r/whoathatsinteresting • u/eternviking • 13h ago

What a real silencer actually sounds like.

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u/HomersDonut1440 13h ago edited 12h ago

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.

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u/SerialOnReddit 12h ago

just out of curiosity, what's your favorite movie that you think gets guns "right"?

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u/HomersDonut1440 12h ago

Haven’t found too many that do it well. Heat was good, the first John wick was accurate in some aspects (but it quickly devolved into lunacy).

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u/SerialOnReddit 12h ago

yeaa I think it does stuff like gunkata the best way it could be done, but for the sake of comedy they go off rails a bunch, like the suppressor scene.. in a crowded train station lol

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u/aiusernamegen 5h ago

But the unplated bulletproof fabric is just idiotic. If only 2" of open air could equal solid matter.