The Tactical Edge – September

Silencers and Suppressors

Summer was really hot this year, but now its fall and the weather is turning nice again. It’s cooling down and the elk are now in rut. Everyone is heading up to the mountains early in the evening to watch the bull elk rounding up their herds of cow elk. It’s quite a site around here. On a good night, you have no trouble seeing hundreds of elk in one area or another. As the winter comes on, you will see more and more elk in the town area especially around Estes Park. On a good day there’s more elk than tourists.

This month I want to talk about the topic of silencers and suppressors on firearms. Why do people own suppressors? There are three main reasons: reduction of noise pollution, hearing protection, and safety training. As for the first, hunting frequently takes place in state or national forests or other locations near where people live. During hunting season, nearby residents may be annoyed by the frequent sound of gunfire. Likewise, some people have built houses near established target ranges; when people at the range use suppressors, the ambient noise is reduced, although certainly not eliminated.

There is no difference between a silencer and a suppressor or for that matter, a car muffler. They all function the same way, which is to suppress and muffle sound. Now if you’re a big movie buff, you know a silencer on a gun will enable it to shoot without somebody in the next room even knowing it. That’s an awesome feat, but it’s only possible on a Hollywood movie set. Silencers do not make firearms silent. The average silencer on a typical handgun will suppress or reduce the noise level between 24 and 30 dB. Typical ammunition for a handgun such as a 9 mm has a muzzle blast in the range of 140 to 150 dB. Suppressing that noise by 30 dB only brings it down to a range that is reasonable and not completely damaging to your hearing. It is definitely not silent by any means. Even if you were able to make it silent, the mechanisms on most handguns and rifles make enough noise when they cycle to be easily heard at a reasonable distance. 

Silencers were made illegal to own in the United States by the National Firearms Act of 1934 because people thought that if they were silent, bad guys could do mass shootings without being detected. Silencers can be purchased similar to a gun purchase, but ATF forms for the transfer from the gun store to the purchaser had to be sent to ATF headquarters in Washington along with the $200 application fee and a roughly six-month waiting period while an FBI background check is completed before you can take possession. Currently that six-month wait is taking almost a year. With more and more silencers being purchased, the wait times are just going to get longer and longer. I will speak more to this in a little bit. It’s a funny thing, but if you wanted to purchase a silencer/suppressor in Europe, all you would need would be the appropriate amount of cash. European nations such as Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Britain, among others, an individual who is licensed to own a firearm is always allowed the appropriate suppressor. Many European guns are sold with suppressors already attached. The policy is that if a person is legally authorized to possess a firearm, then it is generally preferable for that firearm to have a suppressor. Simply stated, they are regulated just like holsters and scopes are. Suppressors have the benefit of both decreasing the likelihood of hearing loss and decreasing noise pollution from hunting and shooting ranges. In the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia, they recognize the health and environmental benefits of suppressors, so they are sold over the counter without much regulation at all. 

What a lot of people don’t understand is that silencers not only reduce sound but reduce hearing difficulties and deafness as a result of that sound. Most instructors that I have ever met that have been in that line of work for a long time have hearing aids. If you watch the shooting programs on the sportsman’s channel, you can notice that almost all of the older instructors have hearing aids. The constant high decibel sounds that come with shooting can severely damage your ears. Even with good hearing protectors, the sound is loud enough over a long period of time that it can become debilitating. Silencers are able to suppress the noise to a level that your hearing can tolerate better. Even with silencers, it is highly recommended that hearing protection still be worn. Hearing damage begins to occur at about 85 decibels, about the sound of a hairdryer. Most hearing protection sold for shooting purposes has noise suppression in the range of 21 to 30 dB. That still leaves a fairly loud noise that can damage hearing over time. If you combine the noise suppression of the hearing protectors in combination with a good silencer, that comes out to a 55 to 60 dB reduction in noise. That brings most firearms into the range that is not damaging to your hearing. That is the primary reason for having a silencer/suppressor for your firearm, the ability to hear and understand what your grandchildren are saying to you.

Suppressors have the benefit of both decreasing the likelihood of hearing loss and decreasing noise pollution from hunting and shooting ranges. This is a big deal in Europe where most shooting is done in closer proximity to towns and villages then in a lot of areas in this country due to the population density.

Another reason to own a suppressor that is not commonly discussed, is the fact that they also suppress the recoil on a firearm. I myself like to shoot large bore, big caliber pistols and revolvers a lot more than I enjoyed my .22’s. Due to some medication that I use, I tend to bruise very easily and a day of shooting my .45 auto can leave my hands very sore and bruised. The suppressor I use tends to reduce the recoil of my pistol by roughly 40%. It makes shooting a lot more enjoyable, especially the next day.

What I would like to bring to your attention is the Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act that is currently being reviewed by several congressional subcommittees. The Act has 16 titled sections within it that cover a sweeping list of subjects ranging from Good Samaritan search and rescue and polar bear conservation to the management of federal lands for recreational purposes. Buried in the middle of it is the Hearing Protection Act (HPA).

What is the Hearing Protection Act? In the current Congress, the Hearing Protection Act (HPA) is H.R. 367 in the House (sponsored by Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.) and S, 59 in the Senate (sponsored by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho). The HPA retains all of the Gun Control Act’s provisions on suppressors. In other words, purchasing a suppressor would continue to be subject to all the rules that apply to purchasing or possessing an ordinary firearm but it removes silencers from the National Firearms Act (NFA) where it is currently treated the same way as machine guns, short-barreled shotguns and rifles, grenades, mortars and various other devices. The HPA removes suppressors from the National Firearms Act, which means buyers would not have to pay a $200 tax and would not have to go through a months-long federal registration process.

How many people own suppressors? As of November 2006, the number of suppressors in the ATF’s registry was 150,364. By February 2016, the number had risen to 902,805. There is no doubt that suppressors have become much more popular, especially with hunters, as CNN has reported. This number seems to be growing exponentially now.

If you are interested in this topic and want to see silencers/suppressors become more available, contact your local congressman and senator and ask them to vote for the Hearing Protection Act as it is included in the Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement or SHARE Act when it comes up for a vote. If you are new to silencers/suppressors, talk to a friend who has one and ask their opinion on how they work. They are a great tool to keep in your shooting bag. If you buy the largest caliber suppressor that you’re going to need, you can buy the reducers to couple them up to your other smaller caliber firearms. Or if you have the financing, ideally you will have one for every gun. However, they tend to run anywhere from $600 to $2000.

Well that wraps up another month’s issue of the blog. We hope you’re reading the blog, enjoying it, and most of all, benefiting from it. If you have comments, please send them to us. We love to get email. In the meantime, keep your gun clean and your powder dry and take someone to a shooting range or training class with you. You owe it to them to improve their skills and enjoy our sport.