Noise reduction for outdoor pistol range

I have tried several methods for noise reduction, to no avail.

My latest was a 55 gallon commercial plastic drum lined with 6 inches of fiberglass insulation. There was a slight, noticeable reduction (using a 22 LR pistol), but not enough to keep from bothering the neighbors. 45 ball was out of the question.

Anyone on the forum have experience?

Tillman

Air pistol! I use a modified Crosman 2240. There are excellent guns from my el cheapo on up. All are very quiet. There are even 1911 guns with CO2.

Thanks... I already have a 10 meter range on the back porch for my precision (LP-10 and LP-50) airguns. It even has the manual target return set up... :-)

I need the 25 and 50 yard range for Bullseye practice with my 22s and 45 Wad and Ball guns.

Might have to Move into the country, even noise reduction wont help if the laws are against you. Where i live, its illegal to fire a weapon period. Air guns are not regulated except you must be safe in its use .

My Uncle had an indoor range in his basement in Green Bay, WI near Lambeau Field. It wasn't very loud outside at all, and there wasn't any sound deadning in that design.

Soft surfaces are better at absorbing the acoustic waves. It would be better if you had unfaced fiberglass insulating batts than if the insulation was in the drum. Unfortunately, such material is amost impossible to clean for lead abatement.

Most of the noise is at the muzzle, less at the impact area. You would serve yourself better to insulate the area where the firing point is. Even if you insulate your basement with fiberglass insulation and enclose it with painted drywall, it would filter the sound that your neighbors would hear, less for the noise inside.

Open cell Styrofoam baffles are effective. We used a house sort of arrangement where you shot through an opening in the baffle at your target. Sorry, we no longer use this and I have no photos. Imagine aiming the gun through a window with the muzzle inside the house and aiming through an open window on the opposite side of the house.

Back in the 70's. I had all my gal friends and buds saving me egg cartons. I multi-layered them in a fibre drum and shot through that. Didn't work worth a flip.

The post above me of shooting "through one window/opening with a blank area then out through the off side sounds like a very sound idea..........no pun intended. Re muzzle blast............I've been in one indoor range where he had the ceiling area immediately in front of the firing line lower on the down range side for about 8-10' distance. It may have had a drop of about 35°. All that did was bounce the muzzle blast directly back on the shooter.

Of course placing some "soft items" in a random or staggered pattern between the windows would further attenuate noise. This is the best idea I've heard yet. However, my prob back in the 70s was the Detroit Bullet Trap taking the 45 wad load with a definite bang and I had/have the 2000fps one so it is heavy. It was easily heard out on the street.

I'll be watching this to see what ideas or first hand knowledge appears.

Suposedly wiring old tires together works very well for HP rifle so I don't see why it wouldn't work for handguns too. I don't know how many have to be wired together but the idea is that the tires have sidewalls and they're suopose to be just like baffles. The other thought I have on this comparison is this. If you take your plastic barrel and hit it with a baseball bat is the sound loud when you hit it? I'm betting it is. When you fire your gun inside the barrel the concusion from the muzzle blast is doing the same as hitting the barrel with a ball bat. The plastic resinates and amplifies the sound inside wheather you have insulation inside or not. If you hit an old tire with a ball bat you will just get a thud sound not a bang like the plastic drum, the muzzle blast doesn't resinate and the soft rubber and baffle sidewalls kill the sound. I have never tried the tire trick but have read about it many times in different places way back in the 70's and 80's. I'm bettin it would work better that your plastic drum, not silent but better.



Virgil

Wouldn't tires lashed side by side into a tube be kind of like a big axx silencer.

I like that idea. So for the ultimate "quiet" outdoor range, you build a shed with carpeted walls inside with a 50 yard long stack of tires running out from the window into a tire chunk backstop. Sounds pretty awesome to me!

You dont have to wire the tires together, just drill a hole through one tires sidewall to the next and bolt them together.

Rob Kovach wrote:I like that idea. So for the ultimate "quiet" outdoor range, you build a shed with carpeted walls inside with a 50 yard long stack of tires running out from the window into a tire chunk backstop. Sounds pretty awesome to me!

What if you only want to shoot 25 yards ? ; > )



And would shag carpeting be better than a berber on the walls of the shed ? : > )



Virgil

It seems that quite a while back, I shot a handgun through a tire. I do distinctly remember a hollow sound that bounced back..............?!

Now, I have read nothing about tires for the purpose of this thread, so I'm not saying it won't work. It is that I have this distinct memory of a sound that resonated heavily toward me. I just don't remember any details. Annnnd I don't have time tonight to look up this new info. Time for bed & a 4ayem wake up.

When you smack a tire it makes a sound like one of those red rubber kickballs hitting you in the face. I would guess that is what the observer (or neighbor) would hear if you were shooting through a 50 yard enclosure made of tires. I will guarantee it will be quieter to the neighbor than nothing!

Rob Kovach wrote:When you smack a tire it makes a sound like one of those red rubber kickballs hitting you in the face. I would guess that is what the observer (or neighbor) would hear if you were shooting through a 50 yard enclosure made of tires. I will guarantee it will be quieter to the neighbor than nothing!

Funny that I haven't been in grade school for almost 60 years and I still remember the sound of the red rubber kick ball hitting me in the face. Well actually it was while playing dodge ball but I still remember!





Virgil