Military Channel - Triggers of Change

[Big Frank]

Call them what you will. Maxim himself called them silencers. Who am I to argue with him?

[tombogan03884]

Call them what you will. Maxim himself called them silencers. Who am I to argue with him?

He did indeed.

Hiram Percy, not Hiram Stevens, Maxim.   


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Percy_Maxim

References

    ^ "Noise's Bogeyman". Time (magazine). January 4, 1932. Retrieved 2007-08-21. "While mental hygienists, efficiency experts and city officials have been bewailing the maddening effects of city noise, Hiram Percy Maxim has been manufacturing noise mufflers at Hartford, Conn. Last week he announced that his Maxim Silencer Co., of which he is president and his only son Hiram Hamilton is chief engineer and whose factory is in Asylum Street, Hartford, will—besides continuing to make silencers for guns, motor exhausts, safety valves, air releases, in fact every kind of pipe which emits a gas—offer a consulting service in noise abatement."

[alfsauve]

I was used as a reference for a buddy to get his tax stamp for a suppressor. When the lady called to ask me the questions she asked if I knew what it was for. I said probably a suppressor. She got all snotty with me and said "no, it's for a silencer."  I started to correct her but she was still being snotty so I ended up letting it drop. 

Not even the people that should have a clue, have a clue.

While she may have been overly officious and snooty, she was correct from a legal standpoint.  All the IRS regs refer to these devices as "silencers".   The word "suppressor" may sound nicer and be a more technically accurate term, but legally they are "silencers".

I only found one instance in the IRS code of the use of the word "suppressor" and it was in regards to a flash suppressor.

[Solus]

All this hot air about bullets falling faster or slower hasn't got squat to do with suppressed or unsuppressed.
I'm amazed that all you "gun guys" posted 2 pages in this thread. (well, OK most of one was actually on topic    )
and not one of you mentioned PRESSURE.
In integrally suppressed barrels gas is bled off through holes in the barrel into the surrounding suppressor body and, by decreasing pressure will in fact keep the bullets velocity below the speed of sound.
You need special ammo to do it with a simple can on the end of a regular barrel.
Slower bullets hit lower, not higher, than the same bullet going at a faster rate.
Bullets don't all drop at the same rate. Bullet drop is a result of bullet velocity and the area of the bullet exposed to gravity.
At an upward or downward angle gravity has less effect on the bullet, there fore it drops less and unless compensated for you will always hit high when shooting up or down hill.

Just can't agree with that at all. Bullets do fall at the same rate and velocity makes no difference.  Well, in a vacuum it doesn't.  If the bullet can develop some kind of aerodynamic lift, it might take longer, but it might develop a negative lift also...so it is a wash.

If you fire a bullet from a barrel  horizontal to the ground and drop a bullet from the same hight above the ground at the instand the fired bullet leaves the barrel, both bullets will hit the ground at the same time....assuming level ground.   But they will fall at exactly the same rate and hit at exactly the same time.   The exception would be if the distance to the ground was far enough that the dropped bullet reached it's terminal velocity in the air before it hit the ground, not likely in any reasonable shooting situation.

I have no idea what you mean about it's rate of fall being dependent upon the area of the bullet exposed to gravity?

The mass (weight for our exercise) doesn't even effect the rate of fall....

[Timothy]

I concur with Solus' statement.  Gravity is a constant, it's effect on a mass are constant.

Terminal velocity involves gravity but there are other forces involved that affect the rate of speed of a particular object, mass, surface area, etc....  A free-falling object achieves its terminal velocity when the downward force of gravity equals the upward force of drag which causes the net force on the object to be zero, resulting in an acceleration of zero.

A bullet is not a free falling object until it's forward momentum is zero.

[Sponsor]

[PegLeg45]

Slower bullets hit lower, not higher, than the same bullet going at a faster rate.

All things being equal, I get what you are saying....but in the real world, for that to happen, the barrel must be clamped down solidly so that recoil has no effect.

I once had a Ruger Super Blackhawk with a 10 1/2" barrel....... at 25 yds, with 248gr RNL .44 bullets going around 900 fps, the bullets went about 16" higher than the same bullets loaded to 1400 fps (magnum velocity).

This was strictly due to dwell-time in the barrel being effected directly by recoil.


Whole lotta variables in this little arena we love so much.