How Guns and Silencers Work

I’ve always been interested in guns from playing shooter games like Counter Strike, Call of Duty, Battlefield to reading about the working of guns.

Disclaimer - I’ve never fired a gun!

Here’s an interesting animation of a simple handgun being fired.

All in all what happens on pushing the trigger is the hammer hits, causing a mini-explosion and the bullet shoots out of the barrel at a very high speed. In guns like this one, the hammers needs to be cocked back first before shooting. Here’s a supercut of the same in movies.

The bullet comes out from the barrel with a very high muzzle velocity and pushes the slide back ejeting the empty shell.

It’s amazing how a tiny little tube (called a suppressor or a silencer) can reduce decibel levels by almost 20-30! Here’s an animation, courtesy of Silencer Co.

The loud gunshot is attributed to the rapid ejection of hot gases from the barrel. A silencer takes advantage of this very thing. It has various baffles inside to give gases a larger and contained space to dissipate and cool before exiting.

baffle
noun: a device used to restrain the flow of a fluid, gas, etc. or to prevent the spreading of sound or light in a particular direction.

Silencers have added benefits such as recoil reduction, muzzle flash reduction and an increase in accuracy.

On an ending note, I’d like to stress that guns are loud, really loud even with silencers. A .45 caliber pistol silenced is still as loud as a jackhammer! Here’s an amusing video breaking the silencer myth in movies and video games.