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Slow-Mo Footage of Bullets Traveling Through Transparent Silencers Demonstrates How They Work

CNC machinist Steve Dean's variety of designs

By Rain Noe - September 26, 2017

in Object Culture | Videos

Around 1902, mechanical engineer and inventor Hiram Percy Maxim confronted a difficult problem: How could you make firing a rifle a quiet act? For those who like to hunt, the retort of the bullet leaving the muzzle is not only hard on the eardrums, but it startles the game. And for soldiers, firing a bullet instantly reveals one's position to anyone nearby with ears.

To understand how Maxim solved it, we must first understand what creates the sound. As a bullet casing is struck by the firearm's hammer and fires from the barrel, there are two sources of noise: The combustion of the gunpowder, and the subsequent sonic boom of the bullet (events that are sequential but occur so fast that they sound simultaneous to us). Maxim figured out he could silence both by creating a sleeve through which the bullet must travel. Inside the sleeve are chambers that trap both the trail of gas spewing out from behind the bullet and the soundwaves from the sonic boom.

Maxim's silencer, also called a suppressor, worked, and one fringe benefit of the gas-trapping chambers was that they also contained the muzzle flash. Again, for reasons of not revealing one's position, it's a militarily-useful feature.

Destin Sandlin, the man behind the SmarterEveryDay YouTube channel, found a very cool way to illustrate how suppressors/silencers work. Sandlin linked up with engineer Steve Dean, the former owner of a CNC machining company whose new venture, Soteria, improves the design of silencers.

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Dean created a variety of his designs that he sleeved with sacrificial and transparent acrylic plastic, so that you can see, using high-speed video recording, what's happening inside the suppressor as the bullet travels through it:

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Clay Davis

7 years ago

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Awesome video! The channel has a fantastically passionate host and has some incredibly fun and informative videos. The Triboluminescence video of sugar candies producing sparks while being smashed in ultra slow mo was a favorite of mine.

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Ken K

7 years ago

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I bumped into Maxim's original patent when I was looking up something else altogether in the patent records. Fascinating stuff. It's worth noting that the folks in the biz call them "suppressors" and not "silencers" because the suppressed gunshot is still fantastically loud at about 130 dB. That little "fwip" sound in the movies is total fantasy.

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- Clay Davis
  
  Ken K
  
  7 years ago
  
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  I've heard some impressively suppressed .308s at a nearby range. Granted, I had ear protection but they were easily half the perceived volume of the non-suppressed rifles next to them.
  
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stephen knifton

7 years ago

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why do the makers of gun silencers make me think of the people who re-engineered gas chambers ?

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- Noodle Time
  
  stephen knifton
  
  7 years ago
  
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  because you wet the bed every night
  
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Franklin Steer

7 years ago

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Excellent article, but SHAME ON YOU for using the term SILENCER! There is no such thing. When you perpetuate the misconception that these devices allow one to fire a firearm and remain totally concealed, you fuel the fear-mongers of the left that a SUPRESSOR works like they're portrayed in TV and movies - And nothing could be further from the truth.
Pending legislation hopes to remove SUPRSSORS from the current restrictive and costly ATF controlled dominion and place them on the same level as any add-on firearm safety feature.
And it IS a safety feature. To reduce to eardrum-shattering report to a safer albeit still LOUD SUPRESSED report is an important step forward.

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