Gun myths

[ziiip 1]

I found a cool article about gun myths on cracked, check it out.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18576_5-ridiculous-gun-myths-everyone-believes-thanks-to-movies.html

[Pathy 0]

Kinda cool, and mostly correct. Kinda cringing at all the 'experts' battling it out in the comments section though!

[max power 21]

I think that a lot of the problem people have with suppressors in the comments is that they are mistaking the decibels for a linear scale.

130 decibels is equal to 63.2 pascals (a linear scale)

150 decibels is equal to 632 pascals.

Here is a scale of DBa compared to micropascals.

How this relates to the subjective experience, I don't know. I do know that normal conversation at 60 DBa is a damn sight less than half as loud as a jackhammer at 120.

[reconteam 19]

Interesting, but I gotta disagree on some things. I know many soldiers and marines carry more than the "standard" load of six 30 round magazines and another loaded.

Also some guns with integral suppressors (MP5SD) are supposed to be much quieter than slapping a silencer on any given weapon.

[max power 21]

Interesting, but I gotta disagree on some things. I know many soldiers and marines carry more than the "standard" load of six 30 round magazines and another loaded.

Also some guns with integral suppressors (MP5SD) are supposed to be much quieter than slapping a silencer on any given weapon.

Those are both kind of special cases.

In the case of the soldier's ammo capacity, the point was just to demonstrate you can't just blaze away for 30 minutes. So you double a soldier's ammo capacity to 60 magazines and double their capability to full auto to like 5 minutes including mag changes. This is all just very general math, of course. I added a minute and a half on there for mag changes but I don't know the actual time it takes.

Also, integrally suppressed weapons aren't very common in movies. I think the article was more about slapping a silencer on any ol' gun... rifle, pistol, shotgun... revolver.. :crazy:

[celery 8]

The frequency of the sound is more important in suppressors than the actual decibels or pascals. 120 decibels at a high frequency sounds very different (and much quieter to humans) than 120 decibels at a lower one.

[Big Mac 19]

I think anyone who bases their opinions of guns and war based on a hollywood movie has no place near either. I know it's far from realistic, but hell it's entertaining to see Arnie duel welding M-16s with what seems like unlimited ammo or seeing Jesse Venture with the big ass minigun.

[ben_s 11]

Yea, seeing a guy stood there with a machine gun and only seeing 5 seconds of gunfire. Would suck in a movie.

Another thing, if you play ArmA II w/ HiFi the silenced sounds arn't, well silenced, they're suppressed, theres hardley any muzzle flash but still alot of sound. Which is nice, the vanilla A2 had too quiet a sound for the silenced guns.

[Inkompetent 0]

Haha. Good one! And every single bit of it is correct. Part of why I *LOVE* the sounds of the suppressed weapons in OA. They still go 'bang'. Just not 'BANG'. Unless one uses suppressor AND subsonic ammunition guns still are loud. Just not as loud, and the suppressor effectively kills the highest frequencies of the gunshot-sound, making the sound distort faster over distance, making it very hard to judge from where the shot was fired (which is one of the reason some units of military snipers use suppressors).

[Baff1 0]

Giant freaking shotguns can even be fitted with a special silencer that renders them inaudible in quiet suburban neighborhoods

I use a suppressor and subsonic rounds to fire at night on my giant freaking Mossberg.

I don't get any muzzle flash.

Nor do I recognise much if any difference in volume level between subsonic and regular ammo types. Perhaps someone with a bullet fired over their heads would, but from the firer's end, both types of ammunition have the same volume.

I have to say the level of sound it makes is quite unreliable. Sometimes a quietish bang, sometimes not much more than a loud click.

The most important part of this is the enviroment I am firing in, if it's near buildings the reverb amplifies it, but if it's near hedgerows it all gets absorbed.

The rabbits 50 feet away don't go to ground. My mother doesn't wake up in the middle of the night, my friends listening out for me, know I have fired, but an unaware policemen 50 yards away doesn't flinch or recognise the the sound.

The best thing about silencers? The barrel keeps on smoking for ages after you have fired.

In the article he posts a video of a man with a silenced shotgun and how loud it is, but here is another video in which you can hear how quiet it can be.

My Mossberg also makes that very loud click clacking noise you get on the movies. Satisfyingly Arniesque, but often louder than actually firing the thing which is a drag.

Edited August 25, 2010 by Baff1

[ben_s 11]

The best thing about silencers? The barrel keeps on smoking for ages after you have fired.

Awsome line, very true indeed :bounce3:

[4 IN 1 0]

M1911 designer will cry when he saw item no.4:D

[pre-Vet 10]

the guns our hunky Irish assassins are using up there (the Beretta 92F--the same gun John McClane uses in Die Hard), is made so that pulling the trigger also cocks the hammer for you, to save you the extra step and the extra two seconds during which you could get shot

Needs less trigger pressure to make it go boom though.

maybe this is the reason why wo dont see so much of the Glock perfection in hollywood?? ;)

[maturin 12]

The sounds of suppressed MP5s and 9mm pistols on youtube sound quieter than anything in Hollywood.

[max power 21]

The sounds of suppressed MP5s and 9mm pistols on youtube sound quieter than anything in Hollywood.

Better turn up your speakers :p

[4 IN 1 0]

What the suppressor are doing is that it break down the loud sharp BANG into less sharp noise, it still very loud, but it do less damage to your hearing, plus the noise dissolve into the surrounding much faster over distance, making it hard to judge where the shot come from.

MP5SD is basicly a very large suppressor attached to a shorten barrel and have holes drill on it, as a result some of the gas is release into the suppressor chamber before the rounds leave the barrel, kind of like a two staged design, as a result the muzzle velocity is greatly reduced(you only use supersonic rounds on that thing, otherwise the gun will have problem to cycle) making it a pure close combat weapon, mind you, the noise is still quite loud, but its is low enought for you to hear the gun mechanism working

[Inkompetent 0]

The sounds of suppressed MP5s and 9mm pistols on youtube sound quieter than anything in Hollywood.

Some suppressed pistols, and the MP5SD-versions in particular, have extremely specialized and well made suppressors, and in combination with special, light-loaded subsonic ammunition can become incredibly silent - yes.

A lot of the time you just put a suppressor on a weapon and use standard ammunition though (since the weapon needs either have a lighter bolt, weaker spring, or adjustable gas pressure - often a combination of the above - to be able to fire subsonic ammunition without jamming), which means it still goes bang. It just bangs differently, and a tiny bit more quiet. It's the 'different'-part that's important to conceal the shooter :)

[echo1 0]

The MP5SD is designed specifically to use regular supersonic rounds. In fact, I don't think it will work with subsonic rounds.

I have also read somewhere that because the design of the SD's suppressor is relatively old, that a regular MP5 with a screw on silencer is more silent.

[Inkompetent 0]

The MP5SD is designed specifically to use regular supersonic rounds. In fact, I don't think it will work with subsonic rounds

Right. Me and my confuzzlization. The whole purpose of the SD's suppressor design is to let a normal round drop to subsonic speed before leaving the gun (i.e. the perforated barrel). One more reality-check managed! xD

Wonder when I'm going to stop making a fool of myself around here... :P

Edited August 28, 2010 by Inkompetent

[Baff1 0]

The purpose of the silencer is to act as an expansion chamber.

To provide an area to contain and cool the hot gases from the explosion without them reacting to the colder air outside the barrel an creating a resulting thunderclap similar in nature to that which can be heard on a stormy day.

A supersonic round fired through a silencer would continue to travel at asupersonic speed and still make the audible cracking noise caused by the shockwaves of breaking the sound barrier.

There are actually 2 bangs created by firing a gun. The bang caused by the hot gases mixing with cold and the bang caused by the sound barrier being broken.

The hot gases typically being the louder of the two.

[ricbar89 0]

The MP5SD is designed specifically to use regular supersonic rounds. In fact, I don't think it will work with subsonic rounds.

I have also read somewhere that because the design of the SD's suppressor is relatively old, that a regular MP5 with a screw on silencer is more silent.

Why would a submachine gun be designed specifically to use supersonic rounds? And why would they go to all that trouble to silence the weapon when every supersonic round would make a loud crack?

Doesnt seem to make much sense to me.

[Inkompetent 0]

Why would a submachine gun be designed specifically to use supersonic rounds? And why would they go to all that trouble to silence the weapon when every supersonic round would make a loud crack?

Doesnt seem to make much sense to me.

Because the 'sub' in 'submachinegun' is for its size. Not the velocity of its bullets :)

Pistol rounds are borderline-supersonic already (some are above, some below. Depends on caliber, load and bullet weight), and when you put them in the longer barrel of a submachinegun the velocity goes up even more.

And that's for example why the MP5SD drops its ammunition to subsonic with its pressure-lowering barrel/suppressor design: It can then use standard, fairly high-velocity 9mmP ammunition and still avoid the supersonic crack.

[echo1 0]

Why would a submachine gun be designed specifically to use supersonic rounds?

Most pistol rounds are supersonic.

[ricbar89 0]

Because the 'sub' in 'submachinegun' is for its size. Not the velocity of its bullets :)

Pistol rounds are borderline-supersonic already (some are above, some below. Depends on caliber, load and bullet weight), and when you put them in the longer barrel of a submachinegun the velocity goes up even more.

And that's for example why the MP5SD drops its ammunition to subsonic with its pressure-lowering barrel/suppressor design: It can then use standard, fairly high-velocity 9mmP ammunition and still avoid the supersonic crack.

Huh, i always thought it was bullet speed it got the name from. :)

But yeah the supersonic silenced bit makes little sense, assault rifles with supressers have pretty limited use, you're still going to alert everyone all the same but your exact location wont be as easy to find and thats about it.

http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2008/6/28/633502095110658970-Facepalm.jpg

Most pistol rounds are supersonic.

Oh look one of those pictures.

[echo1 0]

Yes, one of those pictures indeed.

Problem with subsonic bullets is that they don't put out a lot of energy and thus makes it hard to make an automatic weapon that uses them. Obviously there are plenty of examples of automatic weapons that can use subsonic rounds, but that could have been a design consideration.