How a gun silencer work?
In: Physics
There are multiple ways that a sound suppressor might work. It is common to use several of these techniques at the same time. For some guns resisting air from exiting out the barrel in front of the bullet will slow it down enough to become subsonic so you do not get the crack of breaking the sound barrier. But this does not work for most guns and also reduces the effectiveness of the guns where it does work on. So most suppressors actually help gasses to escape.
Another technique is to have baffles around the path of the bullet placed at exact distances to cause destructive resonances at the sound frequencies they try to suppress. You need several such chambers, one for each major frequency characteristic for the sound of that gun. In addition to this suppressors have chambers for the gasses to expand into filled with absorbing materials to dampen the sound.
The last technique you might see is rarely used properly and is rubber wipes. By closing off the muzzle of the gun with rubber the bullet may still be able to force its way through the rubber but then it closes up behind them and prevents the loud gasses from the explosion to exit through the same way. This only works for slow bullets and the wipes wear out very quickly so you need to replace them as you reload the magazine.
It should also be noted that none of these devices silences a gun. There is just too much noise coming from a gun to make it even close to silent. What a sound suppressor does is to reduce some of the loudest noises. It is used on some gun ranges to reduce neighbor complaints and make it possible to be in the area without ear protection.
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