Thread: Tikka t3 ss or Sako a7

Sorry Gillie, but I have to call you on this one. (No disrespect intended. I for one have thoroughly enjoyed and benefitted from your posts on the other forum for several years. But your experience and standing within the NZ shooting community places a greater onus on what you say, lest new/inexperienced shooters take it for granted).

Originally Posted by Gillie

catches the burnt gunpowder so you can effectively take the weight of the gun powder out of the "equal and opposite" forces.

This isn't entirely accurate.
On ignition the powder mass is rapidly converted into gas. It is this rapid expansion/increase in volume that drives the bullet down the barrel. This gas ultimately exits the muzzle through the small opening of the bore at very high speed, creating noise, heat and a rearward force.
A suppressor works by effectively providing an expansion chamber (often including baffles) that allows the gas to expand/reduces the volume of gas in the bore. As a result the rate of gas exiting the muzzle is reduced. (And therefore so too is the noise and rearward force/recoil). The initial "mass" of the powder doesn't come into it directly, apart from the fact that a bigger mass of powder obviously generates a larger volume of gas.