Cardboard tube "silencer?"

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Prof Young

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So I heard an old geezer talk about taping a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels to the barrel of a 22LR gun and getting the same affect as an expensive suppressor. Could this be true?

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Prof Young
 
You know...I usually say don't try this at home...but in this case I say try it and let us know. But I bet my most recent gun purchase it will only change the sound a little. A cardboard tube doesn't have the internals of a suppressor that make it work. But it is a good story to tell around the campfire.
 
I would doubt it. If you were to make a oil filter suppressor and shoot a standard velocity 22 out of it you would still get a bunch of noise and the super sonic crack of the bullets. If you were to shoot a sub sonic round out of the same filter it would be much quieter. So I don't believe a cardboard tube will do anything. I would think the old geezer left his hearing aids at home when he tried the tube. I hope you realize that making a homemade suppressor would be unlawful, pretty sure it is a NFA item.
 
Ive seen a .22 pistol with a 2-liter pop bottle attached fired, and it works pretty well, for a few rounds anyway. As the hole in the end gets bigger, it gets louder. Its not suppressor quiet, but its pretty quiet.

I think what the pop bottle has going for it, even without baffles, is volume. Enough to at least contain the gas of a .22, while the exit hole is still pretty small anyway.

Im thinking something the size of a paper towel tube would need the baffles to make it work. I also wonder if the paper towel tube would be enough to contain it. Now something heavier, like one of the heavy paper rolls you see with rolls of paper, cloth, etc, would probably be the better choice. Youd still most likely need baffles. You also need some way to attach it too.

Theres a couple of guys around here who still insist you can put a potato on the end of a revolver barrel and its really quiet! :rolleyes:

Messy Id believe. Quiet, not so much. Some old wives tales never die. :)
 
Just be aware that without the proper licensing, the penalty for being caught experimenting with making silencers, even cheap, makeshift, possibly nonfunctional, silencers, is a significant amount of time in federal prison.
 
At least at this point, we can still talk about it. I think. :)

It does amaze me though, all the silly crap you see people doing on YouTube, that you know is in violation, and they are so nonchalant about it. I think a lot of it is ignorance, and I have to wonder how many even hear about it?

On a side note, just to show how screwy the "rules" are, my son bought a paintball gun off someone at school, and it came with a "suppressor" on it, made from PVC pipe and fittings, and stuffed with Chore Boy scrubbies. It did quiet the the gun down a bit, and I was telling my buddy, who owns a local gun shop about it, and he said right off, get rid of it, as it was still considered to be an unregistered suppressor. I was like, What? He even got his book of regs out and showed me the ruling. What next?
 
The way the law is written, the crime is the "intent" to silence a firearm (without prior govt authorization). It doesn't have to WORK, in order for you to be prosecuted and convicted!!!

There is one legal way to make a firearm "quieter", from the standpoint of the shooter, without going through the NFA process. However is cannot be used to any practical degree, on a handgun...make the barrel longer...


The further away from the ear the muzzle is, the quieter the sound of the shot. Of course, ultra long barrels have the disadvantage of cumbersome length, but they are quieter. There have been shotguns made with 40" barrels, for just that reason.
 
44 AMP said:
The way the law is written, the crime is the "intent" to silence a firearm (without prior govt authorization). It doesn't have to WORK, in order for you to be prosecuted and convicted!!!

There is one legal way to make a firearm "quieter", from the standpoint of the shooter, without going through the NFA process. However is cannot be used to any practical degree, on a handgun...make the barrel longer...


The further away from the ear the muzzle is, the quieter the sound of the shot. Of course, ultra long barrels have the disadvantage of cumbersome length, but they are quieter. There have been shotguns made with 40" barrels, for just that reason.
Click to expand...
44 AMP, I believe the suppressor must be in physical contact with the weapon for it to be illegal. Sticking a rifle in a window and shooting through a building and out a window or door on the other side will likely reduce the muzzle report to near zero. Also, I've been to a shooting range where shooters shot through a 6' long, 4' diameter pipe filled with a soft filling to reduce noise to the neighbors. My understanding is that's also legal.
 
As far as I know, range silencers are legal. By that, I mean an emplacement that is NOT designed to be, and indeed can not be, attached to a firearm but that is intended to reduce the noise of the report.

One common type of range silencer involves putting a stacked row of tires at the shooting position and shooting with the muzzle inside the tires. This definitely reduces the report, but because it can't be attached to a firearm it doesn't meet the legal definition of a silencer.

Here's an example.

http://www.silencertalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1273

This discussion includes a letter from the BATF addressing the issue of "non-portable" suppressors.

http://www.silencertalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=72880
 
Completely asinine to be having a discussion on the legality of shooting through tires to dampen the report of a firearm. But then again, pretty much most ATF regs are that way.
 
A silencer works by absorbing a controlled amount of blast pressure. No, a cardboard tube cant do that but it might seem like it does if it manages to redirect the sound further downrange from the shooter. To anyone else it would probably not change things much.

Ever hear of using a baby bottle nipple over the end of your barrel. Yeah, dont do that. It doesnt work either.
 
Using a cardboard tube is a really good way of starting a fire when the cardboard tube bursts.
"...A silencer works..." Isn't a "silencer" and they work just like how a car muffler works. With a series of chambers that alter how the displaced air comes back and changing how the sound waves bounce around. A stacked row of tires and even 'wavy' carpets on a wall to the same thing.
 
A 45 ACP is a much better choice for a silenced handgun IMHO.
Taping a cardboard tube to a 22 ? It's the baffling inside the tube that does the silencing.
 
There are a lot of B.S. myths concerning impromptu silencers that are perpetuated by fools who insist they have tried and they worked. Two of which I found to be nonsense in my youth was applying a baby bottle nipple with splits to a .22 handgun and using a condom to "silence" the report...neither worked. The nipple blew-off with no discernable lessening of report, the condom was completely and likewise ineffectual as a silencer. Then there was the guy who adamantly insisted (that those clever Germans!) the 8mm Mauser had a left-hand twist to compensate for the rotation of the earth. I never asked him if it made any difference if the rifle was shot North to South as opposed to South to North.
 
I just noticed that a roll of paper towels “just” fits over an M107A1 muzzle brake.

Conversely, I’m confident it would make no difference in the noise suppression but is likely a guaranteed forest fire starter.
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A soda can taped on the muzzle of a 22lr does a pretty good job, but thats because it has an endcap (of sorts). Double em up and its really good.

An open tube is not going to be very effective.
 
I've heard that single-use 'silencers' are easily obtained at the grocery store.
Cleaning the fragments of potato off your glasses after every shot may not be desirable, though...
 
2 liter soda bottle lessens the crack to a pop. I know that .22 shorts fired in a long barrel like a Marlin 39A are fairly quiet, as are the subsonics.
 
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