Wartime, home made silencer

[browningautorifle]

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

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.

[Peter Laidler]

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!

[Woodsy]

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.

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.

[Peter Laidler]

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

[Flying10uk]

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.

[Peter Laidler]

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!

[browningautorifle]

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

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

[mrclark303]

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.

[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.

[browningautorifle]

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.