A revolver science question

[Eastex]

I was killing some time last night before the championship game watching some old Walking Dead (don't judge). The scene where Rick fires the Python inside the tank came on and I told my wife that was one of the few times I'd seen the noise and blast effects shown in a movie. We then started in on how unrealistic Hollywood is on guns and I told her about the scene in one of the Dirty Harry movies with the silencer on the revolver and why that wouldn't work. It was then that she stumped me. She asked if it would make it any quieter at all and if so by what percentage. I couldn't say, would the majority of the blast be blown back through the B-C gap? Just a thought experiment I thought I'd throw out.
P.S it's a happy man that can spend time talking guns with his wife.


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[SLG]

Some revolver suppressors have been made and reportedly they worked well. One design I saw covered the front of the cylinder, iirc.

Even if you just screwed one to the barrel, you would get some reduction in noise, though what % I can't say. Highly dep3ndent on barrel length, bore and velocity.

[entropy]

IIRC, the Nagant action was reported to be quite effective as the cylider moves forward in the firing cycle and the cartridges also help seal the gap by design.

I could be full of hooey though...wife seems to think such often.

[Lost River]

Many years ago a special mission unit had 2 suppressed Redhawks made. One of which ended up in a defense manufacturer's private collection. One was supposedly stolen or lost track of. I have no idea how effective they were but it sounded pretty interesting. Plus anything .44 usually gets my attention anyways.

[Malamute]

I am curious as well. I think its going to help reduce a majority of sound, but would be harder to make as quiet as a sealed breech gun. It would be interesting to know just how much difference the cylinder gap makes. The loads used would likely have a large bearing on the efficiency as well.

It came to mind, this may be one of those things like suppressing shotguns. It may not be optimal, even if thought impossible or inordinately difficult, and just not done because it seemed impractical given other options. Someone may mess with it and conclude it isn't as difficult as generally assumed. In other words, the old thing about theory and practice. In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice, they aren't.

I'm one of the people that would probably be interested in one, I use revolvers more than autos. Suppressed K-22? K-38 or 19? Not sure how non-intrusive a mount could be made.

[Hizzie]

Suppressing a revolver. Nagant immediately comes to mind.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There was a suppressed Ruger revolver as a one off years ago. IIRC - it was written up in one of the early Gun Digest Assault Weapons (horrors) books. It was heavily modified for the gaps. It also appeared in an episode of the X-Files. However, someone else can google for it to see if I have this correct.

[PNWTO]

Many years ago a special mission unit had 2 suppressed Redhawks made. One of which ended up in a defense manufacturer's private collection. One was supposedly stolen or lost track of. I have no idea how effective they were but it sounded pretty interesting. Plus anything .44 usually gets my attention anyways.

Some Google-Fu revealed this:



RugerTalk Link

Back in the early 1990s C. Reed Knight Jr.'s Knight's Armament Co (KAC) of Vero Beach, Florida responded to a shadowy call from a government agency as yet unnamed to produce a small and short ranged but devastating suppressed rifle. Their answer was a unique weapon based upon a Ruger Super Red Hawk.

The story goes that KAC built the gun on spec to provide a weapon capable of making effective anti-personnel shots at ranges of up to 100-yards, while being capable of a rapid follow-up shot. The rub was that it could not eject shell casings (so there would be nothing left behind by the user to pick up before leaving the area presumably). This ruled out semi-autos, bolt, pump, and lever actions. In fact, it left the revolver as the answer. But everyone knows you can't suppress a revolver, right?

Well, about that.

...

Nevertheless, did it work?

From the SOF article:

"The sound signature produced by this system is about 119 dB. The sound pressure generated by the weapon unsuppressed is about 163 dB. The sound of the hammer dropping on an empty chamber is about 112 dB, so the muzzle blast is reduced to only 7 dB more than the sound of the action and the firearms flash signature is completely eliminated."

[Drang]

Allegedly one can wrap a towel over the cylinder gap to reduce the noise signature, but I don't know that anyone has tested to see whether that's not simply more gun store commando-ism.

That revolver S&W(?) made for German police has a cylinder cover that might perform the same "function".

[Eastex]

I was telling my wife there wasn't a real practical use for it and then she reminded me that our (distant) neighbors might like it when I was going through my 357 magnum reloads.


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