For reference on just how loud that is, an ambulance or police siren is typically between 100-140 dB. However, for most commercially available fire arms and cartridges, this ends up only reducing the noise level to somewhere in the range of 130-150-ish dB for a supersonic cartridge and 117-130-ish dB for a subsonic cartridge. That’s actually pretty significant considering the decibel system is a logarithmic scale so, for example, 200 dB is 1000 times louder than 100 dB, not double, and a reduction of 40 dB is more like 1/100th of the original sound. The average suppression level, according to independent tests done on a variety of commercially available suppressors, is around 30 dB, which is around the same reduction level of typical ear protection gear often used when firing guns. Modern day silencers typically can reduce the noise about 14.3-43 decibels, depending on a variety of factors, such as whether it’s a subsonic bullet or not length of the barrel/silencer etc. How Much Sound Do Gun Silencers Actually Suppress The sound of the bullet striking the target can range from mostly in-audible to every bit as loud as the original gunshot.
The mechanical action can be quite loud on some types of fire arms, such as a Sterling Submachine Gun, which produces over 115 dB from the firing mechanism alone. Other typically minor noise makers from the gunshot are the mechanical action the sound of the bullet striking the target and the flight noise of the bullet itself, which typically is only audible if the bullet comes relatively close to the person hearing it (depends on the caliber of bullet for how close that needs to be).
#THE SOUND OF A GUNSHOT RINGS OUT CRACK#
The primary other source of noise in a gunshot is the sonic crack created by the bullet (for bullets that exceed the sound barrier, which is a large majority, unless they are modified to specifically be subsonic). This is only a portion of what makes a gunshot loud. Silencers primarily only suppress the noise due to the pressure wave from the rapidly expanding propellant gases. “Silencers”, also known as “suppressors”, on guns don’t make them anywhere near silent. Myth: Gun silencers make guns nearly silent.