Why isn't every pistol/rifle/gun in existence fitted with a silencer?

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Watching the original Assault On Precinct 13 right now, and the bad men use silencers azll the time. It's fuckin' MEAN, really sinister and insidious.

But it occurred to me that the actual noise a gun makes when you shoot it is in no way a sueful thing. So why don't all guns have silencers fitted as standard?

Am I missing something really obvious here, like "silencers are detrimental to accuracy, dumbass, everone knows that" or something?

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

they're probably expensive

― Old School (sexyDancer), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

they're illegal, no?

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:30 (twenty years ago)

and, what is the sound of a gun with a silencer? is it really that PYOOM sounds like in the movies.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:31 (twenty years ago)

A silencer generally has a negative impact on the aim, range and reliability of the gun, doesn't it?

― I'm a Problem for Anthony Blair (noodle vague), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:33 (twenty years ago)

Its a felony to possess or attempt to manufacture a silencer without consent of the federal government.

― Alan Conceicao (Alan Conceicao), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:49 (twenty years ago)

I think a silencer will also slow down a bullet considerably, isn't this part of why it's noise is reducted.

I may have read this from a bollocks source though.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

It very badly affects the range and accuracy of your shot.

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

good for short range and point blank assassinations. or shots through a pillow into the head of a sleeping ambassador in his hotel room.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

If I remember correctly, they consist of a tube lined with bristles. After the bullet passes past them, flicking them forward, they spring back and dampen much of the expellation of the air and gasses and hence the sound of the report. This also slows the rotation of the bullet and lowers its speed.

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 22 September 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

I predicted anal silencers back in high school. Where's my MacArthur grant?

― The Obligatory Sourpuss (Begs2Differ), Thursday, 22 September 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

Wikipedia has the scoop.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 22 September 2005 17:39 (twenty years ago)

not really

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 22 September 2005 18:44 (twenty years ago)

Fuck wikipedia, jesus Christ. it's like, why bother to ask questions of anything, anywhere, since one can always just link to some half-researched wikipedia article and then stop thinking!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 22 September 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)

Sometimes you want the gun to be loud to scare people.

― Lukas (lukas), Thursday, 22 September 2005 19:34 (twenty years ago)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wikillectual
xpost

― don't be jerk, this is china (FE7), Thursday, 22 September 2005 19:36 (twenty years ago)

lukas otm. muskets became popular because of the noise, crossbows were much more efficient

― don't be jerk, this is china (FE7), Thursday, 22 September 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

I find Howstuffworks.com to be much better than wikipedia at explaining, uh, how stuff works.

Okay so you have some weapons which simply can't be effectively silenced since the bullet itself travels faster than the speed of sound and the sonic boom can't be suppressed. So that takes care of THOSE.

Silencers on larger caliber weapons or weapons with longer ranges get very large and unweildy, since you have to account for a much larger amount of expanding gas coming out the end of the muzzle. Even on smaller sidearms a silencer usually doubles the length of the weapon, which can turn a perfectly concealable pistol into something much more cumbersome. There's THAT.

Latter-day advances in physics modeling have allowed for the creation of suppressors which actually bounce the soundwaves into one another out-of-phase, negating the sound and dissipating the energy as heat. These silencers can actually heat up faster than the barrel, though. Bad news for people trying to avoid thermal imaging/night vision googlez. So THERE.

Last but not least yes the effect of the silencer can decrease the range of some weapons quite a bit by braking the muzzle velocity of the bullet, and anything that decreases range also decreases accuracy because now your projectile is moving slower and succumbing to gravity a shorter distance from you than it would without the muzzle brake effect. THE END.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 22 September 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

night vision googlez

I'm patenting this as soon as I figure out what it means, hands off!!

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 22 September 2005 19:50 (twenty years ago)

Also good question!! Ask another one!!

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 22 September 2005 19:54 (twenty years ago)

Do not decide whether to leave your house, shelter or vehicle based on Wikipedia information.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 22 September 2005 21:15 (twenty years ago)

cut wikipedia some slack doggs. i learned all i ever needed to know and more about crazy frog from those fine folks.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 22 September 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

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