Half joking, I don't think my savings on mufflers would make up for the lost sleep. But the point was serious - the "desire for silence = ill intent" argument is absurd, as is the declaration that an object is evil.

Yep, it's ridiculous.

I just think a silencer for may .45ACP would be fun as hell.

I mean, you could go all James Bond on a target, or poster of Clinton or something.

[quote=Groth]Mikael, you've got me confused with PlawsWorth. I'm in the US.

QUOTE]

True, my mistake. "Fort fast fel" (quick but wrong) as the saying goes. PlawsWorth it should be.

Sandman, does a silencer do any good on a semiauto without a slidelock?
regards
Mikael S.

on a 45??? the neighbors will still call the police on you at 2 in the morning!

"hello, 911"
"uh... someone has some bigass firecrackers nextdoor"

Not really, you just have to get some subsonic bullets. Just put some heavy bullets, and some slow powder in.

as far as i know it the big bang you hear is the bullet breaking the sound barrier..

Sound is just a change in pressure. The 'bang' comes from the release of gasses when the bullet exits the barrel. Think of it as popping a (really high pressure) balloon.

The idea of a silencer is to capture those high pressure, high velocity gasses; to slow them down and spread out their release in both space and time. Less pressure change, less sound.

Yep, the silencer slows down the gasses, but, as Sandman points out, the bullet must be kept from causing a sonic bang.
Regarding the slidelock: The silencer takes care of the gas coming out of the muzzle, but there´s a lot of gas coming out through the ejection port as well. A slidelock keeps the slide in place and the ejection port closed until the slide is manually cycled, way after the gas has left the gun.
regards
Mikael S.

The 'sonic bang' from super-sonic bullets isn't really significant. Bullets don't displace enough air as they travel to produce high pressures and sharply defined shockwaves.

Unless you're using heavy artillery.... :D

Larger caliber rifles do too. And, if you wanna be silenced anything helps.

Ever hard a rifle bullet go over your head? it's loud.

I was out a shoot competition at Camp Perry around here. And, I was down in the bunker scoring when thye let loose with about 200 Garands. You can definatly hear them going over.