Does a silencer reduce the accuracy of your rifle?

Jimmy bo 186

I recently heard that the longer the silencer on your airsoft gun the less accuracy you will achieve. Is this true?

I noticed when i put a silencer ( about 5 inches) on the end of my mp5k the accuracy was awfull taking into account that the barrel lenght on a gun like that is quite short.

Thanks

Puding

the most common ways that a silencer would effect accuracy is:

- the diameter inside silencer is to small and the bb makes contact with the silence in flight, a bbs flight is not straight and it is common for a bb to clip the inside of the silencer especially with longer silencers.
- the soft material inside the silencer is is impeding the path of the bb

T4RGET

Puding wrote: »

the most common ways that a silencer would effect accuracy is:

- the diameter inside silencer is to small and the bb makes contact with the silence in flight, a bbs flight is not straight and it is common for a bb to clip the inside of the silencer especially with longer silencers.
- the soft material inside the silencer is is impeding the path of the bb

What Puding said makes sense, eventhough I've personally never heard of the drop in accuracy form a suppressor although I'm guessing you are fully aware an airsoft suppressor does nothing for sound, but is for looks only, unless it's a tracer. the most common uses for airsoft suppressor is that a lot of players use them to increase the barrel length without having to increase the overall outerbarrrel length, so it might be a good idea to look into that.

dunphy3

T4RGET wrote: »

What Puding said makes sense, eventhough I've personally never heard of the drop in accuracy form a suppressor although I'm guessing you are fully aware an airsoft suppressor does nothing for sound, but is for looks only, unless it's a tracer. the most common uses for airsoft suppressor is that a lot of players use them to increase the barrel length without having to increase the overall outerbarrrel length, so it might be a good idea to look into that.

yes

T4RGET

dunphy3 wrote: »

yes

what you mean?

NakedDex

Some suppressors do change the sound. Madbull, specifically, being the most effective.

Rico_98

NakedDex wrote: »

Some suppressors do change the sound. Madbull, specifically, being the most effective.

Yes dats true ... It does change the sound !!! Its a more muffled and quieter sound with a suppressors

T4RGET

Rico_98 wrote: »

Yes dats true ... It does change the sound !!! Its a more muffled and quieter sound with a suppressors

well Madbull being one of the few known to us to do it but it only get's read of the noise of the BB leaving the barrel, whihc is very little anyways compared to the gearbox cycling

Puding

would not say it is the only one, any silencer with some foam material in it is going to effect the noise just the same theory as adding any material to absorb sound waves

never seen anything massively special about the madbul myself compared to some of the china soft KAC / SPR clones I have, event he tm tracer changes the output to a lower thump and that has no material in it

T4RGET

Puding wrote: »

would not say it is the only one, any silencer with some foam material in it is going to effect the noise just the same theory as adding any material to absorb sound waves

never seen anything massively special about the madbul myself compared to some of the china soft KAC / SPR clones I have, event he tm tracer changes the output to a lower thump and that has no material in it

I use one on my AEG just for the purpose of running a longer innner through it, which, if a suppressor did take sound out a bit would make it useless now as it's by passing it completely :P :rolleyes:

dunphy3

T4RGET wrote: »

what you mean?

yes it does.

andy_g

dunphy3 wrote: »

yes it does.

Dunphy3.

Can you add to your one worded sometimes two worded posts otherwise the mod team may look at this as trolling.

NakedDex

T4RGET wrote: »

well Madbull being one of the few known to us to do it but it only get's read of the noise of the BB leaving the barrel, whihc is very little anyways compared to the gearbox cycling

That's not even close to how it works...

BB's are subsonic, by a massive margin. Why would you think a suppressor reduces the sound of a BB exiting a barrel when it barely produces more than a whisper-level sound to begin with?
Suppressors - specifically ones like the Madbull models I mentioned - operate by using stepped acoustic absorbtion material, creating air chambers of dense material inside the suppressor. This array absorbs and dissipates high frequency waves associated with the "snap" of a gun firing, caused by the piston slamming home against the air seal. The low frequency "thump", however, passes through the material relatively easily due to it's differing wavelength and how such waveforms act upon semi-solids.
The effectiveness of this suppression is dependant on the rifle in question. As the sound eminates from the piston, the vast majority of the leaked sound will be around the receiver area immediately surrounding the upper half of the gearbox. Sound, being nothing more than a pressure wave, can be contained and follows predictable paths. The suppressor on the end of your barrel will dampen the directed high-frequency sound travelling down the inner barrel as it exits the muzzle, but the same sound - minus the dampening - will "leak" from the various cracks, gaps and holes in the receiver just as readily as it will exit the barrel, albeit at a lower velocity (expansion dynamics, we won't get into that).
All of this means that a good suppressor is only as effective as the body sealing on the rifle it's attached to. This implies, and is provable, that a suppressor on a bullpup is far more effective than a suppressor on an M4/16 style rifle due to the reciever being an enclosed unit, rather than a split one with large holes (eg, the breach).

Furthermore, the mag-well positioning, shape and size all act to direct and amplify the sound, which is why dry firing with an empty mag is quieter than dry firing with no mag. A quick and simple way to further limit sound production by your rifle during play is to put a couple of layers of insulation tape around the area where your magazine will sit in the mag-well. This creates a better acoustic seal and further limits sound leakage. It will, however, render you incapable of using the "free drop" method of reloading, if that's a method you use.
Again, this is why bullpups are a much easier unit to dampen the sound on, as the mag well is usually surrounded by your body on three sides when firing. Their mag-wells also generally tend to be plastic/polymer, which doesn't conduct sound as well as metal.

Once you've mounted a good suppressor, and maybe completed a few mods like adding a silent piston head, you'll realise that an awful lot of the noise noticeable at a distance produced by an AEG is actually coming from the motor. Unfortunately, you can't dampen motor noise effectively, so the most common, and effective, course of action is to use a high-speed motor/MOSFET/LiPo combination to shorten the amount of time the motor is cycling. For the want of a better description, you're trying to sync the motor noise to the gearbox noise, shortening your audible footprint.

NakedDex

Puding wrote: »

would not say it is the only one, any silencer with some foam material in it is going to effect the noise just the same theory as adding any material to absorb sound waves

never seen anything massively special about the madbul myself compared to some of the china soft KAC / SPR clones I have, event he tm tracer changes the output to a lower thump and that has no material in it

I've gone through several suppressors, clones and big-brands, over the years. A few I used for barrel extensions, a few I got rid of. Basically, the majority of them were, indeed, fairly pants. Cheap foam with very low density used as a filler means that suppressor is only going to be useful as an ornament. The Madbull ones I've used, and continue to use, are a different kettle of fish entirely. The dampening effect isn't just noticeable, it's substantial.
While I've gotten rid of many of the guns I used these suppressors on, I still have my main rifle, an M7, upon which is mounted a Madbull G5. My custom/project carbine/PDW type thing uses the Talon integrated system and my P90 uses a Quicksilver. The latter two are inoperable right now (anyone have a spare P90 mag catch...), but I can borrow a sound level meter from work and record the M7 with and without the G5.

King John The Last

Does extending the barrel through a (madbull) silencer affect its sound? Im using an AUG.

NakedDex

If you extend the barrel through the suppressor, you're bypassing the internal parts of the suppressor that will dampen the sound, leaving you with no effect whatsoever. If you're mounting a suppressor specifically to extend the inner barrel, I wouldn't waste good money on a Madbull model, when a cheap clone will do exactly the same job. If you want it to dampen the sound, go with Madbull and use the shorter barrel, or mount a barrel extension and a suppressor on the end of that to give you the longer inner with the sound dampening. The consequence of the latter is a much longer rifle, however.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Most silencers only effect the pitch and not the actual decibel level, however if you make your own, or mod an existing one it can become much more effective, eg add coarse,dense foam then a layer of lighter fine foam etc. Also adding baffles does make a difference - Especially in gas NBB rifles such as sniper rifles. Many can get their gun near silent with the use of some sound dampeners in the stock and an effective silencer.

In my own sniper rifle it changes the sound of the gun from a thwack to a lighter thump. A much less audible note.