"Quiet Bullets?"

[Stray Round]

Sometime ago I read an article by Ross Seyfried that mentioned some Smith's Quiet Bullets cast in LBT molds. He was shooting them from a 32 H&R and 32-20 with a light load of fast pistol powder, out of unsized cases. Supposedly very quiet load.

The bullets looked like a spool of thread with a driving band at front and back but with a short pointed nose section.

Anyone every use them? Any advantage over the same load with a regular cast bullet or round ball.

[Buckshot]

.................I don't really understand how the boolit's shape could cause it to be quieter. I am not a scientist, but the bang we hear is the gas release as the boolit's base clears the muzzle. If the boolit is supersonic it cracks. I think these would pretty much be unaffected by the boolit's shape.

You can mitigate the noise to a degree by shooting below the sound barrier, and by using a small light charge of powder. You can also quiet the report by using a longer barrel.

An example of all three is when shooting 45 Colt pistol ammo out of a chamber adaptor in my MkIV 577-450 Martini-Henry with it's 33" bbl. Just kind of like a burp.

............Buckshot

[Willbird]

Well it sounds like to me that the bullet has a wasp waisted shape to reduce bore friction, thus allowing small charges of powder to be used without sticking a bullet ??

There were some old ideal collar button bullets patterned like that.

Mr. Smith says to use a very heavy bullet with an extremely fast powder so it is all burnt before the bullet fully leaves the cylinder in a revolver.

Bill

[BeeMan]

Paco Kelly at leverguns.com has written an article or two on this type of thing. He suggests a heavy for caliber bullet in a longer barrel, with the pinch of fast pistol powder. Someone else (Jim Taylor?) suggested 2400 instead of the faster powders. I got a 357 190 cast down to a mild pop in a carbine barrel with bullseye, but it wasn't 'silent'. Velocity was pretty variable with powder position in the case, which could lead to a slug not exiting the barrel. Keep a cleaning rod handy...

BeeMan

[35remington]

Ditto what Willbird said. The intent with the spool shape was to make contact area and bore friction so low that a very light powder charge could be used without the bullet sticking in the barrel. Lighter powder charge, less pressure, lower report.

I haven't shot any of these, though, so I don't know how much quieter they actually were, as opposed to a normal full contact surface lead bullet. Seems to me it's pretty hard to get a quiet report from a revolver, but the proof would be in the shooting.

[David R]

Just a couple of things, Keep the barrel INSIDE the window when shooting, the neighbors won't hear the report as much.

Want a really quiet boolit? Take a sized and deprimed pistol case, press it into a cake of soap or wax 1/4" to 3/8" thick. Now prime the case. You can shoot these in the basement. If you have a revolver, you might have to make the flash hole bigger so the primers don't back out and tie up the cylinder.

[JohnH]

It is amazing how quiet a 158 grain bullet and 3 grains of Bullseye is from a rifle length 357 barrel, a 180-200 grain bullet is even quieter. Not silent, but certainly 22CB level. It wouldn't be noticed 100 yards away. My neighbor, some 500-600 yard distant thought 7.2 grains of #107 ('bout like Blue Dot) was a .22 Sound follows the holler bewteen us real good. I once thought the land owner between us was shooting on my property, he was shooting a S&W Model 10 wiht a 4" barrel and was at least 250-300 yards away. The less velocity the charge has at the end of the muzzle the quieter it will be. For experimenting, I would reduce charges of Bullseye in .5 grain increments till the bullet wouldn't exit, then use the next highest charge that would push the bullet out every time, in a pistol the velocity will be around 200 fps, in a rifle between 300-600 fps. Not sure what such loads are good for other than being really cheap. I wouldn't look for high accuracy, but such loads will go "pop" nad can be entertaining in a basement with a proper catch.

[Bret4207]

I don't believe you can get a revolver to go "pop". The barrel/cylinder gap screws this up.I have noticed that my S+W'17 45ACP is much quiter than, say, my Ruger 32 mag. But this is more a result of a velocity/bullet diameter type thing than a particular boolit. I've not found auto loaders to be any quieter, but never tried loading down. BTW-Those old movies where the guy screws a silencer onto the barrle of his revolver? Nope, won't work right, especially on a 357 or other high pressure round.

Now- if you take a nice solid long barrel type rifle and a moderately heavy boolit for the bore and load down in careful increments you can come up with a very quiet load. See Paco Kellys articles on sixgunner.com. Or, you can find a nice old Remington #4 rolling block or Stevens Crackshot or Favorite in 32 RF, convert to center fire and use 32 S+W cartridges. That combination is quieter than a 22 long rifle and knocks the eatin' type small game for a loop.

[wills]

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