SpecForces, spies and every Finnish grunt that happens to have a sound suppressor if they so wish. In many gas actuated weapons, like the RK95, you can simply shut the gas valve and don't have to lock the slide.

The bullet hitting the target won't tell you where the shooter is, the noise of the bolt or slide will. Sure people will notice that somebody shot someone, but when they can't hear any sound from the shooter's direction, they haven't got much to go by as long as the shooter is well hidden.

I'll go ahead and advertise Raygun's suppression-stuff too.

Interesting article. I know there is a single type of silenced revolver produced by the Russians, but it used unusual cartridges and (maybe) other design features to seal that gap.

Speaking of clattering bolts, it would seem like there's other ways to silence that than to lock the bolt between shots and require manual cycling. Unfortunately, I don't know where the impact surfaces are inside a gun to be more specific, but...

How about "rubberized" impact coatings? Even a thin coat of a high-temperature rubbery material (silicone, teflon) will do wonders for reducing the noise of metal hitting metal. Gun nuts: Are the striking surfaces in weapons usually directly exposed to burning gunpowder? Do they regularly get above 600F?

Also, (non-polymer) composite materials are good for soaking up sound. Carbon-carbon composites, ceramic matrix composites, metal matrix composites, cermets, etc. just don't "ring" like pure metals. All those reinforcing fibers and different components have different speeds of sound, so the noise gets fuzzed out into duller "clacks".

I kinda doubt it -- although I wouldn't have thought they'd put that much mind-numbing effort into cyberware, decking and rigging.

Stranger things have happened.

-Siege

Truthfully, so did I and I live here.

I know there's a company in Georgia that makes and sells silencers, but I've never felt the need to inquire further. Temptation is not a good thing.

-Siege

Speaking of shotguns, would there be any difference if you were holding the muzzle up against someone when you fired? I read something about his the big bloody hole you make in the person could act as a kind of suppressor baffle. Anyone know if there's any truth in this?

Yup, the M1895 Nagant revolver.

Weeelll, you can get sound suppressors for just about any firearm without any hassle whatsoever here in Finland -- except of course for the basic hassle of getting the firearm in question in the first place. So I guess Finland is more Blessed.

Cray, I guess we'll have to wait on Raygun to appear, unless one of those "post once and never reappear" gun nuts show up. I really don't know what parts of a firearm make most of the noise, and how hot those get. I'm sure there are some parts in there that could be coated that won't get very hot (like the extreme back end of the upper receiver, where the recoil spring and the end of the slide assembly is located), but for the rest of them I just don't know.

It depends on the type of operation. The surfaces that contact each other are at the rear of the receiver, where the bolt/bolt carrier's rearward motion terminates, and at the forward part of the receiver, where the bolt is closed shut.

The sound at the rearward point of impact can easily be dealt with in some weapons using a recoil buffer. Just a formed piece of polymer that sits at the rear impact point, between metal surfaces. There's no significant heat generated at that point.

The forward point of impact is much trickier. Not only is heat an issue, especially with automatic weapons, but the most common type of operation employed for automatic rifles, gas operation, uses a rotating bolt that locks either directly into the barrel or into an extension behind the chamber that essentially acts as a heat sink for the barrel. This rotating bolt locks the chamber closed until the bullet has left the barrel, so that pressure drops to a safe level before the cartridge case is extracted from the chamber. In other words, it keeps the rifle from blowing up in your face.

However, the majority of the sound generated at the forward point is usually by the bolt carrier impacting the forward part of the receiver. I'm sure that there are ways to make that forward "whack" quieter, especially if the weapon is purpose-built rather than retrofitted for quiet operation. Other types of operation and specific weapons may be easier to work with. Al Paulson suggested machining an annular ring at the rear of the barrel and around the chamber of the Ruger 10/22 (blowback operated), which would then be filled with a rubber O-ring commonly available at plumbing stores. Of course, this only applies to one specific model of firearm (a .22 at that), but it's an interesting idea. Still, the simplest way to keep cycling noise from being a factor is to just lock the bolt closed and cycle manually.

All of this is really academic anyway, as the act of shooting things with automatic weapons is going to be given away by the sound of the bullets impacting the target (area), no matter what they're made of. It's pretty difficult to diguise that sound, whether it be bullets tinking off of a car, or impacting a road, a lawn, water, or flesh. If you've ever gone hunting, you know what I'm talking about in the latter case. That suprisingly loud "THIP" sound that says "good job". The good thing is that that sound is usually louder than the cycling noise and it also has a tendency to draw attention away from the shooter's position.

Ah, well now. I was thinking of a silenced weapon in terms of "not finding the shooter" instead of "hiding the fact that shooting is occurring." If I want to hide the shooting, I'd try to use 1 bullet to get the job done and then run.

So, is it easy to ID where the shooter is (assume shooter is 50-100m away) if all you have to go on is a hail of bullets making a lot of noise in your area?

It depends on whether the shooter is trying to hide or not and what kind of environment he and the target are in at the time. In general, I guess the sound at the shooter's position will probably not be recognized as a gun by the vast majority of people, especially in urban environments. But out in the sticks, even suppressed, the sound would be undeniably mechanical and much more noticeable. It's the regular, repetitive sound of autofire that gives it away, which wouldn't be a factor with precision fire.

Basically, there's not a lot of point in suppressing autofire other than to protect the shooter's hearing, especially in close quarters. Stealthy precision fire is much more effective.

That's what I always do, nodding the head. I don't have a clue what many gun sites on the net are going on about, but I just keep reading through and hoping that some day it will all make sense to me...

The muzzle break reduces recoil by redirecting muzzle gases.

Being slow and pedantic about it...

*Normally, the bullet and gunpowder gases go forward. Reaction: gun goes backward.
*With a muzzle break, there's a "gizmo" (some say it's widget, but IMO it's clearly a gizmo, or maybe a thingamabob) on the end that redirects the muzzle flashes backward. In other words, the muzzle blast is used kind of like a rocket to pull the barrel forward and offset some (not all) of the recoil.

Not only does this website have pictures, but it explains thing better than I did:

http://riv.co.nz/rnza/hist/ord/muzzle.htm

You won't believe how many cliched methods of assassination are still in use today which would require near absolute silence from a gun or at least a sound that doesn't sound like a gun (although the first is, of course, by far the more preferred choice). As recently reported as the 1980s, a bank manager was killed by an assassin who walked into an office with an appointment to see their target, shot the manager with suppressed pistols without anyone outside being the wiser and simply walked out again. Police later recovered a .22 silenced pistol with the slide modified to lock it back after each shot.

Other cliches include the gun in the folded newspaper thang, which still remains in use in the Middle East. Some magazines/journals carry articles about such incidences.

Funny thing, of course, is that I've yet to see anything like this in a Hollywood movie.