School me on suppressors

[sinnful]

I have watched a vast amount of online videos and it is hard to judge, but how quiet can a .223 round become with the right suppressor.

 

[MontereyC6]

Depends on the suppressor. They are definitely more quiet, some even hearing safe, but nothing will be hollywood quiet.

 

[KLB]

If you want quiet, you will need to get something subsonic. Pistol caliber or 300 blackout.

 

[CountryBoy19]

If you want quiet, you will need to get something subsonic. Pistol caliber or 300 blackout.

This ^^^ A suppressor cannot quiet the bullet, only the muzzle blast. So to get "hollywood quiet" you need something subsonic. The smaller the diameter apeture the better but going too small defeats the purpose because you won't have enough energy on target then. IMHO 300 BLK is a perfect balance between bullet weight (energy on target) and apeture size and that is why it is so quiet. Of course this all applies to subsonic ammo only...

 

[Beowulf]

HTA Kestrel 556s are supposed to be hearing safe. I haven't seen any actually metering, so I don't know if that's true or not (hopefully it is, otherwise I subjected my ears to some damage at the beginning of NFA Veteran's day this year). I assume a lot of other 556 suppressors will make the same claim. Though if they are hearing safe, it's going to be just barely below the line, which is still pretty darn loud.

If you are looking for a centerfire rifle caliber that can suppress nicely, I would go with what the other commenters suggested and look at a 300BLK rifle with a nice .308 can to go with it (though a lot of the heavier duty 9mm and 45 cans will handle 300BLK subsonic... never shoot HV 300BLK through a pistol suppressor though).