Quieting a Handi w/o a silencer

[ddelaurant]

FWIW, a recent post mentioning a threaded muzzle reminds me of something I discovered way back in the 1980s with my old Topper shotgun:


I had acquired a 6" rifled chamber insert in .357 Magnum and when I shot it with a few .38 HBWC target loads I could barely hear the things go off.  The extra volume of shotgun barrel past the end of the rifled insert acted as an expansion chamber, and from the shooter's perspective it sounded about like a .22 CB cap.


I changed jobs and sold my Topper soon after this discovery (went from growing almonds to shelving books in a public library), so this experiment went onto the back shelf.


I'm no lawyer but I think this might be a legal approach for coping with the silencer ban in California -- if there was enough accuracy, I was thinking about using it for shooting ground squirrels in an orchard next to a rural cemetery.


Rifled insert makers tend to flit in and out of business -- I just found this one in case someone else wants to give this a try:


http://www.gunadapters.com/12-gauge-to-45-colt-pathfinder/

[quickdtoo]

I have a 12ga  22 Hornet insert made by Larry that works great, it's about 12" long, shot in a 24" scoped USH barrel accuracy was excellent at 35yds, but I didn't notice any particular reduction in noise, but I was wearing hearing protection to protect what hearing I have left as I always do, so maybe it just wasn't obvious. Accuracy in a shotgun platform is going to be dependent on the sighting system which most shotguns don't have.

See the shotgun adapter discussion in the Shotgun forum.
 http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,247817.0.html

Tim

[ddelaurant]

Thanks for the link on inserts quickdtoo!


The .38 HBWC loads I was using back then may have been just to the quiet side of subsonic from that barrel length.  I don't recall now whether they were Federal factory target loads or light Bullseye handloads -- I was shooting both regularly back then. 

[JonnyReb]

Wow that IS a great link and apparently a pretty good product. I think one of those inserts is a must have. thanks for the post.  j

[slngblde]

I have several non rifled adapters made by short lane, be prepared to keep them well oiled or they will rust very quickly. Or spray them with one of the commercial gun coatings. I blasted and sprayed mine with some extra cerakote when i was doing another job.
Regular paint will ad too much thickness to them plus spray paint can remain sticky for quite some time and cause a hangup in a chamber.