Pistol with silencer. How noisy?

[dhcdavid]

So S.O. people....

As a disclaimer I'm a Brit and consequently have zero access to firearms....so am therefore appealing for help from my fellow Blers in The States!

I'd always heard that although a silencer is effective the overall noise of a silenced-pistol could be compared to a car door slamming....... and ever since hearing this whenever I see in films a silced-pistol being used I try to work out how realistic (or not) the level of noise is.

But today I read somewhere else that a silenced pistol in fact sounds closer to 110 decibels - equivalent to the sound of a pneumatic drill or someone really shouting loudly in your ear.

Could somebody out there who owns one or has first-hand knowledge of this topic settle this one for me?

How loud would a pistol-with-silencer attached be? And still on topic, how realistic is the silenced-shotgun used to such deadly effect in "No Country For Old Men" ? Could it work in reality? And how much noise would a silced-shotgun make?

Many thanks in advance for answering my question!

 

[Folley]

Completely depends on the gun.

A .22 can be silenced to almost nothing, a shotgun has so much power it is almost literally impossible to quiet down... and sawed off? FORGET IT. The suppressor would be bigger than the gun, and still ineffective.

 

[tweex]

I've shot a suppressed .22 with CB rounds, and it is as quiet as in the movies.

I've also shot a suppressed .45, which is still loud as hell.

 

[dhcdavid]

Many thanks foley and tweex!

So is it also the general consensus that the silenced shotgun in "No Country For Old Men" which Javier Bardem carries just couldn't exist in reality?

 

[Morphling]

As a technical note, the gun being fired has to use sub-sonic rounds, or any suppression device will be rendered useless by the fact that the bullet will produce a sonic boom.

I don't actually know if you can silence a shotgun, but having fired a variety of them, it seems rather unlikely.

 

[MrGrunge]

Many thanks foley and tweex!

So is it also the general consensus that the silenced shotgun in "No Country For Old Men" which Javier Bardem carries just couldn't exist in reality?

Shotgun suppressors exist, but they are nowhere near as effective as the one in the movie. From what I've read even good shotgun suppressors only reduce the noise by about 6 dB.

 

[dhcdavid]

Once more, many thanks to those who took the time to post in this thread.

Is there any question that S.O. regulars cannot answer?