I realize that this has probably been asked dozens of times, so I apologize for wasting everyones time in advance. Could you cast stealth on a weapon and effectively silence it?

The spell description says that "nothing they do makes noise" but their actions can still make noise if they do something like drop a magazine on the ground etc. So it sounds to me that if you fired a conventional bullet from a weapon that had had stealth cast on it, it would still make noise, as the propellent would be making the noise(I think, correct me if I am wrong please) and the only thing touching the propellent is the shell casing(terminology?).

However caseless rounds seem to get around this just fine as the weapon itself is touching the propellent this time. Is this a legitimate interpretation of the rule?

It wouldn't help much unless you were using subsonic (right word?) ammunition. The bullet will break the sound barrier, and the small sonic boom it creates sounds a lot like a gunshot anyway, or so the gun people have said in older threads (IIRC).

Its an interesting way to increase the stealthiness of caseless ammo, but for simplicity I would say that stealth works fine regardless of ammo type (though the impact of the bullet still makes noise, especially so with explosive rounds).

Edit: as to the sonic boom thing: meh.

Thanks for the prompt response guys. Excellent points, all. As to the sonic boom thing, your absolutely right, I had forgotten about that. But couldn't you argue the same point about a regular silencer? So basically it would do everthing a regular silencer would do? If so that works for me.

If you really want to pick some nits, the bolt, barrel and chamber of the weapon are only touching the varnish/plastic finishing material, which in turn touches the propellant.

I'd say it wouldn't help much anyway, because most of the sound (ignoring the sonic boom, which at least with any center-fire rifles is extremely loud indeed) originate from the gases as they escape the muzzle, because that's where the pressure gets released in an uncontrolled manner.

Comes down to definitions, as always with that spell.

Given that sustaining a spell on the weapon has so many more downsides than simply attatching a silencer to it, I allow the spell to silence the weapon just as effectively.

Use silence on the guy with the gun. The bullets won't make any noise until they exit the area of effect. At the least it will throw off people's attempts to shoot at the source of the sound.

Alternately, have stealth cast on the gun and on each bullet. Sure it means there is a mage somewhere sustaining 11 spells (or more), but the gun won't make any noise and you can still talk.

Herald--IIRC Silence doesn't completely silence an area, it simply applies TN modifiers equal to force to hear anything that goes on. This would effectively work as a silencer--minimizing noise but not completely blanket out the sound.

In general, the problem I've found with casting stealth on the bullet and gun, emphasis bullet singular, is that you have a TN of the object resistance rather than the base 4 in the spell.

Stealth was also the reason transducers were developed--I don't need to make noise if I simply think the words...but then there's the question of thought-bleed over...

Feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes, since I don't have my books with me.