Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: paul.fr on 24/07/2007 00:10:22

Title: how do silencers work?
Post by: paul.fr on 24/07/2007 00:10:22

 what makes them silence the sound of a gunshot[???]

Title: how do silencers work?
Post by: another_someone on 24/07/2007 01:47:29

As far as I am aware, if is merely a pipe full of baffles to break up the shock wave of the gas leaving the muzzle of the gun.  Ofcourse, this only really works for low velocity bullets, since a supersonic bullet will still present its own sonic boom.

Title: how do silencers work?
Post by: syhprum on 24/07/2007 08:44:50

I always thought that silencers on guns were rather a movie makers cliche rather like opening combination safes with a stetherscope or killing people quickly and painlessly with one pistol bullet.

Title: how do silencers work?
Post by: eric l on 24/07/2007 08:51:47

How silencers work is explained in part in this very forum, in the topic "thunder and lightning"
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=9042.0
The mechanism is reflecting the sound waves, so that in stead of a short bang you hear a longer but quieter rumble.

Title: how do silencers work?
Post by: G-1 Theory on 25/07/2007 17:02:59

I found this on the web awile back.

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi49.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ff268%2FKE5RLS%2Fsilencer.jpg&hash=f3ed4e1b768547bd470f2416b9cd2e95)

It said that it was only good for a smal number of shots.
Ed

Title: how do silencers work?
Post by: paul.fr on 25/07/2007 17:04:53

You can also use a 2 litre drinks bottle as a silencer, is this the same principal?

Title: how do silencers work?
Post by: another_someone on 26/07/2007 03:24:14

The classic (maybe a myth, but sounds plausible) was to shoot through a pillow.

A 2 litre drinks bottle might just make the average handgun a little unwieldy.

Title: how do silencers work?
Post by: kdlynn on 26/07/2007 03:30:19

from my understanding, silencers also make the shot less accurate, making them only useful at close range. also, after a few shots the silencer won't work.

Title: how do silencers work?
Post by: another_someone on 26/07/2007 03:48:24

Quote from: kdlynn on 26/07/2007 03:30:19

from my understanding, silencers also make the shot less accurate, making them only useful at close range. also, after a few shots the silencer won't work.

As I said, you cannot use silencers for high velocity shots, since you cannot suppress the sonic boom on a supersonic bullet - so this fact alone will mean that you are dealing with relatively low accuracy and close range.

A well made silencer, I am not aware that they have a particularly limited life.  Silencers have been fitted to submachine guns, where accuracy is not a requirement (and can even be a disadvantage), but reliability for several hundred shots at least would be a requirement (although some of the sten guns they were fitted to for covert operations during WWII were so unreliable anyway that an unreliable silencer would scarcely have made a difference).