Taking advantage of the quiet night, a killer walked into the intensive care unit of the hospital. He held a wide mouthed plastic bottle in his left hand; Holding a handgun in his right hand, he wrapped the barrel in a towel. The dying patient on the hospital bed is unconscious.
The assassin tiptoed to the bedside, pressed a plastic bottle against the patient's chest, inserted the gun barrel into the bottle, and stuffed a towel into the gun. The gap between the bottles, pulling the trigger bullet, almost quietly entered the patient's chest!
This is the plot of the 2010 Hong Kong movie 'The Gun King'. The killer's gun doesn't have a suppressor pressed, only a bottle and a towel can disappear? Is this in line with reality? To know the answer to this question, we must first understand what a muffler is.
The working principle is very simple
A muffler, also known as a suppressor, as the name suggests, is a device that reduces and resists noise. Because noise is also a form of pollution, the use of mufflers is not only for military purposes! Although this article only discusses firearm mufflers, the working principle of various mufflers is similar, which is to change the propagation mode or speed of sound in the air to reduce sound.
The exhaust pipe of a motorcycle can also serve as a muffler.
The reason why the gun makes a loud sound when firing bullets is that the bullets quickly push the air to move in an instant (the pressure on the air during bullet firing can reach 240 kilograms per square centimeter). If it exceeds the speed of light, it will form a small sonic boom.
It's like you deflate a balloon, break it with a needle, and release the air inlet, but the sound of the former is obviously much louder than the latter. Therefore, by changing the way bullets diffuse through the air, gunshots can be reduced. The vast majority of silencers cause the high-pressure gas in the gun barrel to expand relatively slowly before spraying the muzzle. Due to the decrease in gas injection speed, the decibel level of noise decreases. Another effective way to reduce gunshots is to lower the initial velocity of the bullet, but in this case, the force generated by the bullet will be greatly reduced, which may be something gun users do not want to see.
Generally, mufflers have air holes that allow high-pressure gas inside the barrel to expand relatively slowly before being ejected from the muzzle.
It's difficult to eliminate gunshots
From the above, it can be seen that although mufflers can reduce gunshots, it is difficult to completely eliminate them.
Because as long as a bullet is fired, the gas will expand, which fundamentally determines that the muffler cannot completely disappear. Even very small bullets (such as the. 22LR), which is a long-standing bullet, are still one of the common bullets in the world and can be used with many rifles, pistols, revolvers, and even sliding shotguns. Its characteristics are cheap, low recoil, low noise, but the accuracy of distance and strength are not significant. ）It's not the loud gunshots that others hear, but there will still be sounds.
The smaller the diameter of the bullet, the better the muffler effect. The. 22LR bullet is located in the lower right corner of the picture.
Now it seems that the plot at the beginning of this article is obviously inconsistent with the facts. Although assassins are very familiar with the working principle of mufflers, even carefully designed mufflers cannot eliminate gunshots. How can that simple device achieve the effect in the movie?
This movie has caused many people to misunderstand the muffler. In fact, even with a silencer, people can still hear the sound of shooting from a long distance. The main function of a silencer is to alter the sound of gunshots, making them sound less like gunshots and more like the "crackling" sound of decorative nail guns, thereby reducing or eliminating the attention that the shooter may be drawn to. That is to say, a silencer cannot truly keep the gun silent, but it can prevent the shooter from being detected.
In addition, the muffler also has other functions, such as reducing hearing loss, improving shooting accuracy, and reducing recoil.
We must know that it is currently difficult to manufacture silencers that completely eliminate gunshots. But who can predict to what extent technology will develop? Perhaps a perfect muffler will be designed.
