
You are correct and here's 'proof' on that.
This is a .30 cal pistol with gas seal (no semi auto action to leak gasses, or create extra noise)
They use a 9mm (.355cal) and .45 cal suppressor on a .30 caliber pistol. Guess which one ends up measuring quieter, both Dry and Wet. The .45!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GStcHyGQwcQ
So it is feasible, therefore I do have back up on my assertions?
We can get all in the weeds about fluid flow and all that stuff, but the construction of the forcing cone and the narrow cylinder gap encourages gas flow down the bore, while the construction of the baffles disrupts it. Again, you guys are asserting that tiny gap designed to discourage the disruption of gas flow is going to act in complete opposition to the multiple and widely spaced baffles designed to do the opposite.
And the diameter of the barrel bore increases the sound regardless of the diameter of the suppressor bore because it is more total flow getting through to the outside. If the suppressor's action was as definitive as you make it sound, the .45 wouldn't be any louder suppressed than the 9mm, but it is - even though unsuppressed it is not.
Any way you cut it, this is a leaky system, and you're just presuming that the cylinder gap has to be the loudest leak. Why? Because it looks hotter? It's about a 1000 PSI opening, or 6% of the peak gas pressure going through the bore on a .38.
Because you made the claim first that it is unfeasible, even though it was done by the CIA in the past?
How is it my fault that the people making the claim currently out number the one pointing out that they have no proof of their claim? All I did was say "Really? How do you know?"
You don't know, and I've already pointed out multiple reasons that suppressing a revolver, however possible, is completely unlikely for anyone to bother with, regardless of how well it does or doesn't work.
Which suppressor manufacturer of those 99.9% you mention have tried it? What were their results, and how can the rest of us read about it?
And no, I'm not going to commit a felony and brag about it online with a home made suppressor.
How is it my fault that the people making the claim currently out number the one pointing out that they have no proof of their claim? All I did was say "Really? How do you know?"
You don't know, and I've already pointed out multiple reasons that suppressing a revolver, however possible, is completely unlikely for anyone to bother with, regardless of how well it does or doesn't work.
Which suppressor manufacturer of those 99.9% you mention have tried it? What were their results, and how can the rest of us read about it?
And no, I'm not going to commit a felony and brag about it online with a home made suppressor.
Theohazard
New member
No, it's not the same at all. You clearly don't understand how a silencer works.RX-79G said:
The gas escaping from the cylinder gap is extremely hot and expanding at full velocity. But by the time the gas escapes the end of the suppressor it has gone through many different baffles where the gas has expanded, cooled, and slowed down.
Except in this case you don't have any personal experience with silencers at all.RX-79G said:
"Useless" is a relative term; it's probably going to lower the sound some. But it's definitely loud enough that it makes a lot less sense than suppressing a semi-auto.RX-70G said:
You KEEP saying over and over that the government did it: But with every single silenced revolver I've ever heard of, there was an attempt to cover or seal the cylinder gap. The Nagant revolver pushes the specially-designed cartridge forward to seal the brass rim against the gap. People who reload their own 7.62x38R ammo for suppressor use need to correctly size and form the case, otherwise it won't properly seal against the forcing cone and it will be too loud. And other kinds of silenced revolvers had covers over the gap. I've even heard of special bags that you put the revolver in before you fired it.
Actually, it is your assertion to prove. You're going against common and excepted firearm knowledge. You need to offer something more than what you already have, which is basically nothing; all you've shown so far is a lack of understanding of how a suppressor works and a misguided notion that our government has used conventional revolvers with silencers in the past.RX-79G said:
You're right, we can't. But we do understand how a silencer works, and we know that the gas escaping from the end of a silencer has had a lot more time to expand, cool, and slow down than the gas coming out of the cylinder gap. And, due to a silencer's back-pressure, there will be even more hot gas coming out of that gap.RX-79G said:
This is ridiculous. You have no personal experience with suppressors, yet you're willing to make this guess? Have you ever fired a .45 with a good suppressor? If a standard silencer revolver could be that quiet then there would be absolutely no reason to go through all the effort to design custom revolvers to be suppressed. Have you ever fired a blow-back operated .380 with a recoil spring that was too light? It's pretty darn loud, and theres still a lot less gass escaping than there is in a revolver.RX-79G said:
So you're saying that all the attempts in the last century to modify revolvers for silencer use were all for naught? That everyone in the silencer world is wrong? That every guy who has improperly sized his Nagant ammo and had it improperly seal is just lying about how loud it is? Every guy who has threaded the barrel on a normal revolver, suppressed it, and then said that it was too loud to be worth it is just lying? You're making an extraordinary claim here, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far you've offered zero evidence other than your misunderstanding of how silencers work and your misunderstanding of the history of silenced revolvers.RX-79G said:
Theohazard,
Who are these people you're talking about who have suppressed revolvers, and where can we all read their experience?
And where did I say I have no experience with suppressors? Or is that just "common knowledge"?
The problem here is that you are taking the lack of something as proof of it being a terrible idea. From the point of view of sound suppression, a cylinder gap isn't as efficient, so it is not going to be anyone's first choice. But a .45 is also much less efficient than a 9mm, yet the military bought a bunch of them.
I completely agree that a cylinder gap is going to be noisier. Since you have so much experience, how much noisier? 15 dB? 25? Why is an unsuppressed .38 quieter than an unsuppressed 9mm if it has a cylinder gap?
You've got the knowledge, I'm the dumb one: Fill me in.
Who are these people you're talking about who have suppressed revolvers, and where can we all read their experience?
And where did I say I have no experience with suppressors? Or is that just "common knowledge"?
The problem here is that you are taking the lack of something as proof of it being a terrible idea. From the point of view of sound suppression, a cylinder gap isn't as efficient, so it is not going to be anyone's first choice. But a .45 is also much less efficient than a 9mm, yet the military bought a bunch of them.
I completely agree that a cylinder gap is going to be noisier. Since you have so much experience, how much noisier? 15 dB? 25? Why is an unsuppressed .38 quieter than an unsuppressed 9mm if it has a cylinder gap?
You've got the knowledge, I'm the dumb one: Fill me in.
Theohazard
New member
Of course it's feasible. Nobody is arguing that. But whether it's a suppressed Nagant, or a specially-designed silenced revolver like the ones by Dan Wesson or Knights Armament, they all have some manner of converting or sealing the cylinder gap. You're saying that a normal revolver will suppress just fine, which is something you haven't been able to back up at all.RX-79G said:
Hey, all Im asking is for you to show us youre right. Again, it seems simple enough to me.
I still dont believe your theory is correct, and from the lack of any out of the box, standard grade revolvers that are for sale set up for a suppressor, it sure isnt looking good for what you'd have us believe.
If it were a realistic endeavor, you'd think a lot of people would want one (Id like one), and the makers would be happy to supply them, both guns and suppressors. Who do you know thats currently doing that right now?
Ill help you out here, none.
I still dont believe your theory is correct, and from the lack of any out of the box, standard grade revolvers that are for sale set up for a suppressor, it sure isnt looking good for what you'd have us believe.
If it were a realistic endeavor, you'd think a lot of people would want one (Id like one), and the makers would be happy to supply them, both guns and suppressors. Who do you know thats currently doing that right now?
Ill help you out here, none.
Theohazard
New member
I've talked to people who've played around with Nagants, and I've read a few forums where people have threaded and suppressed normal revolvers (usually .22s) and reported that they're pretty loud and not worth it. So nothing solid that you'll accept as evidence, but it's a lot more than you've offered so far.RX-79G said:
You didn't. Consider it an educated guess based on your lack of understanding of how a silencer works.RX-79G said:
That's something I can't say considering I've never personally tried it. Back when I worked at an 07/02 FFL I actually wanted to try it; I wanted to find an old .38 and put my Octane on it. Our gunsmith was extremely experienced with suppressors and even had some experience with a specially modified and silenced S&W 629. But he didn't want to thread the barrel for me; he said it was a waste of his time and it would suck anyway. Basically he though I was being ridiculous for even trying.RX-79G said:
You're right that it's a problem in the silencer world; everyone "knows" that a silenced revolver doesn't work, and nobody makes factory-threaded revolvers, so no one is going to go to all the trouble to silence a revolver when it's going to suck anyway.
But there is something to that, based on my experience. An understanding of the gas flow in a semi-auto with a suppressor will help you understand why an unmodified silenced revolver is going to be louder than a semi-auto. And a basic understanding of the history of modifying revolvers for suppressor use begs the question, "Why go through all that trouble if a silenced .38 is just as loud as a silenced .45 ACP?"
A silenced revolver is more attractive for covert government work in a few ways: It doesn't leave brass behind and -- before the invention of the Neilsen device -- it was a lot more reliable than a normal suppressed locked-breech semi-auto. But there's probably a good reason why all those silenced revolvers were modified to seal the cylinder gap.
One day I'll actually thread a .38 and see exactly how loud it is suppressed. Until then I'll simply have to rely the testimony of others, my knowledge of the history of silenced revolvers, my knowledge of how silencers work, and my personal experience with silencers.
Hey, all I'm asking is for you to show me you're right. If it has been tried and didn't work like you say, tell me about it.
You guys are the ones claiming that the picture that started this thread was movie nonsense. Okay - what's your reference?
My references are Robhof's post about the CIA revolvers and the math I provided on cylinder gap efficiency.
You guys are the ones claiming that the picture that started this thread was movie nonsense. Okay - what's your reference?
My references are Robhof's post about the CIA revolvers and the math I provided on cylinder gap efficiency.