Wartime, home made silencer

A recent new thread on a silenced Sten made me recall a home made silencer which a chap showed to me years ago, late 1970s/early 1980s. The chap made it because he wasn't able to purchase a ready made example during the war and although I never thought to ask him exactly why he needed it, he was a gun enthusiast all his life and did serve in the Home Guard. As I recall it, the outer body of the silencer was made to attache to the muzzle of the gun and the other end of the silencer had a removable end plate. The chap showed me the baffles which he had turned on his lathe and baffle packing pieces. These baffles and baffle packing pieces were really just like steel washers; the baffle packing pieces had larger holes than the baffles. The other item which the chap had made was a baffle alignment rod which, as the name suggest, was a steel rod.

The chap explained that when he wished to fit the silencer to gun he would first attache the outer body tube, empty without any baffles or packing pieces, to the muzzle. He would then insert the alignment rod into the bore of the gun which extended out of the silencer body. Then he would fit one baffle followed by one packing piece onto the alignment rod and into the silencer body. When he had fitted all the baffles and packing pieces the silencer end cap was screwed on to "clamp" the baffles into alignment with the bore. Finally the alignment rod was removed.

I have no personal experience of silencers and so don't know if the manner in which the chap designed his own version is similar to how commercial versions are designed. Do the baffles and packing pieces always have to be fitted after the silencer body has been fitted to the weapon? I don't recall what calibre the silencer was designed for.

I have wondered, in recent years, if the chap concerned may have also been a member of the Auxiliary Units as well as the Home Guard but have not seen any proof of it.

Suppressors are a number of principles and when applied they usually work to an end. How effectively depends on how many rules you break during construction. Steel heats up and expands and contracts, doesn't cool readily holding heat so there are better metals to use. You don't need an alignment rod, all internals should be a tight fit. Today's "J" baffles and "K" baffles have done away with many outdated practices. The can should be assembled and you should be able to carry it until needed completely assembled. There are many small things to know about these, there are complete PDF about it on the internet...easier than writing the whole thing again here. Call up a picture of "Sonic suppressors" on the internet and the pics will show you many things that will make it easier for you to grasp...

By the way, there are many fables about suppression that shouldn't be believed. Look at the pics, you'll get it...

I remember as a kid my uncle had a Mossberg Sound Moderator made for a .22 rifle, I always wanted to own it but over time a gun tinkerer friend of his talked him into letting him try it out on a .22-250 he was building up for ground hogs. That once coveted item is now just a straight empty tube with no forward end or internals. I wish they would legalize them here, I have seen suppressed Ruger 1022's at the National Gun Day show in Louisville Kentucky and would love to own one. Back in more sensible times before the city moved to the country I used to shoot my AR15 back in a friends bush, try it today and within minutes there are police cruisers circling the block.

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Originally Posted by #1oilman

my uncle had a Mossberg Sound Moderator made for a .22 rifle

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The suppressor your uncle owned was for a .22, there would be no sensible one for e 22-250 as the bullet will give you as much sonic crack as a rifle will. Also muzzle pressures would clean the insides out. There's a company in NZ that builds cans for about any rifle you'd like, have a look at their site... Gunworks Ltd - Suppressors Accessories Even the Maxim silencer for the 1903 rifles were just a sound moderator. Some of these are better now though, things have come a long way. Ruger offers their 10/22 and pistols with integral cans now. I saw a picture of an IDF soldier nested down in a pile of rubble on the Gaza with a 10/22 and a VERY large optic. I'd think he was doing eyeballs at reasonable distance...

I think the suppressed 10/22's I saw were made by Cieiner (not sure of the proper spelling) They just looked like a bull barreled rifle to the untrained eye.I wish the guy that ruined my uncles moderator had left it be. You still see the odd model 1890 or 1892 Winchester and some Mossberg .22's threaded for the Maxim moderators.

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Originally Posted by #1oilman

I think the suppressed 10/22's I saw were made by Cieiner

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Possible... Here's more reference what I was saying. Israeli Ruger 10/22 Suppressed Sniper Rifle

The plinker went to war: The IDF's Ruger 10/22

I have been commercially designing and making suppressors since 1970. Here in NZ they are completely unregulated and their use is actually encouraged to prevent hearing loss. I was the first person in NZ to design and manufacture overbarrel suppressors (and conventional muzzle cans) for centrefire rifles, and have also done them for shotguns, pistols, and SMG's.

Suppressor design (despite what some manufacturers would have you believe) is quite simple and is just a combination of good baffle design coupled with sufficient internal volume to absorb the muzzle gases. Some baffle designs are better than others but none are 'magical' and even plain washers will do a good job in a proper design. The manufacture of a good suppressor needs to be accurate to ensure correct alignment with the bore, and robust enough to take a moderate knock.

Very effective suppression can be achieved with subsonic ammunition (inaudible at 50 yards) but supersonic ammo still makes the unavoidable sonic crack. The advantage of a supersonic suppressor is not only protection from muzzle noise but also that the target animal is unable to determine the source of the sound. This gives you the opportunity to take more shots before the group of animals recover from their confusion. Even after running they will often stop and look about to determine where the threat is coming from. The military connotations are obvious.

There has been more garbage and uninformed comment on suppressors than you can shake a stick at! Hollywood is the worst offender! Even the best are not silent, but sufficiently reduce the sound to a level that is not immediately distinguishable as a gun shot. In areas where there is background noise, the sound dissappears.

On you tube there are videos of people fitting Oil filters as Sound Moderators and they are quite effective for what they are.

Oil Filter Suppressor-FULL AUTO - YouTube

Woodsy says it all in para 2 of his thread 7. To be really honest, for a .22" rifle you just need a 1 litre plastic fizzy pop bottle or oil filter for a one way trip moderator. Woodsy will also know Bill Mxxxxxx who studied noise related motion during his days as one of the .............. anyway. But being virtually the controlled release of vented energy it's not rocket science as they say. What does get problematical is the supersonic crack. And you can't defeat the laws of physics. Before we know it oil filters will be banned in the UK!

Thanks for the interesting information chaps.

It's a pity that it's such a long time ago that the chap showed me his home made silencer and that I didn't take any pictures of it. Unfortunately the chap is long since dead but he was a real character and very practically minded. At one time which must have been well before WW2 he was into wildfowl shooting and for this he had a punt with an enormous gun mounted on it. Having seen photographs of this punt, the gun looked more like a cannon mounted on the bow. Such things are probably now not allowed in the U.k..

My uni mentor and later very good friend Prof Mike Hxxxxxxx and I did some research into silencers while writing the Sten book, using the student facilities here at the main lab on the Banbury Road here in Oxford. It was really about why the Sten silencer, developed by the National Physics Lab is still regarded as probably the best and still regarded as the yardstick by which others are judged. Woodsy is dead right in that the silencer casing MUST be able to absorb the total amount of gas generated by the fired propellant. The problem in ascertaining this volume of now uncompressed gas seemed insurmountable but true to form, he'd worked out a way of getting the answer. Not mathematically/theoretically but actually using an ingenious method he'd last used at senior school in York! Anyway, we worked it out that as a rough guide, the volume of air space in the silencer (excluding the baffles etc etc don't forget) should be 20 volumes of the barrel. Forgive me if I'm slightly wrong as I'm spouting this stuff from memory. We also established that because the gas exits the muzzle at 29 degrees (nope, professor Venturi had already worked this out for us. It's not 30 degrees nor 28, but 29!) there can be nothing between the muzzle and a direct line drawn to where............ anyway. It all gets complicated when you have a vented barrel of course because then, there is already pressure building up BEHIND the muzzle - which George Patchett solved.

Dr Philip Dater a US specialist used to visit us fairly regularly and was always a most interesting person to speak to. I wish he could have spoken to Prof Mike as they were both physicists who took the mystery out of the subject by using plain language. For example, when talking about a sudden heat ring build-up, Dr Phil explained it by saying '......just accept that it is fxxxxxg hot' Well, you don't get plainer than that! Interesting thread

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Originally Posted by Woodsy

Suppressor design (despite what some manufacturers would have you believe) is quite simple and is just a combination of good baffle design coupled with sufficient internal volume to absorb the muzzle gases. Some baffle designs are better than others but none are 'magical' and even plain washers will do a good job in a proper design. The manufacture of a good suppressor needs to be accurate to ensure correct alignment with the bore, and robust enough to take a moderate knock.

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Was exactly what I was driving at with...

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

Suppressors are a number of principles and when applied they usually work to an end. How effectively depends on how many rules you break during construction.

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Two people discussing what they've built over time may disagree about specific details but if their general principles are the same it will work. Sub sonic ammo is mandatory for quiet and quiet is only to make it "Not sound like gunfire to people used to hearing gunfire"... A bolt action is best. All the gasses are contained that way. Yes, self loaders get extremely hot. Then they get loose and when you tighten them and they cool, you need a pipewrench to loosen them.

Yes an interesting thread and a couple of questions that I would like to ask, please. Are silencers/suppressors a "controlled item" here in the U.K. now, because they attached to the barrel and in the case of a deac would they need to be pinned/welded permanently to the barrel. Occasionally deacs do come on the market that have a suppressor fitted although I've never purchased such an example.

Question 2: How much larger would the hole through the centre of the baffle need to be than the calibre of the gun; would the hole be only fractionally larger or would there be a reasonable amount of clearance? So if we take the Sten as an example, which we all know is of 9mm calibre, would the hole through the centre of the baffles be in the region of say 9.15mm i.e. very minimal clearance or significantly larger say a 10mm dia hole?

Thanks for the information chaps.

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

How much larger would the hole through the centre of the baffle need to be

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Not much. Centering is vital so it need just pass. Close is better so the gasses get trapped and don't just blow by. I worked at the size of a couple calibers bigger...if you suffer baffle strike, all bets are off.

Ok thanks Jim, so it is a high precision item then.

Ah..... In Q1 thread 13, you asked '...are silencers/supressors controlled items in the UK. Mmmmmmmm. Silencers per-se are outlawed. End of story. But supressors or what we now call 'moderators' are permitted subject to blah blah blah. Because by definition, while they 'diminish' the noise they do not silence it. This is the reason why the readily available (but NOT so readily available now.....) .22" P-H sound moderator is described as a moderator, it is not a silencer because the internal volume doesn't equate to 20 or so volumes of the barrel. Please don't quote this 3 liner as gospel though.

As for the moderators being proofed because they form part of the barrel and........ Nope, I don't understand it either. Nor, clearly, does the proof house understand the physics of what they have effectively passed into their monopolistic rules

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

Question 2: How much larger would the hole through the centre of the baffle need to be than the calibre of the gun; would the hole be only fractionally larger or would there be a reasonable amount of clearance? So if we take the Sten as an example, which we all know is of 9mm calibre, would the hole through the centre of the baffles be in the region of say 9.15mm i.e. very minimal clearance or significantly larger say a 10mm dia hole?

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Experience has taught me that the optimum size for the baffle holes is 1.5mm larger than bullet diameter. The reason is that most bullets (particularly rifle) exhibit a certain amount of yaw (wobble about their axis) as they exit the muzzle which takes a few metres to settle down, so that amount of clearance is needed to prevent contact. With over barrel suppressors the accuracy potential for many rifles is actually increased due to the extra support given to the last 150 - 200mm of barrel by the suppressor, and the reduced recoil. The over barrel types feature an internal muzzle brake to direct a lot of the muzzle gases into the back expansion chamber, and also have a snug fitting bush (usually engineering plastic) at the back end which increases support. For semi-autos and full-autos, the rear bush needs to be metal as the barrels often get too hot for the plastic bushes. Such firearms also often need to be tuned in the gas system for reliable operation because of the effect of the internal muzzle brake and the different barrel pressure curve. Semi-auto locked-breech pistols also need a floating muzzle system to negate the extra weight of the suppressor which can prevent sufficient barrel recoil for the pistol to operate reliably. Pistol suppressors need to be quite large to be effective and that size negates their usefulness, so such units tend to be much smaller and less effective.

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

A recent new thread on a silenced Sten made me recall a home made silencer which a chap showed to me years ago, late 1970s/early 1980s. The chap made it because he wasn't able to purchase a ready made example during the war and although I never thought to ask him exactly why he needed it, he was a gun enthusiast all his life and did serve in the Home Guard. As I recall it, the outer body of the silencer was made to attache to the muzzle of the gun and the other end of the silencer had a removable end plate. The chap showed me the baffles which he had turned on his lathe and baffle packing pieces. These baffles and baffle packing pieces were really just like steel washers; the baffle packing pieces had larger holes than the baffles. The other item which the chap had made was a baffle alignment rod which, as the name suggest, was a steel rod.

The chap explained that when he wished to fit the silencer to gun he would first attache the outer body tube, empty without any baffles or packing pieces, to the muzzle. He would then insert the alignment rod into the bore of the gun which extended out of the silencer body. Then he would fit one baffle followed by one packing piece onto the alignment rod and into the silencer body. When he had fitted all the baffles and packing pieces the silencer end cap was screwed on to "clamp" the baffles into alignment with the bore. Finally the alignment rod was removed.

I have no personal experience of silencers and so don't know if the manner in which the chap designed his own version is similar to how commercial versions are designed. Do the baffles and packing pieces always have to be fitted after the silencer body has been fitted to the weapon? I don't recall what calibre the silencer was designed for.

I have wondered, in recent years, if the chap concerned may have also been a member of the Auxiliary Units as well as the Home Guard but have not seen any proof of it.

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That is somewhat similar to the old Maxim silencers which at least in some cases, came with a polished steel rod that was slid down the bore of the silencer when not fitted to the rifle to discourage anything from migrating into the bore of the silencer. I believe some of the smaller models used coarse steel wool between the baffles and that was probably the issue there. Being an interrupted thread they were easy to take on and off quickly.

As the Maxim models were around from well before WWI, your old acquaintance might well have been familiar with them.

There has been talk that Maxim silencers were used in WWI, but no direct evidence that I'm aware of. A silenced semi-auto .22 would have been most effective in that situation and not difficult to acquire in the UK even then.

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Originally Posted by Woodsy

Experience has taught me

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I agree with all that Woodsy, like I said...two that discuss it and have some experience come very close without building things the same. There was a formula that I'd read somewhere, a .22 bore needed a .24 hole, a .25 needed a .27 hole...a .30 needed a .32 hole... We have to use aluminum mostly.

One of the problems with an exit hole can be resolved by the material that is placed behind it. One VERY effective material is LINOTEX (or LINATEX). There'll be others of course....... If the hole size is too great the linotex bellows outwards slightly (visible with a high speed camera) under the impact and gas pressure and then reasserts itself. Eventually it will cause a larger ragged hole. If the exit hole in the end cap is too close to bullet size, the bullet acts as a blade and quickly shears a neat ring of the rubberised heavy linatex away. But while the larger hole and linatex remains more effective for longer, in both instances they will both degrade........

Interesting thread. NZ'er Bill Mxxxxxxx designed a system based on formula ? racing car exhausts where the baffles are on spring loaded rods and allowed to move forwards and rearwards slightly, to reciprocate under the forward facing and variable gas pressure/load and effectively act as a shock absorber to the gas. After all, springs are just another means of absorbing energy (and storing it of course) which we NEED to do with our silencers. You need to meet up with Bill again Woodsy.

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

the problems with an exit hole can be resolved by the material that is placed behind it.

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I think you're talking about "Wipes"? A "Plastic" baffle that may actually be pierced by the first bullet and conform exactly to the exit size required? I've used a rubber type at the front and it would eventually wear the hole too big. Of course this is all working with the theory of single shots...not auto. Once you go auto all material degrades at an exponential...I did an M3 once and actually burned holes in the stainless screen.

That's the word I was looking for, yep..., wipers. The brass scouring stuff used to scrub the inside of 81mm mortar barrels was a good medium to pack the void in a moderator casing......... The wrapped aluminium sheeting used in the Sterling L34 was just commercial oven insulation material, purchased locally in Rainham and cut to size!

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

NZ'er Bill Mxxxxxxx designed a system based on formula ? racing car exhausts where the baffles are on spring loaded rods and allowed to move forwards and rearwards slightly, to reciprocate under the forward facing and variable gas pressure/load and effectively act as a shock absorber to the gas. After all, springs are just another means of absorbing energy (and storing it of course) which we NEED to do with our silencers. You need to meet up with Bill again Woodsy.

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I still see Bill about once a year when I am in Christchurch for the annual Mainland Arms Show. My Mk 2 .22 suppressor design used a spring system which I introduced in 1977 (many years before I met Bill) and is still used to this day, many thousands having been manufactured. Some other manufacturures have also taken the idea. I tried it with high-power suppressors but it was not successful as the high pressure muzzle gases were too strong for the springs and the internal fouling caused the baffles to jam in position where they stayed until the unit was stripped and cleaned. Increasing the clearance to avoid the fouling only reduced the effectiveness of the unit. I now use fixed baffles for such units. The use of seals is good for a limited number of shots but is detrimental to good accuracy. For covert operations then seals are good because of the limited number of shots fired, and the close ranges involved. For civilian use where ranges are much greater then conventional baffles are superior, and the suppression effects are very close anyway.

You hit the nail right on the head. And we're all going off the subject now. But silencers are a textbook example of zillions of good ideas you COULD use but due to the physics and practical considerations, you can only use SOME of them. Another problem was that using spring loaded baffles was that the heat would soon anneal the springs at the rear end of the moderator rendering them useless. But for covert use where only one or two rounds would be fired they were OK. Good thread

At Warminster I had a whole cabinet display dedicated to silencing

I remember that when the chap was showing me his homemade silencer/suppressor he explained to me that it worked in the same way as a silencer on a car exhaust. I don't know how correct he was with this statement but that is what he said to me.

I suspect that when he needed to make the suppressor during WW2, that he only had a very basic idea of the general layout of the suppressor and much of the details he worked out for himself. I remember that the item appeared to have been very neatly made and that he had had it blued. The alignment rod was probably his own idea but I do remember him explaining to me that it centred on the bore and then the baffles were centred off the rod.

Alignment is another VERY important thing of course. For our guns we had an alignment gauge. But have seen .22's threaded for the little P-H sound moderators where the bullet just touches a baffle or the end cap. Won't ever hit a target again!

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

But have seen .22's threaded for the little P-H sound moderators where the bullet just touches a baffle or the end cap.

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I've seen bigger than that and you won't hit a bucket of barns until you sort it out.

Legally speaking F10, a punt gun would be totally covered by Sec1 (or sec58) as an antique, however wildfowling with such a setup would not be allowed!

You would have to set it up on a shooting range to legally fire the thing.

Somewhere I do have a picture of the punt with the enormous gun mounted on it and by today's standards the gun looks so large as to be almost comical. I would think that there would have been very little left of any bird if it had been unfortunate enough to be hit by it.

Here's a couple of pics...one of a set of punt guns with three actually. One stands against the wall background. The SKS is for comparison. The second pic come up when you seek "Punt gun" and shows what happens when you leave the Corporals to their own devices for a minute. Now the elephant is suing MOD for hearing loss. This falls into line with the thread about a home made silencer. They should have used one.

The second picture is especially interesting in that it is two US Marine corporals with a Colt machine gun on the elephant. The picture may pre-date WWI.

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Originally Posted by Paul S.

a Colt machine gun on the elephant.

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Hard to say where they were for sure, I've never seen elephant around 29 Palms...

Which begets the question: where was that?

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

Somewhere I do have a picture of the punt with the enormous gun mounted on it and by today's standards the gun looks so large as to be almost comical. I would think that there would have been very little left of any bird if it had been unfortunate enough to be hit by it.

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Punt guns were used to shoot at a flock of birds, not one individual. I would expect that the shooter would know the MINIMUM range to avoid shredding the birds. :beerchug:

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Originally Posted by Paul S.

where was that?

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The picture of the Elephant? I have no idea where they took that picture, or stole the elephant. They're Marines, it could have been anywhere.

Although mounting a machine gun on an elephant may seem like a bit of a joke today, I'm guessing that when the photograph was taken it probably seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do. I suppose today that the military may wish to mount a MG on it's transport which could be a truck or armoured vehicle but back in the day, in certain parts of the world, the military's main modes of transport would have probably have been horses and perhaps elephants?

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

Although mounting a machine gun on an elephant may seem like a bit of a joke today, I'm guessing that when the photograph was taken it probably seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do. I suppose today that the military may wish to mount a MG on it's transport which could be a truck or armoured vehicle but back in the day, in certain parts of the world, the military's main modes of transport would have probably have been horses and perhaps elephants?

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I have seen pics of MGs mounted on camels too - who knows what all animals have been drafted as carriers..... :beerchug:

You can imagine the outcry that there would be in the media if the British or American armies decided that there was a need to mount a heavy MG on an animal such as a camel or elephant today.

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Originally Posted by Merle

who knows what all animals

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Yes, there's a mount similar for a Maxim for Elephant but this just ain't the way it's done...one jiggly-jog and that whole mess will come sliding off the beast. That would hurt...

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

Possible... Here's more reference what I was saying. Israeli Ruger 10/22 Suppressed Sniper Rifle

The plinker went to war: The IDF's Ruger 10/22

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Interesting articles.

Here’s a look inside a modern suppressed 10/22.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...Mistjpeg-1.jpg

It’s a second version Gemtech Mist (no vent port in the barrel). It’s unbelievably quiet. I can sit on the couch in my living room and shoot through the open backdoor at a target in the garden. The only sound is bullet hitting the target. My wife sitting at her desk directly above me in the same room doesn’t hear a thing as long as I use a brass catcher or hold the bolt closed. She can hear a spent case if it hits the wood floor, but not the shots.

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Originally Posted by Vincent

It’s unbelievably quiet.

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That way you can shoot lizards in your back yard at 0200 and not wake the neighbors. Very considerate... Thanks for the look at the current issue...CNC one piece...

The nocturnal ones here are geckos. Little green crunchy dog snacks.

Vincent, are you able to give us another view of your "modern" silencer taken from a slightly different angle in order to give more of a cross section view, please?

The side shot will be just a side view of a round solid stock. They CNC them from the top and it's all done.

It's the shape/profile of the innards at the muzzle end which I'm interested in.

You can see the little disrupters at the back, they're just mirrored at the front. All done by a CNC machining from above in one session. All just mirrors of the last one.

You should enjoy this one...watch closely...

DIY Silencer! Machining a Monocore - Part 2B Widget36 - YouTube

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Originally Posted by Vincent

Interesting articles.

Here’s a look inside a modern suppressed 10/22.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...Mistjpeg-1.jpg

It’s a second version Gemtech Mist (no vent port in the barrel). It’s unbelievably quiet. I can sit on the couch in my living room and shoot through the open backdoor at a target in the garden. The only sound is bullet hitting the target. My wife sitting at her desk directly above me in the same room doesn’t hear a thing as long as I use a brass catcher or hold the bolt closed. She can hear a spent case if it hits the wood floor, but not the shots.

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Not to be too alarmist, but I'd be a bit concerned about shooting too many rounds; the gas isn't all that healthy. :dunno:

Ok thanks Jim. The suppressor has come a long way from the "washer" baffles.

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

the "washer" baffles.

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Progress...yes.

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

Vincent, are you able to give us another view of your "modern" silencer taken from a slightly different angle in order to give more of a cross section view, please?

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I can take some pictures next time I clean it. Or you can google “Gemtech Mist.” There are lots of pictures. They make a full line of “G-Core” suppressors, GM22 is the .22 pistol suppressor, GM9 = 9mm, GM45…. Etc.. They pretty much cover all the common calibers. The pistol suppressors are good, but the Mist beats the pants off the GM22. The GMT-300BLK is also extremely good. You really need a dedicated gun for it if you want to get the most out of it.

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

Ok thanks Jim. The suppressor has come a long way from the "washer" baffles.

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In terms of size and weight suppressors have come a long way. However, you can get very good results with shaped washers, shaped freeze plugs, etc. They will be bulky and heavy, but they can be just as quiet as commercially made suppressors at a fraction of the cost. The tax to the gov is the same for the transfer of a commercial suppressor or a form 1 stamp to make your own, $200. The transfer takes about 8 months. If you use the Gov’s online E-forms for a form 1 (make your own) it only takes 30 to 60 days to get approval via email.

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Originally Posted by Merle

Not to be too alarmist, but I'd be a bit concerned about shooting too many rounds; the gas isn't all that healthy. :dunno:

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You are absolutely correct, Merle. That’s why it’s very important to minimize the blowback gas as much as possible with semi-auto’s and machineguns. The suppressor has to be designed to minimize blowback gas and the gun has to be designed or modified to work with the suppressor.
Suppressors can also dramatically increase the speed the bolt travels back at. In some cases, it can damage the gun and be dangerous if not addressed.
In the movies people just screw a suppressor on and the gun becomes quiet as a church mouse fart. There’s a bit more to it in the real world.