Silencing a Revolver

A fellow I once knew who did a lot of work on silencers (suppressors) made a valid point. He said that the device didn't need to completely silence a gun, it only needed to make it sound not like a gun.

I fired guns with a couple of his silencers, though, and they really did silence the gun. To be more exact, they silenced the discharge of the cartridge; silencing the gun is another story. I fired an M3 SMG with a silencer and it was almost as loud as without the silencer because the bolt slap on that stamped receiver made a lot of noise. The racket would normally have been drowned out by the noise of the firing, but with the silencer in place, the bolt noise could be heard over 50 yards away. And it sounded (surprise!) just like a submachinegun firing.

The M3's and STEN's made for silencer use had lace-on pads to keep the action noise down. A British STEN with a silencer and cover made a noise like that of a CB Cap, so it sounded like a .22 CB cap submachinegun, not necessarily something that would be ignored.

Jim
 
Yeah, except for 22lr the suppressors I have witnessed sound something like a nail gun. Close enough I think if I set up a range in my backyard and shot sub-sonics my neighbors might assume I was building something.
 
John just a heads up subsonic .22 is darn near impossible to find at the moment. I found some 20gr aguilla that's quiet but not strong enough to cycle a semi auto
 
The PSDR 3 was a silenced revolver.

http://oda141teamroom.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/psdr-3.jpg
Knights Armament made a silenced Ruger.

11250157966830co.jpg
 
I've seen that pic before. What I haven't seen is one of those guns or the results of a db test done on that gun.



...He said that the device didn't need to completely silence a gun, it only needed to make it sound not like a gun.

...I fired an M3 SMG with a silencer and it was almost as loud as without the silencer because the bolt slap on that stamped receiver made a lot of noise. The racket would normally have been drowned out by the noise of the firing, but with the silencer in place, the bolt noise could be heard over 50 yards away. And it sounded (surprise!) just like a submachinegun firing...
Click to expand...

Somewhere along the line people forgot that silencers are hearing protection. The idea that it must make it sound not like a gun is born from the idea that silencers are an assassin's tool. The impression of "what was that noise, it didn't sound like a gun" is a side effect of the decibel reduction. The incredibly quiet MP5SD makes that same machinegun chatter as the M3 mentioned earlier. Containing hot, rapidly expanding gasses will do noting for action noise. It will protect the hearing of the person firing the gun and the hearing of those around them.


So, to get back to the original topic; If revolvers were a good host for suppression, they would be sold with threaded barrels. Now aside from the old Nagant, that oddball revolver-carbine thing that was cobbled together by KAC and the Russian's silenced bullets, there just aren't to many more examples of suppressed revolvers. Silencers have been around for a century. After all that time silenced revolvers are little more than a curiosity. That must tell you something.
 
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