The Firearm Blog

This photo, taken at a German Army artillery range, is not a fake.

The side expansion chambers will be to accommodate the blast of the cannon's muzzle brake.

I know what you are thinking: "WTF!".It was build to reduce noise to communities nearby. The vehicle pictured is the M109G 155mm self-propelled howitzer.

Many thanks to Sven for emailing it to me.

UPDATE: Thanks to Mark for these images of another German tank suppressor.

UPDATE: Daniel found a US patent that German defense firm Rheinmetall GmbH has on the design of cannon silencers.

Bonus style points for iPhone

You know someone is serious about shooting when the total cost of their spotting scopes are more than your car.

Yep it's a 6 inch objective and 50x (crazy wide field of view)

the other is a WW2 rangefinder that goes out to 20,000 yards!

More photos here.

By the way, who can tell me how "Cheytac" is pronounced? I have always said "shay tac" ("shay" as in "Che Guevara").

Hat Tip: SayUncle

Surefire are attempting to carve out a new niche with their two new "tactical" suppressors. These tiny suppressors only add a few inches to an M4 Carbine or Colt Commando. Gear Scout reports:

Surefire snuck out two new 5.56mm suppressors at Modern Day Marine Expo. The Mini and the Micro are stubby little suckers that add barely 3.6 and 2.6 inches to a weapon’s muzzle but cut down weapon signature and improve unit communication.

There is nothing magical about suppressors and they are bound to the same laws of physics as everything else. While suppressor manufactures are continuously tweaking their cans in order to maximize the sound reduction vs. weight / size ratio, ultimately if you shrink a suppressor you will reduce its effectiveness.

I doubt these will be sold to civilians. I cannot think of a single good reason why a civilian would want to purchase one of these particular suppressors, when a suppressor a few inches longer will give much better performance.

UPDATE: I may have come across as anti-suppressor. I am not. I own two and hope to buy a third within a year. They are incredibly useful and there is no reason why civilian sales should be restricted. But these particular suppressors are tiny - smaller than my .22 Rimfire suppressor - the sound reduction would be minimal. I would call it a "sound reducer" rather than a "sound suppressor". What I meant to say is that I cannot think why a civilian would pay for these particular suppressors.

Many thanks to Jesse for the link.

SayUncle found a British company that makes suppressors for shotguns, including double barrel guns!

I once saw a suppressed semi-auto 12 gauge shotgun on display at a gun store. I remember being very impressed by the size of the can.

The MP5SD is the integrally suppressed version of the famous MP5 submachine gun. This video, taken by the THOR Group, shows just how silent the gun is.

Unlike most videos on YouTube the sound on this video is very clear and you can distinctively hear that a lot of the noise is caused by the bolt itself, rather than the escaping gas.

One of the reasons I love my suppressed .22 bolt gun is that there is no noise from the action other than the firing pin smashing the case rim.

Thanks to Max for the link.

Advanced Armament Corporation (AAC) have developed a new ultra high-end suppressor called the Ti-RANT. It weights about 1 oz less than their Evolution 9mm suppressor while offering greater sound reduction. This is achieved by using titanium and titanium alloys, hence the name Ti-RANT.

The specs are:
Weight: 8.6 OZ (244gm)
Length: 7.9” (201mm)
Diameter: 1.38” (35mm)
Finish: GunKote, T3 HARD COAT& SCARMOR
Sound Reduction: 35-38dB

The business end of the Ti-RANT

Of course the high-end construction and technology comes at a price. AAC will be selling it for $1195 shipped. That is about $300 more than the Evo 9.

More info at AAC

Actually its a pink sleeve covering a Advanced Armament Corporation suppressor on a .22 converted AR-15.

Hat Tip: Andy @ The Official AAC blog.

The PSDR 3 is a fully suppressed .45 ACP Smith & Wesson Model 625 revolver developed in 1993 by Joe Peters, under contract from Northrhine-Westphalia, for Germany’s SEK (SWAT) teams.

This photo is from Visier Special 6, 1997 (special edition of one of the three big German gun journals):

Click to expand.

Revolvers cannot be effectively suppressed because gas escapes from between the cylinder and the barrel creating noise (there are some exceptions). The big shell that encloses the cylinder of the PSDR 3 prevents the gas from escaping. This combined with a big suppressor and a subsonic .45 ACP round causes a noise reduction from 136 dB to 90 dB which is comparable to a CO2 air gun. Decibels are a logarithmic unit of measurement, so a 46 dB reduction is significant. In theory this gun should make a lot less noise than a suppressed semi-automatic pistol because there no slide slamming open and closed.

I had no idea such a gun existed until Sven emailed me. I really like the idea – German engineering at its best!
Many thanks to Sven, who blog at Defense and Freedom, for the scanned page and translation.

Gamo have updated the suppressed Whisper air rifle. The Whisper X is apparently makes less noise and has a cool looking ergonomic stock.

The Whisper X is a break barrel and is comes in a .22 or .177 caliber

Specs:

Weight: 6.61 lbs
Muzzle Velocity: .177 ft/s 1000
Muzzle Velocity: .22 ft/s 722 .

I am not sure about availability or pricing yet. Gamo USA do not update their website very often.

More info here.

The below photo comes from an article about the AAC Cyclops suppressor that Andy posted on the official AAC blog. The photo illustrates the size really well.

Looks similar in size to a massive custom 12 gauge suppressor I saw on a Remington 870 recently.

Reader Tarkan emailed me a couple of interesting news article about the assassination of a former Chechen commander in Turkey last week. Sabah reports:

According to police investigations the gunshots hit the victim from a diagonal angle and the weapons used were especially made for the KGB. Known as ’small special guns’ and used in assassinations, both the SP3 and SM4 models only let off minimal noise when shot. Police are stating that the previous Chechen commander that was murdered, Gazhi Edilsultanov was also killed by a 7.62 gun and the same weapon might have been used in both murders.

As usual, the media got the facts incorrect. The SP-3 is a cartridge. The S4M is a pistol.

SP-3 Cartridge (Photo from guns.ru)

S4M pistol (Photo from guns.ru)

The round is one of many Russia piston silenced rounds. The gas from the primer propels a piston (I doubt they contain any powder) which in turn propels a 123 grain bullet at 490 fps generating 66 lbs of muzzle energy. This is significantly less energy than a High Velocity .22 Long Rifle (130+ lbs). The piston then locks in the gas preventing muzzle noise.

The bullet itself is similar to the 7.62×39mm (AK) bullet. In theory this is supposed to fool investigators into thinking the victim was shot by a conventional rifle. This may have worked when the cartridge was classified but any modern forensic expert would not be fooled by a rifle bullet that clearly left the muzzle slowly and had very poor penetration.

A combination of very low power and a relatively large caliber bullet means the round is not capable of much apart from gangland style executions as demonstrated in the recent assassination.

JamesTown.org reports that in September another Chechen was assassinated in Turkey:

On September 6 Gazhi Edilsultanov, a former Chechen colonel, was gunned down in Istanbul reportedly during a dispute over financial aid being collected in Turkey for Chechen separatists. Edilsultanov was the head of the Chechen refugee camp in Istanbul

It is suspected that the killing was not a robbery but an assassination:

Perhaps, however, the story of killing Edilsultanov for the €50,000 was not true, and the suspects invented the money story to cover up the fact that the murder was committed by Russian intelligence.

I blogged about the new AR57 earlier this year. The AR Five Seven is a one piece 5.7×28mm upper that attaches to a AR-15 lower and uses the 50 round FN P90 magazines. 57 Center posted a few photos of their new SBR suppressed submachine gun/PDW:

How cool is that!

UPDATE: After writing a three paragraphs about integrally suppressed firearms it turns out this is not integrally suppressed! The suppressor fits inside the handguard. I got this via. email from the 57 Center:

This particular AR57 PDW Upper in Full-Auto with 6″ Barrel, with 6.5″ Gemtech Suppressor, is currently being produced for a couple LE Agencies.

We currently have our 11″ Pistol/SBR Upper available as well as our standard 16.125″

So they are now directly competing with the full-auto FN P90. Personally, if I had a choice between this and the P90 I would go with the AR platform.

I think the pistol configuration could be a lot of fun.

UPDATE: I asked if the 6″ barrel gave adequate performance. From 57 Center:

We have excellent results with both 6″ and 11″ Pistol/SBR Barrels, this would be peoples choice, LE prefers 6″ with the 6.5″ Suppressor, this unit also works in Sub Sonic,

It is very impressive that the action can cycle subsonic rounds (a light 30-50 grain 5.7mm bullet traveling below the speed of round is comparable to a 40 grain .22 LR Standard subsonic round).

Andy @ AAC has posted scans of a Maxim Silencer brochure. The prices range from $5 for a .22 suppressor to $9.50 for a high powered rifle caliber suppressor.

Click to expand.

View the rest of the brochure here.

What is cooler than a .50 BMG? A suppressed .50 BMG

I found this photo on the Advanced Armament website. Click to expand

The Cyclops Suppressor