The reality of firearm suppressors vs. Hollywood(militaryrealism.blog)
militaryrealism.blog
The reality of firearm suppressors vs. Hollywood
https://militaryrealism.blog/2025/06/12/silencers-not-very-silent/
12 comments
It's not just about the actual sound effects, it's also the writing. The movie clip the article uses as an anchor shows people using silencers to have a gunfight in public with bystanders having no idea it was happening. That's not just hollywood sound direction, it's hollywood giving a completely wrong impression about how good silencers are and why they exist
I purchased a suppressor for my 9mm handgun that I use for recreational target shooting. It isn’t as quiet as the movies, but the suppressor paired with a higher mass bullet makes a world of difference compared to unsuppressed. The tone of the sound is lower and lacks the deafening crack of a rounding going supersonic and makes the activity so much more comfortable.
This is one of those topics where gun fans will try to take to both sides of the issue. When they are talking to "normies" they talk about how suppressors aren't really that quiet and it's just to protect their hearing at the range. When they are talking amongst themselves they brag about how they were able to get their guns "Hollywood quiet" with subsonic ammunition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSWyAQe5K7k
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EqAYUb0uYn0
What's most misleading about Hollywood silencers isn't the sound of the gun firing, but the sound of the round striking. In suppressed weapons, the bullet impact is often significantly louder than the weapon firing and should be clearly audible if it's hitting a solid surface.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSWyAQe5K7k
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EqAYUb0uYn0
What's most misleading about Hollywood silencers isn't the sound of the gun firing, but the sound of the round striking. In suppressed weapons, the bullet impact is often significantly louder than the weapon firing and should be clearly audible if it's hitting a solid surface.
Only at great cost to penetrative power. The muzzle energy of the oft-cited subsonic .22 is a whopping 120-140 J. And that energy bleeds very fast with distance, since most of the kinetic energy comes from the velocity, and aerodynamic drag is proportional to velocity squared. A real-life Agent 47 may genuinely be better off with a crossbow.
I've fired a .22 semi auto rifle with a sound suppressor and subsonic ammo in the past. It was maybe just a little bit louder than the Welrod in the video in the article. The noisiest part was the bolt cycling. I'm not sure how practical it was for anything more than paper targets or beer cans at near to mid range.
Many 9mm self-defense rounds are subsonic (e.g., 147-grain), so the practicality depends on the bullet design for the application.
Sure, then ignore then .45 example and ignore the 300 blackout or countless other calibers that perform well subsonic. Cherry pick all you like, it's possible to have a Hollywood quiet firearm. Stating otherwise is disingenuous at best.
I never stated that it is impossible to have a Hollywood quiet firearm, nor did I cherry pick anything. I merely highlighted a tradeoff that calls the efficacy of "Hollywood quiet" firearms into question. For subsonic ammo, quietness is not affected by bullet size, it's affected by the amount of exploded powder. And it just so happens that your muzzle energy is also affected by the same thing. Your subsonic .45 and 7.62x35 will be louder than your subsonic .22 by roughly the same proportion that they are deadlier.
Your first video is showing what's effectively the absolutely quietest suppressed firearm you could possibly ever shoot, which isn't a very representative example.
The second video is good, although if you click through the guy's links they have a video of them shooting the same gun with a db meter next to it, showing that it still makes 87.4 db of noise when firing, which is considered louder than "a loud radio", and is basically at the db level where anything that level or louder is considered harmful. So, not really that quiet in reality. The sound doesn't really get picked up on a microphone and played through your headphones in a very realistic manner.
The second video is good, although if you click through the guy's links they have a video of them shooting the same gun with a db meter next to it, showing that it still makes 87.4 db of noise when firing, which is considered louder than "a loud radio", and is basically at the db level where anything that level or louder is considered harmful. So, not really that quiet in reality. The sound doesn't really get picked up on a microphone and played through your headphones in a very realistic manner.
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So, it's a bit like complaining that tinted windows work better to reduce sunlight on TV than in real life. Or conversely that people whispering in the movies are way too loud, since you shouldn't be able to hear it all the way at the back of the crowded theater.
Also, sound effects are very stereotyped in the media. They are nearly a symbolic code, not realism. Hollywood shoes don't sound like shoes. Hollywood beverages don't sound like beverages. Hollywood clothes don't sound like clothes. Hollywood sex doesn't sound like sex.
Also, these conventions were being established for worse sound systems in old theaters, TV, etc. You cannot reproduce actual gunshot sound experiences in a movie. They are already "silenced" just to fit into the playback environment. So what else can you do to portray a suppressed weapon after that? Of course, you'll need to reduce it even further to make it unambiguously different.
Edit to add: I recall how Dirty Harry's magnum got what seemed like a new sound effect at the time. Not only is the sound smeared out in time, it has a ragged edge like a clipped signal. It is reminiscent of the recorded sounds of space launches that were culturally widespread by then from the Apollo program.