Caliber question (noise)

[blacknwhite]

I have been shooting a 22-250 for all my varmint needs and it is great. However, it is as loud as a 30-06. I was wondering for some of you guys that have all calibers (22-250, .223, .204, .17 rem, etc.) would a .204 have much less report than the 22-250? Which from the above list makes the least amount of noise? I shoot an encore a lot so picking up a new caliber is not a big deal, I just want to make sure the one I add to the collection is quiet.

[Tunaman]

The 22 hornet is quieter than all of the above. If you dont mind keeping your shots to less than 150, it is a great round. My 204 is a bit quieter than a 22-250 but not enough to warrent buying a barrel based on decibel level.

[Graybeard]

I've not even taken my .204 from the box yet. Yeah I'm a little behind in getting around to a bunch of guns I've bought. But of all I have shot I think the little .17 Fireball might be the softest spoken of the lot. I've shot the Hornet some but it has been a long while back so it's kinda hard for me to make a comparison between it and the .17 Fireball but I really think the FB might be a quiet milder in report. Yeah I've got a Hornet still in box also I could compare if I'd open it up and get out and shoot some. 

[Tunaman]

Graybeard, I aspire to have that problem of having that many rifles.

[Old English]

The Hornet is about the same report as a 22 Mag. While ear protection is always recommended, the Hornet is very quiet compared to a 204 Ruger. My wife was shooting hedge apples at 80 yards with ours on the weekend, it's a great little round, probably my favourite to shoot.

[rickt300]

My 204 using the Hornady 32 grain ammo is LOUD!  Comparing it to my 22-250 shooting 60 grain bullets pushed to 3450 fps out of a 26 inch barrel I think the 22-250 is a bit less noisy. The 204 has a 23 inch barrel.

[blacknwhite]

So if you guys had to pick between a 17 fireball and a 22 hornet (report being THE ONLY concern) which would you pick?

[Tunaman]

The only 17's that I have are rimfires but of the Rifles that I own, I would choose the hornet. In the South, the Hornet is a poachers favorite round because they are so quiet.

[iiranger]

You want a quick lesson in sound control, stop by the scrap yard, pick up some junk mufflers off anything and cut them in half. The energy of the gases is soaked up and re directed by baffles. Defect here is that a muffler is in use while the vehicle is running. Guns work one shot at a time.

Second consideration is how much gas is produced (directly related to the powder charge weight) and how much barrel does it pass thru. A short barreled rifle (or handgun) that lets the gas out before it is all burned will be a lot louder (and brighter after dark) than a long barrel that burns up the powder and has much reduced pressure before the bullet exits the barrel.

I was shocked at the low noise of a standard velocity .22 long rifle leaving the barrel of a target rifle. 22 or 24 inch barrel. Not as loud as my air gun. Didn't need hearing protection indoors. !!

Then there is relativity. How close are you to the gas ball? Again, handguns with normal barrels, around 6 inches, are worse than rifles and revolvers worse than autos or single shots.

As suggested the smallest is quieter. .22 Hornet is very good. .218 Bee little more pep and noise. Or you can load down a .223 to these levels.

You don't indicate why you ask. Neighbors. Ironically anyone in other countries can buy a silencer/suppressor/ gun muffler. Getting the gun is the problem. Here the devices are controlled. Guns are widely traded. For the cost plus the $200 transfer tax, last I knew, you can have a silencer on your gun that does something legally.  Or you chamber a .22 Hornet in a 26 inch barrel, or load down a .223 (or ) and get all the "quiet" you want. As a rule this comes with lower velocities and performance of the old black powder days. Long range shooting becomes more of a challenge... oh welllll  luck.

[blacknwhite]

Thanks for all the great comments. I am looking for a caliber with the above described characteristics because my other varmint guns are really loud. So, I want to pick one up that is more enjoyable to shoot. For the occasional quick shot when I don't get the ear plugs in and so forth.

[RonO777]

My night gun is a 223 loaded with blue dot. If I shoot it in the back yard the wife cant hear it in the house. The load hits about an inch lower at 100 yards over my regular loads.
Ron

[LaOtto222]

Get the longest barrel you can. Unburnt powder is the culprit of loud noise ( the size of the "fireball"). There is the sonic boom (crack) of the bullet, that can not be helped. I have a 22 Hornet in a 10" barrel and even that mild mannered cartridge is quite loud and has quite a large fireball at the end of the barrel. Out of a 24" barrel it is considerably less loud and a much smaller fireball. Bill's 17 Fireball (Mach IV) I suspect is not very loud because most of the powder is burnt before it reaches the end of the barrel. They only hold 16- 18 grains of powder. I have 3 221 Fireballs and 1 is a 18" barrel. Out of a 18" barrel it is about the same noise level as a 223 out of a 24" barrel. It is quieter out of a 24" barrel. A 44 Mag out of a rifle length barrel is not that loud either, because most of the powder is burnt up. When I shoot a 38 special out of a rifle, it is very quiet. Of course it is traveling less than the speed of sound and all of the powder is burnt before it reaches the end of the barrel; there is no fire ball at all. It is as quiet as a subsonic 22 rim fire, maybe even quieter. The 30 Whisper is known for it's quietness, because of the vary small powder capacity relative to the bore and sub sonic bullets. What does this all mean. The less powder capacity and the longer the barrel, the less noise you are going to get.

[Tylermtech]

I think they will all be loud, to loud to safely shoot with out ears on.  Depending on where you live, you should look into a supressor.  they make shooting centerfires much more plesant.

[RonO777]

I just got a Chrony so I ran my 223 bluedot loads over it.
The 50gr soft points were going 2700fps.  Ive just got some 34gr dogtown bullets that Im running at 3000fps. Both loads are quite enough were the wife cann't hear them inside the house when Im shooting in the back yard.
Ron

[petemi]

I'm 67 and probably deaf in one ear and can't hear out of the other from shooting for years before hearing protection was even thought of.  Here's my opinion, as they sound to me.. My .22-250 doesn't bark half as much as my .30-06..same length barrel.  My .357 seems quieter and the .38s out of that rifle are .22 mag level volume.  I think, because I always enjoyed big bore shooting, I never thought too much about noise.  Now, It's hard to tell the difference.  I imagine someone of us can measure decibles and give us a report. I'll be happy to see the results in the coming posts.  Pete

[coyotejoe]

The noise, other than the sonic "crack", depends on the volume and pressure of the gas escaping the muzzle. Sound suppressors work by containing the gas, allowing it to expand inside the suppressor to reduce the pressure before releasing it to the air. Without a suppressor we have only the barrel in which to reduce the gas pressure and thus a long barrel is noticeably quieter than a short one for the same load.
 My 3" barreled .357 magnum is one ear splitting son of a gun. The same load in an 18" Marlin carbine is not bad at all. Even the .22 short makes a pretty loud pop from a pistol but from a rifle the shot makes hardly any more noise than the click of the firing pin.
 If I were designing the rifle for "quiet hunting" it would be 40-45 caliber, to get reasonable killing power at subsonic velocities. It would be chambered for a short pistol cartridge, .40 S&W, .44 Russian, or .45 ACP to permit a large expansion ratio in a long barrel. I would load it with a fast burning powder so that it would achieve its velocity in a short barrel travel with the remainder of the barrel acting as a suppressor to cool the gas and lower its pressure before releasing it to the air.
 At one black powder shoot I shot next to an elderly fellow who was shooting an original .58 caliber Springfield. I don't know what load he was shooting but while all other rifles on the line gave a rather severe muzzle blast, his rifle just went "pop". It was like the vacuum pop when pulling the cork from a wine bottle. I wish I'd taken the time to ask about his load but chit-chat on the line is discouraged as distracting to shooters.

[243dave]

Blacknwhite, check this out. http://www.leverguns.com/articles/paco/small_charges.htm    Theres a section in there about down loading the 22-250 all the way down to something like 1300fps. There are several cartridges and loads in the article, even if you decide not to do it, its still a interesting read. I've been experimenting with my 45colt levergun with titegroup and 250gr cast bullets over the last week or so, two grains is like a cap gun. The bullet manages to penetrate a 1" pineboard and maybe 50 pages into a telephone book. Three grains will get me into the second phonebook, while 5grs gets me half way into the third book. Five grains is a minimum load according to hodgdon with 7,600cups and 716fps out of a 7.25 inch barrel, so don't go below 5grs with titegroup, I do so at my own risk. I don't have a chrony but the rifle may shoot just slightly faster. The 2gr load is to weak in my opinion and 3grs should be about right for my purpose. I'll be thinning out the squirrel population in middle of the day while deer hunting and I want to be quite as possible when doing so. Next will be my 223 and a little bit of titegroup. Dave

[shotgun31]

I use an Encore with a .17 Ackley Hornet (.17AH) barrel made by Bullberry.  23", light varmint contour.  It's relatively quiet for a 3500 fps round, and it's a ballistic twin of the .17 Fireball.  On a still day it's a center-of-eyeball shooter at 100 yards.  I used it in a ranchers front yard to remove 40 or so Prarie Dogs that were driving him crazy.  He asked me to remove them, but didn't know I was there by his front door until I told him I was done--it's that quiet.  If you reload, the .17 AH is a good consideration.  I suspect the .17 Fireball is going to be a very popular round when people find out about it.  It and the.17 AH are possibly the best 250 yard PD rounds I know of.  I shoot a R700 in .223, and like it but the .17 AH will do anything a .223 will on Prairie Dogs, with no need to stop and cool the barrel!   My brother has a .22 Ruger 10-22 customized by a gunsmith in Louisiana.  He has an EABrown range indexing scope on it, and using Laupa target sub sonic rounds on Prairie Dogs he's making 150 yard hits!  He uses a range finder.  No noise.  For quiet--my father, bless his soul, was with the 3rd Army in Europe and when they went through Paris, and found some German SS snipers used .22's with standard velocity target ammo.  My dad liberated one, an Erma Mauser copy, after a little scuffle with 2 of the SS boys.  He sent it home, and it did great work on gophers and prairie dogs during my youth.  Don't underestimate a .22 long rifle.  You don't need a silencer with a 24 inch barrel.  It's like an air rifle.  A good high-power scope and good rifle you can do great work at incredable distances with a .22.  Use a rangefinder.  Shotgun.

[mcwoodduck]

Another +1 for the 22 Hornet.
I have a 77/22H and the short barrel is about the same a my 22mag or 17 HMR.  But can shoot to 175 yards.
The only reason I can see going to a center fire 17 is if you are worried about a ricochette.  The little 17 bullets come apart on anything hard.  The Hornet gives you greater loaded bullet choice.  I use the 35 grain ballistic tip Hornady ammo for small game in rocky areas and use the 46 grain JHP for all other game.
In the Last Ivory Hunter by Capstick Wally Johnson talks about his son's friend hunting with one.  He thought it would be great for small antelope when the kid shot and killed a buffalo on the run with it.  Surprised the heck out of him and he had a new respect for the little round.
I have seen deer shot broadside with it and holly cow does it work under the right circumstances.  Will I ever use mine for that... NO.  I did take it for coyote on trips and last year i took it with me for Javilina.
Knowing everything I know now would I get it again....Yep, I would just stick a lower power scope on it in the 2-7X33or 3-9X38 range.