Suppressors

[Jeckyll]

I've been looking around and haven't found a thread pertaining to this, so I thought I would ask.
When it comes to suppressors, is there a level beyond the "mock" silencer? I have what is considered a mock silencer on my G&G UMP, and, though it makes a slight difference, it doesn't really compare to other silencers I've heard in terms on actual suppression of sound and all that jazz.
If there is a quality beyond "mock", perhaps "real" (lol), what brands would be recommended?

[ShelledPants]

On a real gun, a suppressor works by slowing the gasses released from the shot, this is done by forcing the gas through a series of baffles.

In airsoft, the sound produced from the barrel of the gun is from the piston head smacking the cylinder head, and from the gears moving. The best way to quieten the barrel's end of the deal (with a suppressor) is to find a long suppressor with lots of porous foam which is soft to the touch.

The effect we are looking for is a dampening of the sound waves, and to scramble them before they can reach the suppressor's exit.

This, however, is inferior to making your piston head quieter, and having quiet gears.

[theshaneler]

also, a great way to cover the sound of you shooting your gun is to set up a speaker system that makes a cough sound every time you shoot, you know, the same way you cover up a fart.

[PrIeSt]

You should patent that.

They are usually used to hide a longer inner barrel.

[Rabbit]

The sound is from your mechbox. Think about the gears, and the mechanics of what happens.

I have put up question posts about quieting your gun, Amos & Thundercactus set me straight if I remember correctly.

Its all about the MASK Piston/cylinder head set. Sorbo pads etc.

EDIT:
http://airsoftcanada.com/showthread.php?t=110748
http://airsoftcanada.com/showthread.php?t=107548

[GODSPEED|seven]

Also keep in mind that when shooting you have your gearbox and all the goodies right next to your ear. Ask a friend to shoot your gun and walk away while he is doing that. You should notice a huge difference when using a suppressor.

I have a Classic Army UMP and I have the suppressor that goes with it.. it is a little thicker and longer than a typical pistol suppressor. It makes a huge difference in sound. When I shoot the gun, I feel it's really noisy, but 20 feet away, no one hears it at all.. completely different story if I take the suppressor off.

Also, keep in mind a REAL suppressor for real steel is to very tight tolerances; it actually extends the barrel with the SAME diameter so that no sound escapes around the bullet as it comes out the barrel. That would, to my knowledge, be impossible to recreate in airsoft, as it would require holes in a 6.08 (or less) diameter inner barrel. BB's would probably just break or come out quite innacurately.

But please correct me if I am wrong.

[MaciekA]

Originally Posted by GODSPEED|seven

But please correct me if I am wrong.

Pretty much correct, assuming a few things.

Basically from my experience the get-it-quiet list is:

1. Gear whine - Whine from a poorly-shimmed gun seems to be the biggest "win" you can have right away so everyone's first priority when quieting their gun down is the mechbox. Shim your gears and adjust your motor height and grease well.
2. Piston slap - This is the sound of your piston hitting the cylinder head. You can reduce this by using 40 duro sorbothane pads ( http://clandestineairsoft.com/index....products_id=42 ), which will also adjust your angle of engagement (you'll need to possibly remove teeth on your piston to accomodate this).
3. Compression pop leaving the barrel. Silencers work here, though in my experience you need a lot of length and foam, so don't just get one of those tiny ones. If you want to impress your airsoft buddies with a "silenced" noise, remove all the foam (keep it in a clean baggie somewhere). If you have something like an aluminum G&P silencer, your gun will now make a *foomp!* bottle-esque noise and people will come up to you at games remarking on how "silent" your gun is. I have no idea why this seems to trick people's brains as well as it does.
4. The motor itself doesn't make a ton of noise, which you can verify by running the motor outside of the gun, but I'm guessing that all other things being equal, high torque neo motors will sound better due to lower rpms and increased efficiency.

Two experiments you can run to teach yourself how much noise a gun makes and where:

- Take your motor out of the grip and place it on the table, still connected. Make sure to hold it down steady with one finger on the can because it's about to try to fly off the table. Also watch for flinging grease. Pull the trigger. That's the noise your motor makes. This is unavoidable, but a very minor component of the system.

- Take your entire gun to the nearest couch or bed and completely cover and smother it in as many layers of sheets, pillows, bed covers, jackets, throws and snuggies you can find. Now make sure that the very end of the barrel is able to stick out of the pile somewhere so that it is exposed to the room. Press down on the pile HARD with one arm and put the other arm inside of the pile and find the trigger. Pull the trigger a few times. That's the sound of compression pop along with whatever other sound was transmitted down the barrel. If you do this experiment correctly, you won't hear much gear/motor noise. This experiment will help you evaluate a given suppressor system. Having a laptop and a copy of Audacity (audio program) and setting up your experiment identically each time apart from the suppressor itself helps isolate and measure the effect of the variable you're changing.

I should also add that in my experience it seems that the sound that travels the furthest in outdoor games seems to be compression pop.

[Curo]

Next week silence your GBB.

Jokes.

[Freeze]

Make your GBB sound like it fart each time. And then remember not to shoot too fast.

[Cifyra]

Originally Posted by MaciekA

[*]Compression pop leaving the barrel. Silencers work here, though in my experience you need a lot of length and foam, so don't just get one of those tiny ones. If you want to impress your airsoft buddies with a "silenced" noise, remove all the foam (keep it in a clean baggie somewhere). If you have something like an aluminum G&P silencer, your gun will now make a *foomp!* bottle-esque noise and people will come up to you at games remarking on how "silent" your gun is. I have no idea why this seems to trick people's brains as well as it does.

It's closer to what people expect a silenced real steel would sound like. Also, you hear the bottle sound louder than the gear Wyrrrr-ing sound, adding to the realism.

[Grizzly0679]

Originally Posted by ShelledPants

On a real gun, a suppressor works by slowing the gasses released from the shot, this is done by forcing the gas through a series of baffles.

In airsoft, the sound produced from the barrel of the gun is from the piston head smacking the cylinder head, and from the gears moving. The best way to quieten the barrel's end of the deal (with a suppressor) is to find a long suppressor with lots of porous foam which is soft to the touch.

The effect we are looking for is a dampening of the sound waves, and to scramble them before they can reach the suppressor's exit.

That's super interesting. I wasn't sure if you could in fact silence an airsoft rifle. Science > everything.

[tunabreath]

Originally Posted by Cobalt Caliber

Next week silence your GBB.

Jokes.

Hah, I have a silencer for my WE PDW for 'realism,' (can only hear the action cycle), but I am generally too lazy to deal with the extra length.

[Dynamo]

Originally Posted by GODSPEED|seven

But please correct me if I am wrong.

it depends largely on how you have your gun setup.
i'll use my VFC416 and my buddies ICS M4 before i did my fancy work to it as an example.

on the ICS, the piston smack was fairly loud as both piston head and cylinder are the basic flat face design. with a silencer on it did help reduce the audible smacking quite a bit, but what ever could be heard from the piston was drowned out by the gears. ICS guns are notorious for having noisy grindy gearboxes, most of the noise coming from the anti-reverse latch.

so in his case, running a silencer for anything other than aesthetics was pointless.

another thing to consider that not many people know about or have even considered trying out is how the end of their inner barrel is cut and or crowned. i am lucky enough to have a mill/lathe at home for testing this kind of stuff, and have found that with the right amount of crowning, the barrel can produce quite the nice "POP" when a BB leaves the end of it. i find that normal airsoft barrels have deep sloping crowns which let the pressurized air behind the BB out progressively, limiting any sound produced by the BB as it leaves the barrel. so using a silencer to muffle that really wont do anything.

on my VFC i have put upgrades into it to make it as quiet internally as possible. with a re-crowned barrel (-5*< crown) many people have mistaken my VFC to be a gas gun. on their end, all they can hear is the report from the muzzle as sharp crisp "POP POP POP!". when i install a silencer, it reduces that "POP" to a barely audible "whump". coupled with the extremely quiet gearbox/motor setup, i have shot at players in the bush from within 15 feet, and watched them look around trying to figure out where the BB came from.. even had some continue on playing after looking around as if they were never shot.. until i shoot a burst at them to make sure they know someone is looking at them.

so yea, a silencer can make quite a bit of difference depending on your setup.

as for RS silencers, yea they are precision made, and no the baffles inside the silencer as well as the end cap at the front end of the silencer never touch the bullet. to do so would cause the bullet to destabilize, and come out a newly formed hole on the side of your silencer. when i say the silencer is precision made, i mean the positioning of the holes down the length of the baffles. the holes have to be virtually perfectly centered and uniform in their shape as to not cause random turbulence in the gas cloud around the bullet. if you look at high speed video of a silencer being shot through, you will see the hot gases exiting the end of the silencer just before the bullet. this is why some silencers are multi-caliber capable. they have a max caliber rating on them, and smaller caliber rounds should work fine with it.

this is on a .22 rifle, but the action is the same. you can clearly see some of the gases making it out of the barrel before the round.
22sparrrow high speed video wet - YouTube

[CDN_Stalker]

I made a wicked suppressor for my KSC M11A1 a bunch of years ago, had a co-worker make a nylon end cap and a threaded aluminum mount for an old phenolic tube I found which was the right size for a suppressor, and once that was ready I cut thick rubber rings, put a grommet inside each, and used those to suspend a piece of 1/4" ID brass tube that mated with the inner barrel of the gun, drilled a dozen holes in the last half of the brass tube, and then lined the tube with alternating thick/thin cut copper pipe insulation.

Result, where I'd get a loud 'BRAAAAAAPPPPPPPP!' without the suppressor on, with it on all you heard was the bolt clacking back and forth. Also increased my velocity by 30-60fps DOT.

AEGs, as said, most of the noise is gears and piston hitting cylinder head, but there is a pop sound when the BB leaves the barrel, so that can be quieted down with a suppressor.

[MASAKO]

Stalker, my though on you is wrong. You are not only manafacture some knife but did some prohibited item in technically talking.