Designing / building an "Inherently quiet HANDGUN"

T

TXAZ

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Without adding a suppressor, if you were designing a Semi HANDGUN to be as quiet as possible ***without*** a supressor, what would you do or change from current conventional design?
The first thing I would do is design it for use with sub-sonic ammo. I'd also look at barrel length to ensure complete powder burning, which could also allow a slower burning powder.

Assume you were starting with a conventional design in 9mm (no 22 short stories :)

What else might you do? (Or might you not do some of the above?)
Just curious.

EDIT: All legal / theoretical clarification: The thought came from a friend who owns a home in the country, and likes to shoot off his porch. Most of his handguns are REEEEEL loud under the porch. He doesn't wear hearing protection but then he's partially deaf from shooting like that for decades. Hence the theoretical question. Can you get to quiet, ie not need hearing protection and NOT risk your hearing. That's how I would define it.
 
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Define 'quiet'.

Without a silencer, there will be some noise.

Even with a silencer there is the clacking of the slide/bolt moving under fire, and the shell being ejected. That isn't really quiet.

What would be the purpose of an inherently quiet gun other than a: for the pure fun of creating it, or b: some desire to serve as a means of skirting federal and/or state laws pertaining to silencers?

bolt-action designs will get you the quietest [or lever]. Revolvers lose sound out the side [nagants excepted] and semi's have that clacking sound.

I'd just double-muff my ears and get on with it. But that is me. Good luck.
 
I think you would be looking at an MPA 9mm with a honking long barrel. Tilting barrel locked breech would be awkward from a long barrel. Maybe take a look at the semi HK MP5 rifle clones for noise levels.

Semi auto is going to have considerable noise from the open breech.

If you want quiet, I would go with a TC contender or Encore with a rifle length barrel, or a lever action.

But as for noise from either, keep in mind that Rossi m92 lever action rifles with 20" barrel, shooting 38 special are still plenty loud.

The Aguila .22 lr 60gr SSS from a bolt action rifle is still plenty loud.
 
I would start with something like the Steyr GB since it has a fixed barrel and very few moving parts. Then I'd probably make it striker fired rather than hammer fired. maybe put a slide buffer in there somewhere. Long barrel and flaming pig type compensator to direct all sound forward of the shooter.
 
I would start with a single shot, don't have to worry about the action working or the case ejecting. There are the Chinese Type 64 and 67 pistols with the silencer integral with the barrel and a slide lock to engage while fired.
 
Is this a hypothetical build or actual?

In either case, do we have an application, or just a goal of "quiet without suppressor"?

Anyway, my answer is the same. I would just build any gun, but have a readily-deployable vacuum available. :D
 
I'm not sure I understand the parameters.

Pretty much all of the modern 9mm semi-autos will work fine with subsonic 147 grain ammo. There's no optimization needed there. Even with a subsonic round you're still going to get a loud blast.

All locked-breech designs cycle after the bullet has cleared the muzzle. No optimization is needed there.

Without a suppressor, the muzzle blast is going to be way louder than the gun's action, so no optimization is needed there.

About the only thing that's going to matter is the barrel length, because the loudest component is the gunshot. Then the question becomes when does it stop being a pistol - a Sig MPX or CZ Scorpion are what immediately come to mind.
 
First, your friend is an idiot. Not wearing hearing protection because he is already suffering hearing loss is just plain stupid. He won't have ANY hearing left.
The only other thing you can do is put sound-absorbing material on the porch, or design a fixed silencing box to shoot through.
Regardless, hearing protection is needed.
You will not be able to design a handgun that will be quiet without a supressor.
A long barrelled. 22 pistol using CB caps will be quieter than anything else. A fixed breech is a plus.
 
Bill noted:
... your friend is an idiot.
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Maybe so, but with a Distinguished Service Cross and numerous citations, and knowing what he did for and went through for this country, I still call him "Sir" or "Colonel".

I'm just interested if there were easy things that could reduce the report without having to add a can on the front. Would prefer no judgements, that's all.
 
A 9mm with an average suppressor still sounds like a .22, but with some top notch suppressors it can be made very quiet. If auto or semi-auto, provision must be made for suppressing bolt slap as well; that usually means padding the action or locking the breech closed.

A long barrel is one answer, but even with an 18" barrel, a 9mm is still pretty loud. Loading down will also work to some extent, but if the sound is reduced significantly the power might be too little to function the gun.

(Someone may come up with the idea of making an internal suppressor by drilling the barrel itself and surrounding it with a jacket, and that will work. But if the idea is to evade the NFA by not having a separate suppressor, it won't do that; it just makes the gun an NFA item.)

One idea that might work if firing from a bench is to make a plywood box about 1 foot cube, with a 2-3" hole through it and the rest of the inside stuffed with foam rubber. The hole is big enough to allow sighting through it, and the foam will absorb much of the sound if the barrel of the gun is actually inserted into the hole. (No, BATFE won't call it a suppressor; it is not attached to the gun.)

Jim
 
... your friend is an idiot.
Click to expand...

Maybe so, but with a Distinguished Service Cross and numerous citations,
Click to expand...

Ok, he's a well decorated idiot...(and that is a joke, son!) seriously, if he's already got serious hearing damage he probably figures it won't matter in the end, anyway.

Sticking to the purely physical sound of the gun, there are some factors you just cannot get around, without using a "silencer".

Plinking off the porch, when there's a roof over it is just slightly better than shooting in a closed room. Reflected muzzle blast just makes things worse, and, its really annoying..

I'm unsure about the legal status of "designing a more quiet firearm", the law, as usually interpreted is that the crime is the "intent to silence a firearm". I understand people have been convicted when the silencer didn't work.

So looking at this from the point of not reducing the sound of the gun, but reducing the sound that reaches the shooter's ear to a lesser, or hopefully non damaging level, the main factors involved are

Ear protection (not an option, by choice? so be it, for the purposes of discussion, its not an issue.)

How much powder is being burned, how far from the ear the muzzle is, and what is round to reflect the sound.

So, to make a 9mm as quiet as possible you shoot bunny phart loads with the longest barrel you can stand (within legal limts), and you put sound absorbent material around the shooting station to the greatest extent practical.

However, gallery loads in a semi auto require the semi to be set up to function with them. Some designs may allow this with just an ultra light recoil spring. However, if this is done, care must be taken that the gun not be fired with regular ammo, as damage to the gun (and possibly the shooter) could result.

I know this isn't much help, if any, but outside of using technology that is covered under the 1934 National Firearms Act, (which is possible if you meet the qualifiers and have the cash) I don't see there is much that can be done.
 
I'm going to look at the parameters of the question a little differently. I'm going to assume that by conventional, you mean conventional "bullets" vs conventional ammunition.

Using this assumption, I would design a gun which is powered by compressed air. It should be quieter and by adjusting the airflow, you should be able to tweak the velocity and sound further.

Edit: I took the question to be "what would you do to design/build" a quieter gun - which to me means starting at the concept phase.
 
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TXAZ said:
Maybe so, but with a Distinguished Service Cross and numerous citations, and knowing what he did for and went through for this country, I still call him "Sir" or "Colonel".
Click to expand...

You can respect the man for who he is and what he's done, but that doesn't mean he knows what's best for his hearing. Having badly damaged hearing is still better than being deaf. If he keeps it up, he may not KNOW that you're saying "Sir" or "Colonel" when you talk with him. Every time he shoots without protection, he loses a bit more of what's left in the important frequency ranges.

(Lt. Col. George A. Custer was highly decorated and successful Civil War Cavalry officer -- he eventually held the brevet (temporary) rank of Major General -- but that didn't keep him from doing something pretty stupid at the Little Big Horn.)

The Colonel can continue to NOT wear hearing protection -- it's certainly his decision -- but he may want to take classes in American Sign Language in his spare time (or carry a notepad and pencil.)
 
TXAZ said:
EDIT: All legal / theoretical clarification: The thought came from a friend who owns a home in the country, and likes to shoot off his porch. Most of his handguns are REEEEEL loud under the porch. He doesn't wear hearing protection but then he's partially deaf from shooting like that for decades. Hence the theoretical question. Can you get to quiet, ie not need hearing protection and NOT risk your hearing. That's how I would define it.
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Unfortunately, there only real answers for you are either hearing protection, or a suppressor. Most handguns are in the range of 155+ dB, and you need to get it below 135 dB to avoid hearing damage. I think that even a 16" on a PCC will only bring it down to maybe 150 dB with subsonic ammo. If he's shooting outdoors, even a cheap set of foam earplugs from Walgreens will help (though I still suggest earmuffs, as they cover the portion of your head that the inner ear lies under).

I've got to be honest, though - you'd think that the fact he's already started losing his hearing would be a sure sign to maybe start wearing ear protection. I assume you've already suggested as much to him - is there any reason why he doesn't?
 
Someone commented on the idea of redirecting noise.

That got me thinking of the difference in sound from my ARs.

One has a Troy Industry Claymore on it, and the other the 'tradtional' A-2 flashhider.

The one with the Claymore is quieter. I need to compare it to the muzzle blast of my Mini-14 for a real feel on it vs nothing on the barrel though.


Anyway, the point of this comment is that one of these type of compensators, like the Claymore or the Levang Linear, might redirect sound away from the shooter a bit. It won't matter more than a few decibels, but that might be enough.

The only concern is if threaded pistol barrels are allowed in his local. And you would have to have them custom made, as even the .30 cal ones are too small for a 9mm.
 
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