/AKM/ - Guns, weapons and the art of war.

>>3155
well gunshots are still loud yes but it quietens it a bit, the utility for special ops etc seems obvious

>>3155
>The only other reason I can think of for making these is for ear protection but then again why not just wear plugs
to maintain communication and awareness

There are 3 sources of sound produced by firearms:
1.Muzzle gas and sound escaping the chamber through the barrel. Usually second loudest sound
2.The sound of the bullet breaking the sound barrier. Usually loudest sound. (lower when the air is a colder temperature, important for selecting loadings).
These two cover 90->99 percent of all firearm sound
3.Action of the gun.
A semi-automatic or automatic firearm tends to produce noise as it cycles the actiob, stripping a spent case out, inserting a new bullet, firing pin hitting the primer to fire the bullet.

Now how about we make a silent firearm?

Firstly, a suppressor slows down the expansion of gas from the barrel of the gun.

Secondly, a subsonic bullet, heavier, sometimes less powder loaded, is made to travel lower than the speed of sound.
Now already we are quiet enough to fire undetected from a distance, depending on the sound of the action, we are quieter than a whisper or quieter than your friend yelling to you across the room.

If we want to make it trully silent? Bolt action. A smooth bolt action will be undetectable to the human ear. A suppressed bolt action .22 rifle will be so quiet that you won't know it fired until you see the bullet hole. You can fire next to someone's ear and they will have no idea, you can sit down and clear the room you are in with well placed aim and the only sound will be bodies hitting the floor. Quieter than a knife. Trully silent. Even semi-automatic .22 rifles firing subs can be effectively silent. May take some tweaking with swapping out the bolt or trigger group depending on the rifle to get complete silence. Ruger 22 takedown is an excellent example. The implication is that you can have as an American, as in many other countries, a maneuverable, lightweight, semi-automatic rifle that can be broken down and reassembled in 5 seconds to fit in a small bag or backpack or in a coat flask pocket which is completely silent and can reliably kill within 200-300 metres with good aim and and decent optics, entirely legal and unregulated except for the supressor, which is a form and a year long wait and a tax stamp or otherwise extremely easy to construct and conceal from a wide variety of materials in temporary or permanent constructions. A water bottle and duct tape will work great for one or two shots as shown in Chechnia.

I just spent like an hour typing out an effort post then accidentally deleted it instead of posting lmao

And before you ask, yes you can "silence" larger calibre military rifles. The soviet's even made a modular AKSU (7inch barrel ak74) with suppressed subsonic ammo paired with a silenced grenade launcher. Yes you heard that right, silenced'. The special grenades were designed as sneak attack sabotage weapons to destroy key infrastructure and electronics as well vulnerable vehicles such as parked aircraft and missile launchers. Soviet commandos would close in on installations like radar arrays and nuclear facilities, even behind enemy lines, fire their grenades based around IIRC graphite based payload and EMP, as well as HE and fragmentation grenades, then immediately withdraw undetected as the grenades fly to their targets. Another cool nearly silent weapon, VKS, Vyhklop (exhaust) Silenced. Russian 12.7mm suppressed sniper rifle designed for the MDV. It can fire subsonic or supersonic bullets, the supersonics with the big suppressor are only about as much recoil as a standard intermediary rifle shooting supers of a much smaller caliber. Subsonic load is effective out to nearly 800 metres if memory serves correct. Can be used to hit targets behind light cover and to penetrate lightly armoured vehicles such as APCs.

>>3159
No one said anything about large weapons being unsuppressable just that it’s hard to block out the noise made by guns

>>3173
It's not that hard at all if you are shooting subsonic ammunition, which is easy to make from supers or loading from scratch. Just stick a can on it or tape a PET bottle on the end and that is most of the noise blocked.

One of the main benefits that doesn't get talked about very often is that it makes communication in the heat of battle much easier: it's hard to hear what anyone is saying when everyone's ears are ringing and there's loud ass gunshots constantly going off.

>less noise
>higher muzzle velocity
I can see no downside

>>3843
Don't they reduce muzzle velocity tho?

>>3844
they extend the barrel. so no. well engineered ones are a plus accuracy wise. the one downside is higher moment of inertia since you have all that mass at the end of your barrel

>>3843
Increased recoil compared to good muzzle brake, increased gas venting into the receiver (and in your face, depending on the gun), increased fouling, decreased barrel ventilation.
>>3844
By insignificant amount - about 2 to 5 m/s, as secondary action of powder gases, when they push the bullet after it left the barrel, is greatly diminished.
>>3845
>they extend the barrel
Common misconception. Instead of going forward gases are redirected and turbulised, so extension is useless.

>>3846
>Increased recoil compared to good muzzle brake
aren't muzzle brakes terrible if you have people nearby?
>increased gas venting into the receiver
not a problem with bolt action rifles, which is the point of view I'm coming from
>Instead of going forward gases are redirected and turbulised
compared to a barrel of the same total length, sure. but they're typically added to the end of an existing barrel, and you can't seriously be telling me that gas just venting into the open air provides more acceleration compared to being semi-contained in a suppressor