Do Beretta pistols use gunpowder to fire?

Question

I just need to know because I'm describing a pistol shooting in a story, and I want to know if I can write "deafening crack of gunpowder".

Answer 1

All normal firearms use gun powder unless it’s an air gun.
Their are some 22 cal rim fire that use only a primer charge only with out gun powder.
This excludes all Star Wars, Star Trek weapons and or spud guns.
The crack you hear is both powder charge and if the bullet brakes the sound barrier a sonic crack I as loud as the powder charge if not louder.
But those bullets traveling below the speed of sound you will hear only the powder charge crack.

The first answer who claims to be a gunsmith is an nut case

From Wikipedia, encyclopedia

Supersonic bullet speed does make a secondary sonic crack


The bullet bow shockwave is the result of air being greatly compressed at the front-most tip of the bullet as it slices through the air. As the bullet moves forward a broadening wave of compressed air trails out diagonally from the bullet tip. The sides of the bullet create a conical waveform. This Conical waveform may be audible to a witness as a whip-crack sound.

A bullet bow shockwave will be heard by any witness as long as the bullet speed is faster than the speed of sound, whether the bullet was fired from a weapon giving off an openly audible muzzle blast, or a mechanically-suppress-fired muzzle ( silenced weapon) blast. If a bullet is fired from a silenced weapon, a witness can mistake the bullet bow audible shockwave whip-crack for the weapon muzzle blast audible wave, which is a separate, slightly preceding, audible event. It might be noted here that if one incurs such an event, that the sound you hear from a silenced weapon will not be from the point of origin.

Look at the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_bow_shockwave

D58

Answer 2

Gunpowder kind of fizzes when it burns outside the confines of a gun barrel. :) The sound you hear from a gun is when the higher pressure inside the barrel is released into the lower pressure atmosphere of air, as the bullet breaks its seal in the barrel.
Yes they use gunpowder to fire. I think you can use your term for dramatic effect. Sounds good to me.

I had to come back with a P.S. I have fired both a revolver and a double action pistol chambered for the same caliber. The revolver is the louder of the two. In a revolver the bullet breaks its seal as it jumps from magazine to the barrel. Which is closer to the source of the of the sound than the other end of the barrel. The revolver fires the same weight bullets at lower velocities than the automatic. There is a gap of just a few thousandths of an inch between magazine and and the end of a barrel on a revolver where gas pressure is lost there and then again at the other end of the barrel. It happens so fast and the gas loss when the bullet leaves the barrel causes a lower sound. You hear a double boom, if you will. The second sound is a slightly lower decibel.

And for those talking about subsonic rounds this refers actually to the bullet velocities below the speed of sound and a lower powder charge to attain subsonic velocities. You will still get a sound from the gas pressure release at the end of the barrel, albeit a lower decibel. Subsonic rounds have a steeper angle of trajectory. And less likely to go into a tumble or wobble that will effect accuracy caused by breaking the sound barrier.

Answer 3

Gunpowder is the common terminology for bullet propellant, some older firearms still use blackpowder as the charge, but most modern firearms use a smokeless powder, or gunpowder, the person who claimed to be a gunsmith is a liar, any REAL gunsmith wouldn't have said NO. Secondly, a subsonic round still produces a crack, but there is no secondary crack as the bullet breaks the sound barrier. An example would be the .300 whisper, it is designed as a subsonic rifle round with enough knockdown power to drop most of north america's medium game, at one time ( years ago) the military had an option to adopt it as a sniper round, since a fully supressed 300 whisper makes absolutely no sound at all, but the round is simply not effective at long distance, or against body armor. The round still produces a great deal of noise when it's fired, but there is no secondary crack due to the bullets sub sonic performance.

Answer 4

No. They use compressed methane gas captured with balloons from cows in the field.
Such a question is undeserving a straight answer.

Answer 5

Most firearms use gunpowder as a propellant. gausse rifles, rail guns, and teddy rosevelts dynamite gun being exeptions.
The "crack" you hear is not the gunpwder however, but the projectile itself breaking the sound barrier.

Answer 6

D58 is correct. The first guy is wrong.

Answer 7

No.