SILENCER
Device attached to the barrel of a weapon and which traps the emergent gas and forces it to pass round a series of baffles, cooling it and thus reducing its volume, so that it emerges at low speed and does not, therefore, make much noise. The silencer also has holes bored in the gun barrel so as to bleed off propellant gas behind the bullet and reduced its speed to below that of sound, so avoiding a sonic crack due to the bullet’s flight.
SUPPRESSOR
Similar to a silencer insofar as it baffles the emergent gas, but does not bleed gas from behind the bullet. Therefore it only silences the muzzle discharge and not the bullet’s sonic wave. If used with subsonic ammunition is effectively a silencer.
Device attached to the barrel of a weapon and which traps the emergent gas and forces it to pass round a series of baffles, cooling it and thus reducing its volume, so that it emerges at low speed and does not, therefore, make much noise. The silencer also has holes bored in the gun barrel so as to bleed off propellant gas behind the bullet and reduced its speed to below that of sound, so avoiding a sonic crack due to the bullet’s flight.
SUPPRESSOR
Similar to a silencer insofar as it baffles the emergent gas, but does not bleed gas from behind the bullet. Therefore it only silences the muzzle discharge and not the bullet’s sonic wave. If used with subsonic ammunition is effectively a silencer.
