I have a few j-frames in .38 spcl. and .357 mag. I wear hearing aids. I am thinking about putting a suppressor on my house guns. Is that feasible and reasonable on a snub? A 3-inch barrel? A 4-inch barrel? I am looking to save what remains of my hearing should I be forced to discharge a round or two.

Because of the cylinder gap you won’t get the suppression like on a closed breach pistol. The only revolver that I know of that can be successfully suppressed is an 1895 Nagant.

You’d be better off getting a pistol with a threaded barrel or getting a threaded barrel for an existing pistol.

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BCCI Life Member #2068

I like this angle! Might just be able to convince your wife..that a supressor makes sense..it will help with sound levels but not as much as a semiautomatic for the above mentioned cylinder gap. But if you search there is a guy who suppressed a NAA22 revolver and it does work pretty good!

An easier solution may be to keep noise suppression ear muffs near your house gun. But a revolver silencer sounds like more fun.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

Better than nothing, but far from ideal.
Costs you all the concealment of the j-frame and you get very poor suppression. Not to mention it will be expensive to do since you'll need a modified barrel with relocated sights to see over the can.
It will be far cheaper and more effective to go with a semiautomatic that comes already threaded.

I guess since you have to do barrel work anyhow, you could turn the barrel back a thread ind set it up for like .001" gap. You'd have to turn the cylinder as well to make sure it was true. Then you would have to make sure to clean the B/C gap of debris *very* often to guarantee reliability. That would at least give you a fighting chance. Still, totally not worth it.

That simply makes no sense at all. Noise reduction is likely minimal at best and if there's any backpressure from a suppressor, more barrel/cylinder gap blast.

The ONLY solution is a semi auto with a threaded barrel set up for a suppressor.

Who cares about anything related to a NAA22? It's a very poor choice for self defense. Don

A few years back I was channeling my inner Maxwell Smart

as others have mentioned, there is a HUGE opening before the muzzle, it is the barrel/cylinder gap

With the exception of the Nagant M1895, no revolver can be suppressed down to a Hearing Safe level.

I knew this before I set up the revolver pictured above. I only did this one as a conversation piece.

I am against the idea of trying to locate and put on hearing protection when you need to bring a firearm into play for personal defense. The time lost could be catastrophic.

The odds of a homeowner being in a firefight are so small, that I would not stress out over it. Should you ever need to fire a weapon in personal defense, a partial loss of hearing is an acceptable trade off as opposed to the alternatives.

The one thing that you should be looking to save is your life and the lives of those around you. Do not complicate that end result

The majority of Law Enforcement Officers go through their careers with out ever being in a firefight and they knowingly walk into bad situations all the time

Many years ago, in the wee hours of the morning, I fired 4 rounds of 45ACP +P Hydroshok through the front window of my Dodge K-car at two perpetrators. The entire incident popped up and was over in 15 seconds or so. Even if I had ever trained to put on hearing protection, there was not enough time.

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"Acta non verba"

That is mostly true. It CAN be done and HAS been done with K frame Smiths by the U.S. military. The concept was resurrected years later by Knights Armament using a Ruger Redhawk frame as the base.

It required special "piston" rounds, so the OP will NOT be doing it with his J frame.

If you google some combination of suppressed, revolver, Vietnam, and tunnel rat you will find an interesting read. I am fascinated by the concept even while I do not see the point when compared to suppressing a semi-auto.

The Suppressed revolver 1895 Nagant... Quiet 🤫

After much hearing loss I am super cautious about wearing hearing protection while normal shooting at the Range and even while bird hunting. That said, I would not wear them in a SD / HD scenario. I'd want to hear everything just prior to having to pull the trigger!

While the shot or shots I might have to take might indeed worsen my hearing, I don't think it would make it bad enough to risk not hearing what was happening just prior to taking the shot. I don't think that would go over well in a court room either!

Post military retirement I wear hearing aids, that my Uncle Sam bought me, and like the OP try to protect what I have left. Tinnitus is always there.

One day recntly on the way into town (I live 20miles out in the country) to meet a buddy for coffee I encountered a juvenile porcupine that had been hit by a car, and was dragging itself off the pavement with its back obviously broken. I was carrying my SIG P229 .40 that day. I dispatched the poor little critter on the shoulder of the road, forgetting to remove my hearing aids in the process. Oops! Unfortunate error on my part but not a disaster.

If one must use a gun in one's home to save a life (and why else would one do this?) there are far more things to be concerned with than any additional hearing loss. Shoot straight to minimize the number of times the trigger needs to be pulled and worry about the ears later.

For Concealed Carry ... Or To Keep in the Bedroom / House ?

The details make a huge difference ! ! !
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

Enquiring minds want to know how the perpetrators fared? Don

Both were dead at the scene

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"Acta non verba"

Back in 1978 I had a situation to return fire outdoors at several suspects when I carried a mod 586 L frame 6" without hearing protection... never got that ringing noise in my ears after either with magnum loads. Suspects were GFS from the scene, to unknown parts.

But they work in the movies.

A 22 short is still ear ringing loud from a 3" J-frame.
If I were in your situation, I'd consider a pistol caliber carbine. 38+P or 9 mm out of a 16" barrel shouldn't be catastrophically loud.

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To cannon, all men are equal

...but, but they did it in Magnum Force? lol

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Dave Ramsey Cultist

Anything can be done, but it won't be effective or reasonable as has been previously mentioned.
You would completely quell the advantage of a snub.
Stick with the .38 special as a house gun with any good brand of defensive ammo and forget about the .357. Period.

I don't know which is worse , a suppressor on a revolver or the suggestion to wear ear muffs in a home defense scenario .

Too many episodes of Get Smart though Agent 99 was a honey.

I don't know...

I hadn't planned on it in my house, but I wore electronic ones in both Iraq and Afghanistan (sometimes with comms). That included clearing buildings.

Edited to add:
You would also look really tactical

Interesting. During my VA disability evaluations one of the issues was hearing loss and tinnitus. Nice young doctor of audiology inquired about use of ear protection in combat situations, so I explained how much we rely on all of our senses (hearing, eyesight, smell, etc) while on combat patrols or in ambush situations. She did not seem to understand how anyone would engage in such activities without proper hearing protection.

Hearing loss/tinnitus is the most commonly cited condition for VA service-connected disability benefits.

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Life of the party until 8:00PM

I have hearing loss and tinnitus listed as disabilities, so I'm in the same boat.

Aviation was my primary MOS, but I did ground deployments as well. I did all of the bad things to my ears.

For urban scenarios, my hearing was better with my issued Peltors than without them. They were also my link to my radio.

My son only spent 4 years in the Army, but he has a disability pension for hearing loss sustained during his 1 year as a platoon leader in Afghanistan. He said they never wore any kind of hearing protection, for the reasons Lobo indicated. (He also said they never set their weapons on full auto, but that's another story.)

I would have thought blast-quenching ear protection would be a desirable asset for soldiers, and even my cheapo range muffs can amplify and let me hear things I wouldn't otherwise. But I guess dependence on a(nother) set of batteries and having to stand up to indefinite-duration combat operations while fitting into/under the combat helmet made 'em infeasible, at least for infantry. At least 10+ years ago.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot too. George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis held Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges at gunpoint with a pair of suppressed Colt Police Positives.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

First off, you'd need some barrel beyond the locking bolt lug under the barrel to thread for the "can". Secondly, you'd need some sights, probably even if you bought one of the units with an off center bore. Finally, with or without the barrel/cylinder gap, real world suppressors aren't as effective as the ones you see in the movies/TV.

Having job related hearing loss myself, I heartily endorse the active hearing protection concept. When my Wolf Ears died, I tried several different replacements until I found the Peltor Tactical Pro units. One button on/off and they hold your settings until you replace the batteries. Besides, one of the other advantages to them is that you can crank up your hearing ability far beyond what you already have (left).

Wrangler5-cost has a lot to do with what the DOD gives line troops. The special ops folks get all the cool/expensive stuff.

Tunnel rats in Vietnam used Suppressed 38 cal revolvers..and 44 mag revolvers as their only line of defense in enemy hidey holes. And the 22 revolver that I referenced above was compared to pistols and was very impressive considering all the hugaballoo about the gap it still worked very well..was not telling the OP to use a 22 I thought that was c!ear.. Sorry I confused you.

Three guys out on the town (Baghdad) at night. Notice we are all wearing ear-pro. There are also three services represented: Navy, Army, and Air Force. I'm the Navy guy on the left with the horrible mustache wearing Army ACUs.

I actually wore my eye-pro whenever I was out and about. I was one of the only ones. There was a Combat Controller I worked with that wore his as well. It saved his left eye when frag from an RPG connected with his face.

Edited to add: Peltors were not (and to my knowledge still aren't) standard issue. Everyone gets earplugs, which usually ride around unused in their case attached to the front of your body armor.

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Like several vets who posted above, I too have service connected hearing disability. If I hadn't tried so hard on the hearing test, I'd have gotten more than my measly 10% disability, after taxes I make about $10 mo.

Mine came from shooting noisy stuff since I was 13, 60 yrs ago, and running 5"/54 gunnery operations from the missile ship's bridge. I was the only one who couldn't wear ear pro, sound powered phones on one ear talking to gun plot and of course have to be able to hear the CO squeal when things don't go right. Don

Don't forget the original Hawaii Five-0 series. Seemed like the same thimble-size 'silencer' affixed to the barrel of a Chiefs' Special appeared every week!

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103

If I wanted a suppressed gun for in the house I would buy a Rock Island 1911 in 45acp with a 3.5" barrel, fit a threaded 5" barrel to it and load it with 230 rounds. But, besides the noise you will need to deal with the muzzle flash.

Ear pro in the house makes sense to me. We don't have kids, so if the alarm goes off in the middle of the night we will fort up. Which means I will probably have time to put them on, electronic ones that amplify noise to try and head off my past hearing loss. But clear my own house? That is crazy. Cops can do that. I do have a house key that opens all exterior doors on a light stick which I will throw out in the yard from our second story window...that way they can enter the house without tipping their hand by kicking in a door. There is nothing in my house worth shooting someone over, except me and my wife. Fort up and ear up makes the most sense for me.

Oh, and I almost forgot...my wife shoots in a weekly sporting clays league and is hell on wheels with a shotgun. We often joke that I will be hiding behind her in a home invasion! (its just a joke...I am a two time bronze medal winner in the Show Me State Games shooting sporting clays. I know, I know, third is WAY last. But still, for a guy that does not shoot shotguns much anymore, I am comfortable with them)

I have a set of electric muff and a 200 lumen "tactical" flashlight.....in my nightstand drawer..... if I can I will use them.

I've notice on the range the electric muffs improve my hearing... especially behind me...................

Is this yours and did the suppressor require any modification to the revolver? I have a Nagant M1895 and I'm curious about the suppressor on the gun.

Nope sikacz.

I’m not that creative but only an attempt at at a little humor

Load your revolvers with light full wadcutter loads.
Less noise and adequate stopping power, especially with multiple hits. Nobody wants to be shot with anything.
Don’t let anybody tell you .38 wadcutters are ineffective.
Neither are .22’s

The main thing is to have a gun that functions every time.
Having A LOADED GUN and the will and skill to use it is at least 98% of the battle.

In the 1930s through the
1960s or a bit later Hollywood
had many suppressed
revolvers. When fired they
all went "phfffft."

But since then the technology
has been lost.

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Ubi Est Mea

Was you on a DDG? I did my 3rd class midshipman cruise aboard the USS Semmes, DDG 18, in the summer of '73.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!