INTREGRAL SILENCE RIFLE

[Meteor]

I know the following sounds silly but I heard a 223 through a silencer a few days ago. Shooting in to a tree at 5m something didn't sound right. I have no clue if it was my imagination but it was too soft, almost as if the bullet did not have enough time to crack...ridiculous yes, but try it.
The difference, at short distance, with and without silencer seemed to differ greatly.

I tried this again today. Complete nonsense. The sonic boom did not sound different when shooting at different distance targets. Sorry my imagination did me in.

[Messor]

Educate me here because I have never seen the inside of an integral silencer. For it to work the integral silencer will either have to extend past the muzzle of the rifle/pistol, very much like a reflex suppressor, or there will be ports cut directly into the barrel or a combination of these two methods?

Please note this is just one example, on most rifles they don't have ports anywhere near the chamber as you need gas to accelerate the bullet, they just have the gas escape near the muzzle and also trapped in in a baffle system, like most of the BLK models, internal combustion cannot be ignored in the setup.

For rifles you have two main advantages, moving the weight more towards the rear whiles maintaining a short OAL, and slower heat buildup vs a normal screw on suppressor. It's easy to do in a pistol caliber, for bigger stuff you must suffer either a shorter barrel and/or less MV.

[TStone]

Thanks, I can see the advantage for .22 rimfire, pistol caliber and dedicated subsonic calibers like the .300 Blackout. So, for the OP's intended use it makes perfect sense but for a general hunting rifle I think a normal detachable silencer makes far more sense.

[curious george]

A link to a US outfit that seem to specialize in this type of thing.


https://www.swsrifles.com/

[Heath Robinson]

Just a question for those who have detacheable suppressors on "normal" rifles:
How often do you shoot them bare-muzzle?

I have two. Both show a significant zero shift and consequently virtually never get used without the suppressor.
But I also have rifles I will not suppress, purely for aesthetic reasons.

My first serious hunting rifle was a very pretty little Ruger M77 RSI. Full stock and 18.5" barrel. That thing was extremely loud, and when I replaced it, the next rifle purposefully had a 4" longer barrel. Not to get more velocity, but to get less noise. Note, this was in the days before electronic noise protection.

I really suspect that, should it reach the point where one cannot hunt with an un-suppressed rifle anymore, I will build a rifle with a relatively short barrel and an integral suppressor. Thus retaining good handling without excessive noise.

Just for clarity, this is for bushveld walk-and-stalk, which is for me the most enjoyable form of hunting. For "voorsit" or shooting off a bakkie rifle length is not a big issue.

[TStone]

I have suppressed and non-suppressed rifles, I very rarely shoot the suppressed ones without the suppressors, except when chronographing. Av shift in POI is very common when removing the suppressor and is often quite radical.

I prefer suppressed rifles for some tasks and non-suppressed for other tasks.

My wife has a 7x57 with a 20" barrel, fitted with a Fryer & Devik 131 suppressor. Due to the short length of pull and the suppressor only adding 5" to length (and being really light @ 131gr) it is probably the best compromise between handling, weight and comfort for your ears. The Fryer & Devik 149 and 196 suppressors add even less length (4") but is slightly heavier.

I am playing with the idea of getting a light .308, shortening the barrel to 18" and fitting a F & D suppressor. This will give the same overall length (and similar balance) as a 22" barreled non-suppressed rifle. With a fixed 4x or a low power variable scope it will make a nice stalking rifle while still offering the advantages of a suppressed rifle.

[Heath Robinson]

TStone, those are some seriously impressive weight numbers! And as you say, the handling penalty of something that extends 4-5" past the end of the muzzle on a relatively short barrel will be very small.
An integral suppressor will almost certainly weigh more than that, but will still have an advantage, either in diameter or in volume (which is a large factor in sound suppression).

As I see it, the OP's primary goal is probably minimum sound signature. If that supposition is correct, I suspect integral still has value.

To the OP: many years ago I experimented with a suppressor on my .44-40 lever-action carbine. It was purely intended as a temporary measure as I did not want to either thread the muzzle or shorten the magazine tube (which extends to virtually the end of the muzzle), I made a Nylon rear cap which was a tight fit on the muzzle. The suppressor tube itself was simply a piece of 50mm PVC pipe, and the front cap was another piece of nylon. Internally it had a smaller PVC tube with some baffles on the inside and some large holes between the baffles, except for the last roughly 50mm. I loaded some 315gr bullets sub-sonically. This suppressor was so quiet that I could actually hear the bullet in flight. The construction was also strong enough, and I fired a couple of hundred shots with it without failure. However this is probably only true for something that is subsonic or nearly so as the muzzle pressures of such rounds are fairly low.

However the impact of the bullet was a substantial sound in it's own right.

Since then I have also experimented quite a lot with subsonic .308 loads.

For this reason, I want to say don't go for a bigger caliber than you need. I think a 300 Blackout with a minimum-length barrel and a carbon-fiber tubed integral or reflex suppressor would be a very cool project. At least part of the reason is that one can now apparently get bullets designed to expand at these subsonic velocities for this caliber.

[curious george]

Don't know if it's worth starting a new thread for,but I want to scratch this itch. But using a std Ruger Mk1 22lr pistol. Anyone considered the "go-to" smith for this type of (re)build? And, while I'm drifting, anywhere I go to for 2 or 3 extra mags?

[oafpatroll]

Don't know if it's worth starting a new thread for,but I want to scratch this itch. But using a std Ruger Mk1 22lr pistol. Anyone considered the "go-to" smith for this type of (re)build? And, while I'm drifting, anywhere I go to for 2 or 3 extra mags?

I'd try special Armory for mags.

[curious george]

Thx. seems L. is out of stock for now.