Muffled gun shots out of garage.

[smkummer]

So I live in a rural subdivision. I shoot CCI quiets and 22 shorts out of my 22 rifles out the back yard in my wooded creek area, no complaints. While most of my neighbors know if they hear a gunshot, it’s probably me, but I want to keep a good relationship with them. My local range is 10 miles or 20 minutes away. Sometimes I just need to test a few rounds. At first I just cracked my detached garage entry door and fired a few shots. Wife could hear them from inside the house. So I added an empty cardboard barrel. Now she says it sounds like a muffled pop. I just tested a 44-40 rifle and revolver. With the revolver, it’s important to get the front of the cylinder inside the barrel for more sound deadening.

[Hannibal]

That's an interesting idea. Basically an oversized muffler but unattached to the firearm.

[Winger Ed.]

Try putting and letting a lawn mower run outside the garage while you're shooting.
It isn't a perfect solution, but it'll help cover and cancel out the noise from the shot.

Also, line your tube with old/junk carpet. Face the fluffy part towards the inside.


Think of your tube as working like a regular suppressor.
When their exit hole wiper gets larger and larger from use, the report gets louder.
The smaller your tube's (entrance &) exit hole is- the better it will work too.

[JimB..]

Roll a piece of chicken wire around a piece of PVC pipe, secure it to itself and remove pvc pipe. Mount roughly in the center of your cardboard tube/barrel using plywood to secure it. Fill around the wire tube with loose stuff that isn’t likely to catch fire, a wrapping of steel wool is great. If you want extra quiet, cut a cap at the shooters end with an oval hole in the center, gun barrel goes at the bottom of the oval, sight through the top.

Your wife won’t know when you’re shooting it, much less the neighbors. Just don’t attach it to a gun.

[smkummer]

Wow, great ideas guys! Sounds ( he he) like you guys have been there and done that! Right now I am shooting into a stump. I do have some extra carpet. I have a much larger stump that maybe I can get permission from the wife to use……or beg for permission. I have the removable steel lid for the cardboard barrel that I’ll install with a smaller hole on the exit end.

[Kosh75287]

NOT to be a wet blanket, but what are you using for a backstop?

[smkummer]

NOT to be a wet blanket, but what are you using for a backstop?

It’s a tree stump. The cowboy lead bullets only go in a just bit and one can see the base. The full power 44-40 go further but none have penetrated the maybe 16” stump.

[Hannibal]

I think the question is what is going to stop the bullet if the stump is unintentionally missed?

[bryan scott]

Nice,

[elmacgyver0]

An effective "range suppressor" can be made from a row of old tires.
Great if you have the room.

[bryan scott]

Now that's an idea,, if you could shoot rifles on your place for example, and wanted to quite it down , you could put a line of tires with carpet or similar in them and rubber sheet on either end and shoot thru. It , would be an interesting project.

[dogrunner]

An effective "range suppressor" can be made from a row of old tires.
Great if you have the room.

Once read an article with pics of that very thing. Shooter stacked about 10 tires on a supporting rack, as I recall he stated that it completely eliminated complaints he was getting shoot a hi powered rifle in a somewhat rural sub division.

[elmacgyver0]

Now that's an idea,, if you could shoot rifles on your place for example, and wanted to quite it down , you could put a line of tires with carpet or similar in them and rubber sheet on either end and shoot thru. It , would be an interesting project.

I think I have a lot of great ideas, but I can't take credit for this one.
Rick Jamison made such a device for shooting high power rifles on his personal range.
If I remember right, he filled the insides of the tires with swarf from a machine shop and kept it in place with wire mesh.

[elmacgyver0]

For anyone that decides to do this, just make sure you drill holes in the tires to drain any water that gets in or you will have a major "skeeter" problems.

[wreckster]

Roll a piece of chicken wire around a piece of PVC pipe, secure it to itself and remove pvc pipe. Mount roughly in the center of your cardboard tube/barrel using plywood to secure it. Fill around the wire tube with loose stuff that isn’t likely to catch fire, a wrapping of steel wool is great. If you want extra quiet, cut a cap at the shooters end with an oval hole in the center, gun barrel goes at the bottom of the oval, sight through the top.

Your wife won’t know when you’re shooting it, much less the neighbors. Just don’t attach it to a gun.

That description demands some photos!

[kootne]

Roll a piece of chicken wire around a piece of PVC pipe, secure it to itself and remove pvc pipe. Mount roughly in the center of your cardboard tube/barrel using plywood to secure it. Fill around the wire tube with loose stuff that isn’t likely to catch fire, a wrapping of steel wool is great. If you want extra quiet, cut a cap at the shooters end with an oval hole in the center, gun barrel goes at the bottom of the oval, sight through the top.

Your wife won’t know when you’re shooting it, much less the neighbors. Just don’t attach it to a gun.

Steel wool is very easily ignited, burns hot and is hard to extinguish, I would use ceramic wool instead.

[Hannibal]

Steel wool is very easily ignited, burns hot and is hard to extinguish, I would use ceramic wool instead.

There's a product called mineral wool board that is used in construction for fireproofing. I've used it before when making outside wood stoves and it's easy to work with if the part has flat sides. It would be pretty easy to make a square out of it that would fit inside 4" PVC for example. Might work out pretty well.

[BP Dave]

Check your local laws/ordinances as well as the location of any urban boundaries. In some jurisdictions it's a felony to discharge a firearm in urban areas (with exceptions for cops, self-defense, and shooting ranges, etc.), and a complaint by a disgruntled somebody could suddenly make that 20-minute drive to the range much more attractive. If you do continue, bear in mind that a round glancing off a stump and into someone else's yard can change even the friendliest neighbor into something else,

[Loudenboomer]

Keep in mind you can muffle the muzzle blast but super sonic rounds will still have supersonic Crack.

[smkummer]

Thanks again guys, no ordinances here. If I would miss the stump ( rare, it’s only 15 yards away), the bullet would either penetrate the grass ground or glance off from the angle I shoot and have to make it past a 4-5’ stack of firewood 20’ behind the stump. If it somehow miss that, then it would have to make it through 2 lines of trees that are fully full of leaves and branches. After that, it’s 200 feet to the neighbors house up the hill.