Suppressor sound tests

Results by cartridge

16 of the 54 tests had enough suppressors on one gun to compare within. Those are below. The rest covered one or two products on a gun nobody else was tested on, which gives nothing to hold them against.

• 5.563 tests, largest 5.56, 16" AR-15 in 2024257 results →
• .3083 tests, largest .308, 20" bolt-action rifle in 2024230 results →
• .300 Blackout2 tests, largest .300 Blackout subsonic, 16" bolt-action rifle in 2025146 results →
• 9mm5 tests, largest 9mm pistol (Canik METE SFX) in 202475 results →
• .300 Win Mag.300 Win Mag, 26" bolt-action rifle, 202568 results →
• .22LR2 tests, largest .22LR pistol (Sig P322) in 202552 results →

How to read these numbers covers what the event is, what a suppressor actually does, and the five things that change how the figures should be read.

What a suppressor actually does

A .308 bolt-action rifle fired with nothing on the muzzle measured 155.9 dB at the shooter’s ear. The best suppressor on that gun brought it to 123.7 dB, a reduction of 32.2 dB. Across every test here, reductions run from about 6 dB to about 35 dB, with a middle around 22 dB.

That reduction is larger than it sounds, because decibels are not a count of anything. As a rule of thumb every 10 dB off is roughly a halving of how loud something seems, so taking 32.2 dB off a 155.9 dB rifle is not the 21% improvement the arithmetic suggests. It leaves the shot sounding closer to a ninth as loud.

The spread within a single test is the more useful thing. On some guns nearly everything measured alike and sound is not what separates the options. On others the difference between the best and the worst reaches 26 dB. Which of those you are looking at is stated on every page.

Five things that change how you read the numbers

Only compare within one test

Every suppressor in a test was fired on the same gun, on the same day, with the same ammunition. That is what makes the numbers worth comparing. Two tests of the same cartridge are still different guns on different days, so a figure from one cannot be set against a figure from the other. This is the one thing the data cannot support, which is why the pages keep tests apart rather than warning you about it.

Small differences are not real

Each figure is an average of five shots, and five shots of the same suppressor do not measure identically. Each test carries its own limit, from 1.5 dB to 5.3 dB depending on how consistent that day was. Two suppressors closer together than that limit did not measure differently; the test simply cannot separate them. You will not see rankings anywhere on these pages for that reason.

A suppressor that is not listed was not tested

Makers bring what they choose to bring, and some skip a year or never attend. Absence from a list means nobody fired it that day. It does not mean it did badly, and it does not mean we could not find the result.

The mount and muzzle device are not recorded

What sits between the barrel and the suppressor can change what the microphone hears, and it changes the weight and length too. The published results do not say what each suppressor was fitted with, so that part of the comparison is unrecorded rather than controlled.

Suppressed is not silent

A suppressor takes a large amount off a very loud noise, and what is left is still a loud noise. The quietest single result anywhere in this data measured 112 dB, and that was a .22 pistol; on a .308 rifle the best measured 123.7 dB. The figures are A-weighted, which is the scale that approximates how human hearing responds rather than raw pressure.