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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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 Today's "J" baffles and "K" baffles have done away with many outdated practices.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.
my uncle had a Mossberg Sound Moderator made for a .22 rifle
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.
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.
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!
Last edited by Peter Laidler; 03-19-2017 at 06:15 PM.
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..
Last edited by Flying10uk; 03-19-2017 at 08:27 PM.
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Originally Posted by #1oilman
