any ideas?

[FaTaLMiZtAkE]

Anyone have a diy for a MilSim silencer for the A-5?

[Nethemas]

I assume you meant functional silencer rather than strictly eye candy.

Firearm silencers work by attempting to provide a heat sink for the exhaust gas. A heat sink is needed to mitigate the rapid super heating of the surrounding air which results in the sharp crack. Same reason there's thunder accompanying lightning.

For paintball markers however heat isn't the problem... It's the sound wave created by the pneumatics of the marker chasing the paintball out of the barrel. Most decent barrels already attempt to mitigate this by porting the last few inches so that there's more than one direction for the sound wave to dissipate. What would be better still however is to capture the sound wave rather than letting it out in the first place. What you require in effect is a muffler like that on a car.

In principle you really need nothing more than a large chamber that everything must pass through before exiting out the barrel. The following link will provide you with some ideas, however, their methods have a significant weakness with regards to balls breaks in the barrel.

http://paintballsilencer.tripod.com/

Instead of their foam filler material between the ported barrel and the expansion chamber--which will lead to a very big and challenging mess to clean--I would use washerlike disks to support the expansion chamber. I would construct it in such a way that you could easily slide or unscrew the expansion chamber off of the ported barrel. In so doing any breakage mess can be quickly and painlessly wiped up, potentially even on field.

I would also probably use ABS (as opposed to PVC) pipe, if memory serves it is a bit stronger and has a better resistance to UV. Both are easy to work with and cheap if you goof up. The larger the volume of the expansion chamber and the longer the whole chamber/ported barrel assembly is the more effective it will be. If you're doing this as part of a mil-sim setup you're likely going to have to play form and function off of one another. If I had to take a guess I'd say that you're probably looking at 3-4" x 9-12" for an effective one.

Good luck...

[Thalion]

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

Sorry guys, but if the ATF comes by, we're tanked with a DIY silencer on here without it. The knowledge isn't illegal, but the ATF has deemed paintball silencers to be "readily adaptable" to firearms and thus fall under restrictions of firearm silencers, so be careful before you assemble or make one that you obey local laws.

/LEGAL DISCLAIMER

No, I'm not kidding. That's government for you though, find weird ways to expand their powers and ban more things. They seem to ignore the fact that it's fully possible to make a paintball silencer that will not work on a firearm (Nethemas makes this distinction in his post).

That's just the way it is guys. Sorry to disappoint,

[Saint]

Stupid law though considering you wouldn't be able to muffle a firearm more than a few decibels with one you use for paintball.

[Thalion]

Stupid law though considering you wouldn't be able to muffle a firearm more than a few decibels with one you use for paintball.

I agree it's stupid, but I don't want to mess with the (slim) chance of the ATF discovering a paintball silencer thread without legal disclaimer.

[WreckingCrew]

I agree it's stupid, but I don't want to mess with the (slim) chance of the ATF discovering a paintball silencer thread without legal disclaimer.



(waves hand) This is not the thread the ATF is looking for. (waves hand) Your free to move about your business. (waves hand) Move along.

[Cooltoad]

who would use one of these on a real gun thats just crazy

[Sgt Booth]

Stupid law though considering you wouldn't be able to muffle a firearm more than a few decibels with one you use for paintball.

Sadly there are some folks that will take the knowledge for the paintball silencer an use it on others such as police officer. The law is not stupid for that exact reason so no idiot takes knowledge abtained from good people and uses it for deviant reasons. Plus I would realy not like to be shot by some anarchist splinter cell wanabe while Im on duty.

[Thalion]

Sadly there are some folks that will take the knowledge for the paintball silencer an use it on others such as police officer. The law is not stupid for that exact reason so no idiot takes knowledge abtained from good people and uses it for deviant reasons. Plus I would realy not like to be shot by some anarchist splinter cell wanabe while Im on duty.

What's the difference between being shot at by an unsuppressed firearm over a suppressed one? Either way, it'll be loud enough your partner knows it happened.

The original NFA laws for silencers were during the Great Depression, where the shortages had conservation officers concerned that people would poach game with silencers to evade detection from a distance. It had nothing to do with people shooting cops with them.

IMO, there is no real benefit to banning silencers. In Scandinavian countries (which have far stricter gun control than anything in America), silencers can be bought over-the-counter because to them it's just a safety device (hearing protection, like shooting muffs or ear plugs).

Lastly, as I said before, 98% of all silencers for paintball wouldn't even function for a firearm.

[Sgt Booth]

If you are working in an area like where I am we have no partners and if you are shot with a silenced weapon no one will hear the shot and then no one will know what happened. At least with a unsilenced weaponed there is a far more audible sound that could be detected by near by individuals.

Then we can still look at the old NFA reasoning with the price of every thing climbing the silencer still can be used for poaching and if stumbled upon by a conservation officer the weapon can be used by an indiviual against the officer. Conservation Officers rarely work with partners in areas like the Cuyuna Range.

Though a paintball silencer may not work 98% the time but there still arises the other 2% that 2% still causes me concern.

I understand your point Thalion but I also realy feel safer with this law in place. And just for the record Im the biggest apponent of many gun control laws Im an NRA member and I participated in the right for student to conceal and carry empty holster protest Im in no way an anti-gun person I just have aproblem with silencers in the hand of all civilians.