It is amazing that anything is able to silence a gun, but gun silencers actually work on a very simple principle.
Imagine a balloon. If you pop a balloon with a pin, it will make a loud noise. But if you were to untie the end of the balloon and let the air out slowly, you could pop it making very little noise. That is the basic idea behind a gun silencer.
To fire a bullet from a gun, gunpowder is ignited behind the bullet. The gunpowder creates a high-pressure pulse of hot gas. The pressure of the gas forces the bullet down the barrel of the gun. When the bullet exits the end of the barrel, it is like uncorking a bottle. The pressure behind the bullet is immense, however -- on the order of 3,000 pounds per square inch (psi) -- so the POP that the gun makes as it is uncorked is extremely loud.
A silencer screws on to the end of the barrel and has a huge volume compared to the barrel (20 or 30 times greater). With the silencer in place, the pressurized gas behind the bullet has a big space to expand into. So the pressure of the hot gas falls significantly. When the bullet finally exits through the hole in the silencer, the pressure being uncorked is much, much lower -- perhaps 60 psi. Therefore, the sound of the gun firing is much softer.
2006-09-11 21:26:06
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answer #1
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answered by Rocket Surgeon 2
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First of all, a "silencer" is usually actually a "supressor", used to muffle the sound of the explosion caused by the ignition of the powder in the round. If you don't use subsonic rounds (bullets with less powder load that won't break the sound barrier), you still get a sharp crack when the round leaves the barrel.
As far as how they work, a real silencer is very wide, nothing at all like the little things you see in movies. The inside of the silencer contains baffles that absorb most of the gas that is released as the round speeds down the barrel. The difference is sound is caused because the pressure has bled off into the silencer before the round leaves the chamber, instead of the "bang" of it all leaving the barrel at once.
2006-09-12 04:32:45
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answer #2
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answered by Anonymous
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Most silencers have thre cylender casings from the size of the barrel to the size of the outer casing with rings around each tube the rings are also lined with holes each cylinder is also drilled through all over accept the outer casing all these holes act as pockets capturing the sound of the shot as the bullet exits the barrel.
2006-09-12 04:31:48
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answer #3
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answered by kauaiboi 2
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Here's a great article:
http://people.howstuffworks.com/question112.htm
2006-09-12 04:24:46
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answer #4
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answered by Ender 6
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