Ian
Notorious member
In an effort to be a "good neighbor" to all the city folk who keep moving out here to the country, particularly right up to my property lines on two sides, I've all but quit shooting rifles and loud handguns on my own land. I have a little pistol range with a 50-yard backstop for rifle testing in a secluded canyon, but the noise reverberates quite a bit though the valleys and in the past has resulted in more than one visit from the Sheriff's dept. who were investigating complaints. I've been meaning to try to build some sort of sound attenuator to relieve the bulk of the "boom", which seems to be the most offensive noise to the several neighbors that I've asked. After spending a lot of time prowling on the internet for ideas and mulling this over for a year or two, I came up with a simple barrel full of old tires with a wood baffle somewhere in the middle. I had everything on hand to put it together, so last weekend I did. Here are a couple of photos:
The innards....
Yep, 50 yard berm is a little up-hill.....
This gave a lot of blast and noise back through the shooter's end, even with a .22 rimfire rifle, so I installed pieces of thick mud flap on the inside of both ends and cut smaller slots, about 1" x 4" tall, which was a substantial improvement. The only other thing I tried was my M1A, with the barrel inserted almost to the gas block, and the system works pretty well to muffle the "boom" down to just a mild "thump" inside the barrel. The middle tire is a very snug fit in an effort to cut down on ringing and barrel vibrations for the comfort of the shooter, that part being a success.
I'm not going to call it a success over-all, though, as the bullet flight noise itself is quite substantial, in addition to the supersonic crack. They system isn't as quiet as a good .308 suppressor, but it's really close, and being immobile and unattached to the gun, isn't subject to NFA restrictions.
I wouldn't really recommend this for most people, if you're getting complaints from shooting rifles where you are, I think a shooting tunnel with good ventilation and a muffled vent exhaust on the trap end is going to be about the only option...or suppressed subsonics, which is the direction I'm taking. I just hate the look of a suppressor on a nice lever gun.
The innards....
Yep, 50 yard berm is a little up-hill.....
This gave a lot of blast and noise back through the shooter's end, even with a .22 rimfire rifle, so I installed pieces of thick mud flap on the inside of both ends and cut smaller slots, about 1" x 4" tall, which was a substantial improvement. The only other thing I tried was my M1A, with the barrel inserted almost to the gas block, and the system works pretty well to muffle the "boom" down to just a mild "thump" inside the barrel. The middle tire is a very snug fit in an effort to cut down on ringing and barrel vibrations for the comfort of the shooter, that part being a success.
I'm not going to call it a success over-all, though, as the bullet flight noise itself is quite substantial, in addition to the supersonic crack. They system isn't as quiet as a good .308 suppressor, but it's really close, and being immobile and unattached to the gun, isn't subject to NFA restrictions.
I wouldn't really recommend this for most people, if you're getting complaints from shooting rifles where you are, I think a shooting tunnel with good ventilation and a muffled vent exhaust on the trap end is going to be about the only option...or suppressed subsonics, which is the direction I'm taking. I just hate the look of a suppressor on a nice lever gun.