Improvised or homemade .22 suppressors

[Spells]

That's one of my favorite books. The compression cylinder thing was AWESOME.

[Weetabix]

Speaking of Clancy, didn't John Kelly make a suppressor in Without Remorse?

I think that's the book. I remember something about him being on an island when he made it.

Was that the part where he had that drug dealer in the decompression chamber and was bouncing him up and down depth-wise? That was a GREAT book (even if it was over 600 pages)!

He'd leased the island from the government. It had been some sort of Navy installation. He built the suppressor in his machine shop, then came back later to put the bad guy in the tank.

[evan price]

In Without Remorse iirc the first can was actually made by a machinist's mate on board the navy ship Clark/Kelly was travelling on to infiltrate that VC POW camp, was it not? Intended to silence his rifle?

Anyway a great book with backstory to explain a great character.

Clancy even goes on to explain how easy it is to build an actual nuke in his background to Sum of All Fears when he called up Milacron and asked for specs on the machines the .gov uses to make nuclear bombs, they cheerfully sent him a suitcase full of product info.

It's not hard to get nuke materials, or at least it wasn't if you were creative, as a matter of fact there was a young kid in Michigan that came close by accident. Ever hear of "The Radioactive Boy Scout"??
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

Blah Blah..OK, back on topic.

Once you have your BATFE tax paid, why bother with an improvised suppressor when Tactical Innovations or Gemtech make them for $300 or less? And properly serial numbered, and ready to use.

[308Mike]

Once you have your BATFE tax paid, why bother with an improvised suppressor when Tactical Innovations or Gemtech make them for $300 or less? And properly serial numbered, and ready to use.

Because in California, possession of one is a FELONY (California Penal Code):

12520. Any person, firm, or corporation who within this state
possesses a silencer is guilty of a felony and upon conviction
thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison or by a
fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or by both.

The only exemptions are for "authorized personnel" - military, police, etc.

[evan price]

Once you have your BATFE tax paid, why bother with an improvised suppressor when Tactical Innovations or Gemtech make them for $300 or less? And properly serial numbered, and ready to use.

Because in California, possession of one is a FELONY (California Penal Code):

12520. Any person, firm, or corporation who within this state
possesses a silencer is guilty of a felony and upon conviction
thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison or by a
fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or by both.

The only exemptions are for "authorized personnel" - military, police, etc.

Mike, what I was getting at is, why spend time and material re-inventing the wheel PLUS a $200 tax stamp for what might be a piece of junk. Why bother with improvised suppressors when for what I feel is the very reasonable sum of $200-$300 you can buy a properly engineered, well-made, precision machined piece of gear that will meet all BATFE criteria. If you are going to make your own, unless you happen to own or have access to at least a good knee mill and/or a lathe (Or better yet, a four-axis CNC), you'll spend more than $200 on materials and frustration.

Of course in Kalifornistan you are shyte out of luck either way...Or I suppose you could drink a lot of soda or make some french fries...

[HTRN]

Now, if you are just interested in how a can works, I recommend Alan Paulson's book "Silencer History & Performance, volume 1". It's probably the best published work...although courses in boundary layer theory and heat transfer would also be enlightening.

Seconded - I have volume 2, which get's into the history of Suppressor technology, and it's facintating.

Building a can is easy, building a can that has a high DB suppression, works well, and isn't the size of soup can is another matter - The technology is an "art" more than a science, as it's not a steady state event, but rather an impulse. The "community" of designers is small, and you generally see them move from company to company, rather than into and out of the field.

Personally, I think building(LEGALLY) a can might be fun, but anything more than a .22 starts dealing with enough "gas" that building a decent design becomes a challenge, especially when so much of the design practices are closely guarded secrets of the respective companies.


HTRN

[Denis]

On Clancy's "without remorse": I noticed recently that the passage with the detailed description of how to build a can was excised from a recent edition of the book. If you want to read it, buy an old edition second-hand...

[Glenn Bartley]

In any case, just having the information could well be taken as intent to commit a crime...

By whom would something like this be taken as intent to commit a crime. I have several books that contain details about murders; without my murdering someone is that evidence that my intent is to commit murder at sometime in the future. I also have detailed plans on how to build a suppressor, or had them, I think they went with 6WTC on 9/11, but they could be in a drawer at work still. Guess where I got them, from my job as an officer safety bulletin. I don't think anyone would believe possession of them by me as proof of intent on my part to build a silencer.

As for telling someone how to build one - for academic purposes - there is no crime. As for telling someone how to build one, when you have no reason to believe they would do so illegally, there is no crime. As for telling someone how to build one when you think they will build one legally, there is no crime. There really are no mind police yet ; almost but not quite . Of course if you tell someone how to build one because you are aware, or believe, they intend to build one illegally, you can be charged with conspiracy - and that is even if no one then takes any action to do it (maybe there are mind police after all ).

That out of the way, I would imagine that you can find very simple ideas for making suppressors in old Shotgun News editions (look to the advertisement sections), and you can probably find plans on how to actually make them in many of the already mentioned publications. You might also find similar information in certain military manuals. You can also look to sources such as Wikipedia, and you could probably figure out how to make one from their article about suppressors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressor, or you could look at a site like this: http://www.canadiantactical.ca/technical.html.

Of course you could always go to this site: http://www.gun-shots.net/suppressors-silencers.shtml to get actual instructions on how to build a suppressor for a 22. You will notice that after the article there is a large list of books that tell you how to make a silencer. Sharing this information is not illegal in and of itself. If it was illegal then all of the authors, publishers, distributors, and people who bought those books would probably be in big trouble right about now.

The page where I found links to the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph can be found here: http://www.gun-shots.net/firearm-gun-si ... suppressor. It also has links to things like abbreviated state regulations on suppressors, federal regulations and so forth. They might be good reading. In addition, as others have suggested, if you plan on actually building a firearms suppressor, do it legally; and make sure you have got all the legal aspects correct before you begin. if on the other hand, you are just curious for purely academic purposes, well then you can get all the instructions you want here in the USA, all without violating any laws of which I am aware; but alas I certainly am not aware of all laws so check your state and or locality before doing so.

Please be absolutely clear on one thing: You should never violate the law, or intend to violate the law, with regard to planning to build one, or building or possessing a suppressor.

You should also be absolutely sure of one other thing: Home gunsmithing, including building your own improvised firearms' suppressor can be potentially dangerous to you and others. You have no way of knowing for certain if plans about an improvised device are safe, or in other words if the device you build will be safe. Most improvised devices like improvised suppressor are built from items never meant to be used for said purpose, for example the design in the link above wherein a suppressor is made from PVC pipe. Remember such an improvised or homemade device, or any device like it could blow up in your face, or it could cause a shot to go astray and kill someone accidentally, or it could have other potentially disastrous outcomes just waiting to happen. My guess would be that if you want to obtain a suppressor for firearms you would be best off buying a professionally made one through legal channels.

All the best,
Glenn Bartley

[Mike OTDP]

I will confess that if I ever have a whack at a doctoral thesis, the application of computational fluid dynamics to suppressor design would be intriguing. And damned hard...you're talking about non-steady-state flow, boundary layer effects, the deliberate induction of turbulence, and heat transfer issues.

[HTRN]

Also, at that pressure level, gases behave more like liquids. AFAIK, alot of what's done in can design is done built on previous knowledge learned through trial and error. and designed using computer simulations.


HTRN