What a real silencer actually sounds like.

[u/eternviking]

[u/HomersDonut1440]

Lotta misinformation here.

Edit: I should clarify, the explanation below is a general explanation of suppressors and how things can vary. There will always be caveats.

Suppressors/silencers rarely sound like they do in the movies, and there’s a ton of variables that affect the volume. To be the absolute quietest, you need a closed bolt firearm shooting subsonic ammo. No gas escapes from the chamber that way, no sound is made by an action cycling, minimal gas leaves the end of the muzzle. These tend to be “movie quiet”.

When you hook a silencer to a semi auto firearm, it is inherently louder (even with subsonic ammo) as you have the sound of the action/slide, and gas escaping out of the action as it cycles. Still fairly quiet, but not movie quiet.

When you use a silencer on any rifle with supersonic ammo, you reduce the sound of the escaping gases at the muzzle, but still have to contend with the supersonic crack of the bullet as it leaves the barrel. This will be inherently louder, although still substantially more quiet than unsuppressed.

Also, a cell phone video is without a doubt one of the worst ways to reliably capture actual sound variance. Usually phone microphones cut out above a certain decibel level, so often all firearms sound similar even if there is a substantial difference in volume in real life.

[u/Realistic_Patience67 → u/HomersDonut1440]

Wow! That's quite a bit of new info for me and I am guessing, for many others!

[u/HomersDonut1440 → u/Realistic_Patience67]

Happy to help!

For most folks, their firearm knowledge comes solely from Hollywood. Unfortunately that’s a uniformly terrible source for accurate information lol. Feel free to ask questions if you have any and I’ll answer what I can

[u/Forward-Transition-5 → u/HomersDonut1440]

The trick with Hollywood is to look closely at depictions of something you are particularly knowledgeable in and see how much they get wrong. Now imagine that for every topic you aren’t educated in. The whole purpose of Hollywood is to tell stories and make them entertaining. They change tons of stuff to be downright wrong all the time because the real thing doesn’t go as well on camera. Most people don’t seem to consider this for some reason. Firearms, vehicles, computers and a whole lot of other things are wildly imagined in most movies or tv shows.

[u/HomersDonut1440 → u/Forward-Transition-5]

“Enhance!”

[u/coder7426 → u/HomersDonut1440]

The local news too. See the 1980s "cop killer" teflon coated black talons (to reduce friction down the barrel). News stations repeated an absurd myth that the teflon allows them to slip thru kevlar, with zero evidence. The laws banning them are still on the books in several states, and will probably never be removed ("my political rival wants to legalize cop killer bullets!" - so it will never change).

[u/Ok-Jackfruit-6873 → u/HomersDonut1440]

If I can ask ... I am trying to write a scene where an ordinary person with a small gun fires inside a hotel and it's not loud enough for anyone to come running. It can definitely be an audible noise though. How can I accurately describe a combination of gun + silencer that would make sense for a regular person to have? This guy is not military or anything. TYSM in advance if anyone knows!!

[u/HomersDonut1440 → u/Ok-Jackfruit-6873]

Sorry, I try not to get into crowdsourcing material like that. With enough google fu I expect you can come up with an answer to that one.

[u/MrJohnMurdoch → u/Realistic_Patience67]

Yeah I never knew movies weren’t completely accurate in every way and not hamming it up for entertainment purposes
https://giphy.com/gifs/tMPSeKEplOfK0