It’s quite the exception when Hollywood gets any details correct. And where firearms are concerned, they almost universally get it wrong. We see guns that never run out of ammunition and that never need their magazine changed. Revolvers that run forever on one cylinder of ammo. Massive muzzle flashes that stretch out several feet. People being blown off their feet and flying back several yards when hit by bullets. Most Hollywood guns have a distinct lack of recoil and can be fired full-auto by the hero with one hand. According to movie actors, hip shooting is supremely accurate.
Where Reality And Fantasy Collide
Unfortunately, many people actually believe what they see on the big screen as if it were fact. This is mainly because they have either no or very little real-world experience with the weapons and stunts that they are viewing. The majority of people these days have no actual experience with belt-fed machine guns, submachine guns, sniper rifles, or silencers.
Ah, yes, the silencers. Those little devices that we see screwed onto the barrel of a gun, rendering the gun to make a tiny, cute, “ptew ptew” sound that’s about as loud as your cat sneezing. From across a crowded room, Hollywood types can assassinate their rival without anyone noticing the muzzle blast from the handgun they’re using (often a revolver). There’s just a tiny “ptew!” and the victim collapses, dead on the spot. And people believe it.
Why not? They’ve never actually heard a pistol being fired with a sound suppressor. Oh, and that’s another thing: they’re really not silencers; they’re sound suppressors. The slang term is silencer, but it’s not really accurate. We refer to “silenced” weapons as suppressed weapons.
Does this fantasy do any real harm? After all, people enjoy kicking back and watching a movie to relax. By and large, most of us would say that there’s no harm. Or is there?
Personally, I’ll say the harm comes from the general public believing the fantasy that we see on screen and then politicians using that ignorance to draft ridiculous gun laws. Those laws are overflowing with glaring errors, and when passed, negatively affect all of us. Yes, a huge number of gun laws have been influenced by Hollywood fantasy.
The Reality
The majority of suppressors do not reduce muzzle blast down to a tiny “ptew” like we hear in so many movies. There are those that do, but it takes a special set of circumstances that we’ll touch upon.
One of the first suppressors I ever heard being used was on a .45 caliber pistol. I was taken aback by how loud it actually was when used with a suppressor! Granted, it was considerably more quiet than the standard .45 ACP being fired, but it was nowhere near what I pictured it would be (yes, I was basing my “reality” on what I’d seen in the movies). The .45 with the suppressor sounded more like a .22 Long Rifle pistol.
Generally speaking, a .45 ACP pistol is about 160 decibels. A good suppressor will reduce the noise signature to around 130 or 135 decibels or so. That’s still a relatively loud noise and can cause hearing damage.
Decibels
Decibels are a unit of measure related to sound. A normal conversation is around 60-65 decibels. The threshold of pain is considered to be 140 decibels.
Dr. William Clark, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at the Noise Laboratory at the Central Institute For The Deaf in St. Louis, says the damage caused by one shot from a .357 Magnum, which is about 165 dB for 2 msec, is equal to over 40 hours in a noisy workplace.
I’ll list a few other calibers here so readers can have a general reference point for popular firearms and the decibels that accompany them:
- 12 gauge shotgun with 18.5-inch barrel: 161.5 db.
- .223 55 grain load from 18.5-inch barrel: 155.5 db.
- .30-30 from 20-inch barrel: 156 db.
- .308 from 24-inch barrel: 156.2 db.
- 9mm pistol: 159.8 db.
- .38 Special: 156.3 db.
Of course, there are variables at work here, such as barrel length, powders used, and the type of ammunition, as well as environmental factors. The above figures are averages and give us a general vicinity to illustrate the points made here.
Supersonic Shockwave
Generally speaking, the point at which a bullet becomes supersonic is 1,116.4 feet per second. I say generally because environmental factors such as elevation and such become factors.
When a bullet is supersonic, we hear a shockwave or “crack” from the projectile. As such, even if we were to completely silence a firearm, we’d still hear the crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier if we used that type of ammunition. For that reason, many suppressed weapons are used in conjunction with subsonic ammunition.
Of course, Hollywood has no inkling that this is even a thing.
How Suppressors Work
A suppressor, in general, captures at least some of the sound that would otherwise escape from the end of a firearm’s muzzle in much the same way that your car’s muffler mutes the sound of the exhaust. The escaping gasses are slowed down and redirected by the suppressor.
Inside the suppressor’s cylinder, there are baffles and expansion chambers, which help trap the gases and prevent them from rapidly escaping. The gasses are also slowed and cooled inside, which makes things quieter.
Revolvers
Most revolvers cannot be suppressed effectively because of the gap between the cylinder and the barrel, where sound would escape, causing a loud noise. There are a few exceptions, but they are rare.
However, that doesn’t stop Hollywood from depicting silenced revolvers frequently.
Can they really make a gun whisper-quiet?
Yes, some suppressors can actually silence a gun. However, they are the exception.
I’ll speak in general terms again here to illustrate the point. Let’s say we have a .22 rifle with an effective suppressor attached and are using subsonic ammunition. A bolt action will be most effective because, in a semi-auto, we would hear the action working each time the weapon is fired. However, the shooter works the bolt action, which can be done more quietly.
I just played around with exactly this type of setup a few days ago: a bolt action with an effective suppressor and subsonic ammunition. The rifle was a Savage MK II FV-SR in .22 Long Rifle, and the threaded barrel allowed the suppressor to be screwed onto it.
Overall, it was amazingly efficient. With the subsonic .22 rounds being used, this rifle was quieter than the pellet rifle that I own. It was amazing to behold. I’ve also seen the Ruger 10/22 rifle suppressed down to a level where only the action clacking could be heard when it fired. There are some other rigs that can also be nearly completely silenced, but that goes way beyond screwing a suppressor onto the end of a pistol.
Closing Thoughts
While some weapon and suppressor combos can almost completely silence a firearm, they are not as plentiful as Hollywood might have us think. A quick YouTube search will yield amazing results about how suppressors work in the real world versus the Hollywood hype.
With very few exceptions, we watch movies for their entertainment value without expecting to learn anything. Once again, we see that we can’t believe everything that the movies show us. Yes, Hollywood lied to us, but it wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last time!
