<div class="IPBDescription">you know those cylinder things on guns</div> i know its pathetic but i just cant figure out how a tube reduces the sound on a gun
In addition, silencers do not silence like in the movies.
There are weapons that are designed for a specific silencer and visa-versa. These weapons have a much smaller retort yet the ones typically pictured in movies where the gangster screws on a little metal pipe to the end of a pistol and all we hear is a little puewt sound is inaccurate.
Forget about silencing high powered rifle rounds. These bullets are traveling faster than the speed of sound. Therefore each bullet makes its own little sonic boom. Silencers work best with subsonic ammunition. This ammunition normally must be specially ordered as it is often underpowered. I have a few boxes of subsonic rounds that I keep for when I need to eliminate some varmints at night so as not to wake the neighbors but its pretty underpowered.
Silencers also get REALLY hot after a few shots. Most silencers must be filled/cooled with a liquid (water, urine, oil, etc) before and after a few shots. The reason for this is because it absorbs all that kinetic energy that would normally reach your ears and turns it into heat.
One of the more ingenious silencers I have seen used oil impregnated leather disks that the bullet was literally shot through. They self sealed after the bullet passed and greatly reduced the retort. However it was only useful for maybe 8 shots.
Well, from what I have heard, silencers don't actually "silence" the sound persay, they just mask it so the sound is not recognizable as coming from a gun. Beyond that, I have no idae how they work, sorry.
Crap, Jssm beat me to the link. In case you didn't click it, like these two guys above me, it works by simple allowing the hot gas produced by the explosion of gunpowder to expand into a volume before leaving the gun, thus reducing the sound (and light sometimes) produced. This is why silencers can be quite large.
Comments
There are weapons that are designed for a specific silencer and visa-versa. These weapons have a much smaller retort yet the ones typically pictured in movies where the gangster screws on a little metal pipe to the end of a pistol and all we hear is a little puewt sound is inaccurate.
Forget about silencing high powered rifle rounds. These bullets are traveling faster than the speed of sound. Therefore each bullet makes its own little sonic boom. Silencers work best with subsonic ammunition. This ammunition normally must be specially ordered as it is often underpowered. I have a few boxes of subsonic rounds that I keep for when I need to eliminate some varmints at night so as not to wake the neighbors but its pretty underpowered.
Silencers also get REALLY hot after a few shots. Most silencers must be filled/cooled with a liquid (water, urine, oil, etc) before and after a few shots. The reason for this is because it absorbs all that kinetic energy that would normally reach your ears and turns it into heat.
One of the more ingenious silencers I have seen used oil impregnated leather disks that the bullet was literally shot through. They self sealed after the bullet passed and greatly reduced the retort. However it was only useful for maybe 8 shots.
/sorry couldn't resist