Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Range muffler?

I have a safe place to shoot on my own land and it is legal but new nieghbors do seem concerned about gunfire. (Noise)
I remember seeing a article years ago where the author shot through a muffler and his shots sounded like a car door being slamed he claimed.
Anyone have a idea how to build one of these for a range?

Thanks,
Ed

You'd probably have to shoot from the prone to get low enough. And I'd be really careful about the transmission and the radiator.

Rick Jamison described one that he built after much trial and error in a Shooting Times article years ago. As I recall, it was two 55 gallon steel drums fastened end to end with some sort of metal substance along the lines of coarse steel wool inside. Don't know if ST has some sort of on-line index, but if so, it might be worth a search...

Car tyres. Form them into a tunnel. Layer some carpet strips in each tyre or rags or just empty. I am planning such a device myself. I have tried this before and it works. The muzzle needs to be inside the first tyre or further (obviously). The carpet helps attenuate the 'ringing' inside the tyre tunnel. Use the smallest tyres for the first and last.

Good luck.

I have seen the tires work when they are hung so you can shoot off a bench and the steel drums also as long as there are ends that constrict the ends by about 4 or 6 inches at each end. I never did look to see what the lining was but it was held in place with some kind of hog wire.

Bear

Excellent idea. I wonder if a shooting shed, lined with hay bales, but with open doors at the ends would work as well, and keep you dry?

The one I remember seeing, was 1 or 2 55 gal plastic drums, lined with about 8 inches or so of foam all around the inside edges, and then a donut front and back, IE enough to get muzzle into barrel, and still see through scope, but front donut not any larger than needed.

IT will SEVERELY limit any periphial vision, a huge safety concern IMHO...

Hay bales should work as well. Just think of it as building a big silencer, something the muzzle must be inside of, bullet exit side needs to be as small as possible, and inside needs to be able to absorb sound.

Jeff

I've heard of this before, though never seen it. Seems to me it would limit you somewhat in shooting positions. IE, off the bench, only. No field positions.

I wonder if something couldn't be fashioned out of a few sheets of plywood and whatnot to make a tall, skinny box, where you could shoot prone, kneeling and standing. Maybe wouldn't work as well as the tires, but maybe good enough to keep the neighbors at bay.

- Tom

This is what a friend built a few years back, said it worked very well......





41Gunner

I vaguely remember that article and if memory serves he tried tires and found them less than ideal. I'm near certain I still have that ST copy, but I'd have to turn the garage upside down to find it.

loose insulation should work pretty good, held in place by some large wire mesh I"d assume. Looks like a good effort!

Jeff

Be careful copying a Jamison design.

Thanks for the replies every one. I am thinking of a bench muffler only because we can shoot a 22 with subsonics for other positions. I really just want to confirm my rifles and slug guns sighting for deer hunting. But if I could get it to work well I would make some up for the gun club and get the people who bought houses near the rifle range to stop complaining of the noise also.
Any other Ideas will be appreciated.
Ed

I used to have a shooting shed in my back yard, downtown, 10 blocks from the state capitol, where I shot 50 to 100 rounds of 45 ACP a day, without my neighbors knowing. When the train rain nearby, I could even pop off some .357 or FAL rounds.

Do you want to build a shooting house, or a portable sound-dampening system to take to the range?

I am thinking of a long, rectangular, device for myself for space reasons. Two lengths of thin walled channel or steel purlin should do just fine. The length should make up for the narrow cross-section. The cross section would be similar to the entry in 41Gunner's picture. This would be lined with several layers of carpeting.

Tyres stop the sound getting out but without a damping material, they echo within. They are heavy too. The peripheral vision issue is very real. If one has the space, a longer muffler with a wider exit opening could solve that one. I like the idea of a shooting shed. Carpeting is a convenient absorbent material and absorbs sound well. One could use a tyre-drum-tyre arrangement.

I designed one but never built it. I like the idea of carpeting. I had in mind a long wooden box lined with foam rubber. I planned to hang alternating internal baffles of carpet and foam rubber, with an inch or so of space between baffles. The baffles each had a different diameter hole in the middle to shoot through. That gives randomly staggered baffle edges for the bullet to pass and sound waves to hit.

I wasn't sure how big to make the hole but I wasn't going to concern myself much with field positions, so it didn't need to be much larger than needed to see a full sized target. I planned to make the exit baffle with as small a hole as possible to see if that would help keep sound inside the box till it dampened out. A relatively small hole on the end where the rifle goes in will reduce the sound blast to the shooter.

I'm really curious what you build. With the box and hung baffles, I planned to experiment with different kinds of baffle material, including some layers of plywood, styrofoam, ceiling panels and spun fiberglass insulation. I don't live in a place to use it now.

Send me a PM with your address and I'll send you a copy of the Jamison blueprints for his muffler. In his article he had a way to contact him for the details on his muffler and I did so and he sent me what I can send you.

Logger

Not so many years ago, there was an annual soft cover book with the title "Handloader's Digest/19XX." Some of our younger members will find this hard to believe, but it was actually filled with interesting and useful articles. Of course, its primary function was selling us reloading stuff, but the overwhelming majority of its dozens of articles were both information-dense and entertaining! It was an annual seminar for shooters!

Therefore:

Open your copy of "Handloader's Digest/1996" to page 191 and read "Range Sound Reducer," by Ken Waters.

Then open your copy of "Handloader's Digest/1997" to page 44 and read "A Lofty Place to Shoot," by Don L. Henry.

Build. Use. Improve. Then please write an illustrated article for "Smokelore!"

Okanagan, I have a 'firing tube' that I do my load development and bullet testing in. It is made from carbon steel pipe with a thick 4140 plate at the bottom. This is lined with rolled up carpet layers and one fires into it by holding the muzzle against a rubber cone. It is quieter than hitting a nail with a hammer. So I'm guessing that with tightly packed carped rolls, and small in and out apertures, it would not need to be that big. But the sidewalls need to be very rigid otherwise sound will pass straight through. A 12 inch steel pipe with a rolled carped squeezed into it, about 12 feet long? Bigger is better of course but this steel pipe is heavy.

What about a rolled up carpet squeezed into a row of tyres? You know, I work between a carpet shop and a tyre shop. I could try that and report back if anyone is interested?