quieting down a spring arigun

[cpileri]

The loudest part of the compression spring air gun is the piston firing. Alot of noise perceived by your ear (in a rifle).

Will putting sound dampening foam adhesive tape on the cylinder of a spring airgun make any appreciable reduction in noise levels?

I figure, wrapping the thing in a balnket works, but really is a bit too bulky. The sound/vibration dampening stuff used in automotives sounds liek a good idea in theory. Anyone tried it?

C-

 

[P95Carry]

Frankly - there is no practical answer IMO. The moving parts - must move. The pistol has to end its travel somehow - and unless there was some internal means to cushion that imapact reliably whilst maintaining a good seal, then I don't think much can be done.

One of my earliest air rifles had a leather washer for a seal - something softer at the end if you will but - doubt it reduced sound much at all. Then too - a small amount of sound from remaining air pressure - in high powered versions.

No - all in all I think it is something we have to live with. To achieve significant absorbtion of mech' noise would probably take such a bulky wrap of suitable material - it'd impinge on sight line and more - as well as make things real cumbersome!

Just my 2c - others may well have other ideas.

 

[JohnKSa]

A tune by a professional airgunsmith can quiet a lot of the mechanical noise by installing custom-fitted spring guides (and other parts) and using vibration dampening lubricants. P95 is right, you can't expect magical results, but vibration is reduced significantly, and the mechanical firing noise changes to a "thunk" as opposed to a "whack".

Any decent tune should help some, but the ones most oriented to reducing noise and smoothing firing behavior have a tendency to result in slightly reduced power. You can't get something for nothing. Most folks find that the slight loss of power is more than repaid in the much improved shooting behavior.

I've had one done by this guy--he does excellent work. http://www.airgunshow.net/Bestunes.htm

 

[P95Carry]

Thx John - hoped you'd swing by!

I guess I just never bothered with the attempt to convert "thunk" to a "whack" -

I can see tho some attention to innards could produce some help.

 

[JohnKSa]

It makes a pretty decent difference--the cheaper the gun, the more the difference. I know at least one airgunner who won't even shoot a new airgun until he has had it tuned. He says life's too short to mess around with untuned springers. I wouldn't go that far, I don't feel at all cheated when I shoot one of my non-tuned airguns.

Probably the biggest difference is to the shooter. Personally, I think the shooter hears a lot more of the mechanical noise while the bystanders tend to hear more of the muzzle noise. My tuned rifle SEEMS much quieter to me when I shoot it, but my wife says that she can't tell any difference listening to me shoot it. Of course, all that's subjective too...

 

[cpileri]

thanks

Despite my ownership of a cheap airgun that might benefit from a tune, I guess its not quite worth it for my casual use.
But the site you listed for the fellow in CT who does tune-ups has a page of really great links!
Thanks for that!
I am new to air guns so i really needed a good set of info pages.
I may fiddle around with some ideas and post them if i come up with any good ones.
Thanks again!
C-

 

[redneck]

Anyone know if the gas piston guns are quieter than spring pistons? Seems like you would elminate the spring noise (SPROING!!!!!!)
Of course, I've only really noticed that on the cheap ones. Once you get into mid range, they seem pretty smooth. And its probably not an issue at all once your into the price range of the gas piston guns.

 

[JohnKSa]

The gas piston guns eliminate spring vibration, but the piston movement is still there and still makes noise. Gas piston guns tend to be a bit more powerful than springers, on average, and therefore, they tend to be noisier. Especially in terms of muzzle noise. I don't know if there's much benefit in tuning a gas piston gun.

 

[redneck]

Yeah the muzzle noise doesn't bother me though, thats inevitable. Its the SPROING! I tried a crosman/mendoza out once and it was horrible, on top of deiseling really bad. Traded it in towards a Gamo 220 and its really smooth. Always drooling over something new though

 

[JohnKSa]

There's no sproing with a gas piston gun. A decent tune on a springer will also eliminate the sproing. But...from what I've seen, you can usually buy a good springer and have it tuned for about the same or less than it would cost to buy a gas piston gun.