Thread: Suppressors - Am I missing something

Originally Posted by Cordite

@gundoc,

With all respect for your conclusion which I can only agree with, you are harsh on other contributors, even arrogant... and in karmic fashion immediately plunge neck-deep into the bog of your version of Munchausen's pigtail self-lift.

To paraphrase your first bit, when a car passenger kicks the dashboard the car pulls forward. We all know this is false. The explanation is that the passenger supports his back against his seat, so the effect of his forward blow against the dashboard is entirely cancelled by his rearward action against his seat as both objects are fixed to the car. It must be understood that the gun and silencer are attached to each other. They are a single unit; the silencer is part of the gun. A blow from a gun against itself (in the form of impingement of its gases against its own baffles) will not pull it forwards.

Astronauts on a spacewalk similarly can not propel themselves through space by slapping their own butts.

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100% correct. As stated it is a closed system.

You must look at it from an external point of view in order to make sense as I stated earlier. The reduction in recoil from a suppressor can only come from the reduced gas emission speed from the muzzle (which is now the end of the suppressor) and the extra mass added to the system. It is only when something leaves the system (the projectile and gases leave the muzzle) that the conservation of momentum is applied. This will give the initial speed and hence energy of the recoil. @gundoc, this is simple high school physics.