SILENT RIFLE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9563, 9 August 1909, Page 3

SILENT RIFLE.

NOISE, FLASH AND RECOILObVIATED. Rifle-shooting without noise will be the next feature in warfareno noise, no flash, at the rifle muzzle. • Mr Hiram Maxim recently gave a demonstration of his silencer for guns and rifles at the King's Club, Jermyn-street, London, where a variety of rifle were fired in a small rifle range, four feet of sand being behind the targets. Mr Maxim first fired each rifle withot the silencer, when the noise produced was demonstrated by means of a Borland sound recorder, an ins ru nent which the sound, received by a small megaphone, is made to throw up a little ball suspended by a delicate thread. The greater the sound the higher is the ball thrown up. With the silencer in use no effect was produced on the recorder, while without it tne ball was in uome instances, thrown violently against the top of the instrument. The silencer takes the form of a small cylinder, which fixes easily, Ly a quarter of a turn, on the muzzle ed of the rifle barrel. Inside it is what practically amounts tc. a negative turbine—i.e., a series of fixed "blades' 1 which cause the gases of! the explosion to assume a rotary motion. In turning round rapidly in this way their energy is absorbed av.d turned in to heat, the sound being destoyed owing to fie waste of the energy against friction The most remarkable result was produced with a British service rifle, which made a deafening noise in the little shooting gallery. With the silencer on, however, there was practically no noiac whatever. Both the flash at the muzzle, and the recoil are also practically done away with, the latter beiig reduced by about 60 per cent., -the former completely. | To demonstrate how tin force of : the gases, which are a pressure of ' something like 10,000 pounds per square inch at the muzzle, is destroyed, Mr Maxim held in his fingers a visiting card in front ot th-e silencer while a service rifle wa» fired. A small hole was merely blown through the card. When, however, the experiment was repeated without the pilencer, a piece of card board being held on a stick in front of th2 muzzle was complttely blown to pieces. __