Paintball silencers.

[FinchMan]

I know they are illegal, and if I'm not allowed to talk about them here, please delete this thread and let me know.

Since they were so great for paintball, and banned by the ATF, why has nobody petitioned the AFT to make a paintball specific license for supressors? maybe something that doesn't cost $200+ for a license for silencers, automatic weapons, and a few other things (explosives??).

they say that silencers for paintball guns could easly be adapted to real guns, but what if some company manufactured barrels with permanently attached silencers... maybe something could be worked out.

I'm just throwing ideas out there... please post with suggestions/comments/etc...

[Dayspring]

If there was money to be made, somebody would try it.

Plus, they're illegal. ;)

[neppo1345]

They're not illegal...

by definition, the illegal usage of a silencer is based off of what it's silencing...

Firearms Silencer - Illegel w.o permit

Paintball Marker Silencer - Completely legal...considering that a paintball marker is not cosidered a firearm...and ONLY firearm silencers are listed in the law...


There must be money to be made :)

Compression Barrels (http://www.endgameinc.com/Paintball-Products/Compression-Barrels.asp)

[NeoApollo]

"Firearm silencers are a controlled device under federal law. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) regulates the ownership and manufacture of a number of firearm devices including machine guns and sound suppressors (otherwise known as "silencers.") In the early 1990s, the ATF ran tests and decided that paintball silencers could be used to quiet a true firearm and they notified all manufacturers of paintball silencers that they were in violation of federal law. The reach of big brother was fast and final. All paintball silencers disappeared from the market."

-http://www.specialopspaintball.com/articles/paintball_silencers.asp

[SlartyBartFast]

With all the holes drilled into paintball barells, they're plenty silent.

[Jotsy]

lol you have got to be kidding me... ported barrels = silent? "quieter" yes mebe, but not silent.

[MarkM]

lol you have got to be kidding me... ported barrels = silent? "quieter" yes mebe, but not silent.

Don't sweat it the US has different laws so ported barrels are basically their only option, you can use silencers same as I can, finding a walk-on day though would be a little more difficult though. Of course to use one in a Tournament would be pretty pointless unless it was woodland but even so the woods are pretty thinned out right now...in a few months maybe not so and I have heard a little rumour of a proper woodland tournament coming up.

[Recon by Fire]

You can have a paintball silencer...for a $200 ATFB tax stamp.


Just get yourself a faux "barrel extender"

http://home.houston.rr.com/doublenot7/Pict0143.JPG

[FinchMan]

You can have a paintball silencer...for a $200 ATFB tax stamp.


Just get yourself a faux "barrel extender"

http://home.houston.rr.com/doublenot7/Pict0143.JPG

that was my orginal point. $200 for a license for a bunch of firearm stuff thats not needed in paintball. we only need a license for silencers, paintball specific ones.

It seems you saw the topic, and didn't bother to read it all to well...
That fake barrel extender does nothing, adds weight, and looks dumb because it does nothing. I don't want a silencer because it looks cool, I want it for the sound supression for woodsball. I don't want to be comitting a big crime every time i use one, and I don't want to pay 200$ for the license alone. Thats why I want to see if there are any options out there, like ways to get the laws changed in favor of paintball.

[geekwarrior]

theres been paintball silencers on ebay the last month or so, i asked the dude and he said they were legal....he wanted like 40$ for them....personally i like to be loud and scare everyone :headbang:

[neppo1345]

"Firearm silencers are a controlled device under federal law. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) regulates the ownership and manufacture of a number of firearm devices including machine guns and sound suppressors (otherwise known as "silencers.") In the early 1990s, the ATF ran tests and decided that paintball silencers could be used to quiet a true firearm and they notified all manufacturers of paintball silencers that they were in violation of federal law. The reach of big brother was fast and final. All paintball silencers disappeared from the market."

-http://www.specialopspaintball.com/articles/paintball_silencers.asp

So doubleyou-tee-eff is this then? Compression Barrel (http://www.endgameinc.com/Paintball-Products/Compression-Barrels.asp)

I better get mine before someone goes and reports them to government...

And uh...finch...before you go flaming...maybe consider sarcasm on the part of the other party...
enclosing a "word" in "quotations" usually signifies "sarcasm"....

[FinchMan]

So doubleyou-tee-eff is this then? Compression Barrel (http://www.endgameinc.com/Paintball-Products/Compression-Barrels.asp)

I better get mine before someone goes and reports them to government...

And uh...finch...before you go flaming...maybe consider sarcasm on the part of the other party...
enclosing a "word" in "quotations" usually signifies "sarcasm"....

aight, no harm done then.

from what i heard on pbreview, from the people not accused of being company reps, is that that barrel doesnt actually make much difference in noise.

[neppo1345]

aight, no harm done then.

from what i heard on pbreview, from the people not accused of being company reps, is that that barrel doesnt actually make much difference in noise.

Gotcha...I might pick one up eventually...I'll have to put up a review...

[craltal]

that was my orginal point. $200 for a license for a bunch of firearm stuff thats not needed in paintball. we only need a license for silencers, paintball specific ones.

It seems you saw the topic, and didn't bother to read it all to well...

it seems YOU didn't read the replies as it was stated that the ATF decided that even paintball silencers could be adapted to use with real firearms so they were banned. There is not a way to purposefully differentiate the two with a plethora of machinists around.

Moot point, especially since nothing will completely silence the sound without dropping velocity to unusable levels . Just buy a good barrel, learn fire control, and be done with it.

[BigEvil]

Taso used to make silencers back in the day. They didnt work really well unless you replaced the stuffing with something denser.

Once you got them right they worked great.

[SlartyBartFast]

"quieter" yes mebe(sic), but not silent.

I’m not kidding. With a barrel that’s a good length and well ported, you hear the back block clicking on Autocockers or the distinctive ‘ping’ on Automags. Can’t get any quieter than that. Can you?

Personally, I think I want to get my hands on an intimidator. :)

[coyote]

A sillencer doesn't make a gunshot silent. I doesn't eliminate the noise with a paintball shot either. Most barrels are plent quiet anyway.

[Jotsy]

I’m not kidding. With a barrel that’s a good length and well ported, you hear the back block clicking on Autocockers or the distinctive ‘ping’ on Automags. Can’t get any quieter than that. Can you?

Personally, I think I want to get my hands on an intimidator. :)

i want to know, what barrel you are using?

[FinchMan]

it seems YOU didn't read the replies as it was stated that the ATF decided that even paintball silencers could be adapted to use with real firearms so they were banned. There is not a way to purposefully differentiate the two with a plethora of machinists around.

Moot point, especially since nothing will completely silence the sound without dropping velocity to unusable levels . Just buy a good barrel, learn fire control, and be done with it.

Yes, i have read the spec ops article, and all the replies. I never wanted to debate the legality of paintball silencers, or find the simple (most of the time less effective) solutions.

Its possible to get a license for silencers, but it cost 200$ and it includes a whole bunch of stuff paintballers dont need.

My original question was to see if there was a possibility someone could petition the ATF to make a liscence thats only for silencers, not all that other stuff. if it could cost less, then maybe woodsballers could afford it. Whether or not they would be paintball specific silencers or not, that was just an idea.


I’m not kidding. With a barrel that’s a good length and well ported, you hear the back block clicking on Autocockers or the distinctive ‘ping’ on Automags. Can’t get any quieter than that. Can you?

Personally, I think I want to get my hands on an intimidator. :)

I would also like to see what barrel you're using.

[SlartyBartFast]

What barrel am I using? None in particular. Last mag I shot was a borrowed Minimag with a 14" smart parts barrel. Not "silent", but not much noise.

At AO Canada a number of the mags were VERY quiet.

Shorter barrels are louder and more inefficient.

[shartley]

Those who want to use “silencers” on paintball markers are to me like those who would advocate cloaking shields for runningbacks. :rolleyes:

[Muzikman]

I have two silencers for paintball. One just pushes on the end of the barrel and the other is a BOA Concealer. BOA got in big trouble by the ATF quite a few years ago.

[nate2k191]

im pretty sure silencers dont work that well on paintball guns because sound still comes out of the feedneck and other areas. however, when buried under my comforter and bed sheets, the marker is quite silent.

[geekwarrior]

"when buried under my comforter and bed sheets, the marker is quite silent"


hmmm....i don't think i want to know :eek:

[NoLifeLeft]

Anyone else notice that Smart Part stopped calling the upgraded front end for the SP-8 a Supressor Kit and is now naming it the Stealth Kit. It still does the same thing. Wonder what the ATF would think? ;)
http://www.smartparts.com/Store/default.aspx?Prod={426FE0D5-465E-43ED-9035-6C32AA920C4A}

[warbeak2099]

Meh, paintball silencers aren't really effective enough to be worth it. The ones I've used have slowed the ball down and screwed up accuracy. That's probably because I tried them on 12-14" barrels and they were 5 or 6" long. I guess if you were using one on an 8 or 10" barrel, it might be ok. But when you add that much length onto a 12 or 14" barrel, you're gonna screw up performance.

[guru]

You guys that want a quiet shot just need to get an old school shocker with a glacier AT board. The board has a "sniper" mode on it that splits the bolt cycle into 2 phases, the fire then the recock. This greatly reduces the noise of the internals, which is where half of the noise of a shot comes from, and with a 16 in. all american, the gun is as quiet as any "silenced" gun from back in the day. And for what old shockers are going for these days, it is a fairly cheap option. Just a thought.

[NoForts4Me]

The silencers I remember people using (and the ones I made to experiment with) "back in the day" didn't ever really completely silence the markers. The just made a low, quiet "thump" noise that was very hard to localize in the woods.

Most people now days don't know what loud is. I'm still amazed at how quiet the markers are today. If you've ever played with a 68 Special and its 3lb hammer, you'll know what I mean. Sounded like a nail gun.

[siloseven]

oh yeah I remember the VM's the pro-lite's ect from not to long ago. it was a "klang" "Klang" sound and very loud and the "wap" of the AT's. but te classic mags are pretty silent. mine made a nice quiet thump sound and deadly accurate.

and technicaly, if you got a barrel with a good amount of porting on a low pressure operation then added Lapco's mok silencer, all the soft sounds were kept internl and is super quiet. since the hollow cylender of the mock silencer was over the porting, i pretty much acted like a muffler adn kept most the sound from goin gout wards.

there is a guy I played with on Kartoon Express who has the A-5 LP and the lapco kit and it is bairly noticable when fireing. :ninja:

[VFX_Fenix]

im pretty sure silencers dont work that well on paintball guns because sound still comes out of the feedneck and other areas.

Generally speaking if you stuff a battel swab in your barrel, stick a hopper on the feedneck, and put something like... I dunno... Cotton in the thing (or just cover the feed neck with a small pillow, you'll have a reasonable idea of how much noise your gun will make while shooting paint. At least that's been my experience. Todays guns aren't loud, honestly, and some of THE best commercial supressors for real guns will only knock the top 30 dB off the top. That's like shooting your favorite gun with a pair of commonly avalible ear plugs. Even the BOA consealer's report change on a VM68 wasn't earthshattering, you'd get similar results with a long ported stepped barrel, like an 18" All American/Boomstick, which more or less slowly vents the expanding gasses rather than all in one sudden "pop".

Three sources of noise from anything that uses expanding gasses to shoot something are the same reguardless of what the actual mechanism is.

1) Expanding gasses - Either through burning of powder/gas or just releasing a burst of compressed gas into a system, this is the primary culprit when it comes to how noisy it's going to be.

Supressors work by giving these gasses places to go and equalize to ambient pressure through a serries of baffles and sound deadening materials. The overall effect is a loss in muzzle velocity (generally) of a projectile that travels through one of these things since the propellant gasses are effectively removed from the system so that when the projectile leaves the supressor the gasses behind it don't have much more expanding to do. You're mufler on your car works the same way though the mechanisms can be quite different. For our purposes porting is our "low tech" supression method. Porting works on real guns too, however such things are less than legal.

2) Projectile noise - That is, hypersonic projectiles or even subsonic projectiles make noise as they move through the air, it's unavoidable, and subsonic projectiles make much less noise than hypersonic projectiles because they don't have a sonic boom following them around.

Supressors also decrease muzzle velocity generally speaking. In paintball projectile noise isn't an issue, anyone who's heard paint flying overhead knows the sound and knows that it means there's paint, but where it came from, who knows.

3) Action noise - Hammers, Strikers, Sears, Bolts, etc. moving around and bashing into one another make noise, simple as that, end of story.

Supressors do absolutely nothing to help this, sorry, but you're Spyder fitted with THE most awesome supressor in the world will still make a "twang/ching" sound when you shoot it, but not to worry, generally action noise is difficult to hear outside of 5 feet anyway unless you're using a VM68 or other OOOOOOOOOOOOOLD blowback semi.


Anyway, entirely long, completely off topic, I'm sure SOMEONE already talked about most of it since I didn't read the thread (shame on me :rolleyes: ), and the long and short of it, Silencers in Paintball aren't worth the time, effort or expense. While fakies make for good cosmetics, you'll be better off getting a high dollar stepped barrel.

Having a silencer permiently affixed to a barrel won't make the BATF happy because you can simply slide the barrel with perminently affixed silencer on it over an appropriately sized rifle barrel OR with a threaded adapter on said rifle.

[Aslan]

Is a silencer not just one more piece of junk that people buy for the sole purpose of looking cool? Yet another product that doesn't do jack doo doo except get 11 year olds to hang around you at the paintball field?

I guess it's not as absurd as the guy in silver/neon purple with a $1200 gun that has $600 worth of anno and replaced parts to match his pants...but c'mon...it's out of control when people are paying the ATF $200 so they can put a black water bottle on the end of their A5 and pretend their "The Professional". :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong, when I first started playing paintball...I wanted to be a "sniper." Then I realized that in order to truly be a "sniper"...you need to put hundreds of dollars into camo, you need face paint, you need a flat black gun, and you need to spend so much time moving "slowly" that the 15 minute game is over before you get off a shot. :rolleyes:

Bottom line...if you got a "non-shiny" gun, a good camo outfit, and you use your surroundings well (and you use a paint that isn't "traceable", i.e. green, black, etc... rather than orange, yellow, pink, etc...)...you gun making a loud "poof" is the least of your problems. And I say this as a guy that still owns and often uses a Raptor Silver Eagle which could be the loudest gun ever made. :eek:

Related story...I remember that I was afraid to buy a mask fan because I thought it would "tip off the enemy". Once I got one...my only complaint was that it made a weird sound that gives me a headache and if you take a direct hit to the fan...it makes really crazy sound that only adds to the surprise of getting beaned in the forehead. :tard: