Getting shot by a handgun

Sorry, but .22 Long Rifle is generally loaded supersonic from the test fixtures, even in the standard loadings. A pistol (assuming a 6" bbl) is really close to supersonic, if not a bit over. It'll vary by weapon and air density.

Now, you could use one of the other rimfire variations (.22 Short, .22 Long, .22 CB) which generally will fire from a .22 LR chamber. These would most likely get you subsonic velocities.

Another thing to consider when shooting a pistol vs a rifle and comparing sound signatures is that a pistol will eject more unburnt powder into the air around the muzzle as its had less barrel length to burn said powder.

As far as suppression goes, there are four main components of the sound signature of a gunshot:

1) muzzle blast - the expansion of deflagrating powder in the atmosphere as it exits the barrel.

2) sonic crack - the bullet creating a shockwave through the air. Can be avoided by using subsonic cartridges/loadings.

3) the weapons action - at the very least the firing pin's impact on the primer. This is louder than you'd expect.

4) the bullet's impact - very much louder than you'd expect. A rifle bullet impacting flesh is a very loud slap. Imagine dropping a large boneless beef roast on a tile floor from a few meters up.

Of these bits of the gunshot, only 1) can be addressed with a suppressor. And it does make shooting much more pleasant. You can generally avoid most ear protection shooting suppressed, even with supersonic ammo (you won't be in the shockwave so no need to worry about it).

I personally have fired rather large rifles without ear protection, and its generally not real pleasant. I really wish that there was no NFA and we could buy suppressors like some countries (New Zealand comes to mind). A .22 suppressor there is something like $40NZ, here you're looking at $4-600, a $200 tax stamp, and a 6month wait for the BATFE to do a background check that the FBI does in less than a week. Oh, and you can't let your wife/kid use it without being in violation of the NFA unless you have it owned by a trust where the family memebers are trustees.

Most manufacturers have quit playing those games. They generally (if you look) tell you what kind of weapon they were tested with, or barrel length failing that.

Doing a bit of googling, the .22LR doesn't gain much velocity beyond 14" barrel length, and loses less than 200fps from a 4" barrel vs the 14".

I'm just going on chrono numbers I've seen in the past, e.g. http://www.hipointfirearmsforums.com/Forum/index.php?topic=3...

The only stuff that's consistently making supersonic out of the list is the high velocity stuff. Even Remington Golden Bullet (which Remington advertises as "high velocity" according to the box I have sitting on my desk) falls short of supersonic from pistol length barrels.

I guess the fairer thing to say would be that .22LR is borderline but it drops below supersonic pretty quickly once you start shaving barrel length.

In response to your sidenote, bullshit. Whining about downvotes without "saying why" is an idiot's move. Replying to that whining (as I am doing now) might possibly be an idiot's move, I'm not sure. But voting is not an idiot's move, and lack of explanation does not make it so.

Upvotes and downvotes add the same thing to the conversation: 1) They're a system by which the collective collectively modifies what comments get seen, and in what order 2) They're a system of feedback about what is a valuable contribution

Neither of those contributions requires "saying why". Of course, it is true that the second function works a lot better if the voter communicates a "why", that's easy to see. But it's easy to see that the first function is served just fine by voting without comments (and indeed, since your downvoted comment was erroneous, the conversation benefited from it being removed via downvoting).

Further, we all already know that some explanations of "why" distract from the conversation more than they contribute. The most-obvious example is "+1 agree" or "+1 this", or even "+1 this comment told me something I didn't know". Or, in your case, people could have commented "-1 unsubstantiated" or "-1 parent post misread FA" or something.

Either way, whining about voting _really_ doesn't add to the conversation. If I had downvote ability, I'd downvoting comments that complain about downvotes.

tl;dr: Downvotes without explanations are just as much a positive contribution to the conversation as upvotes.

I was more thinking of DIY firearms/firearm modification. That would seem very dangerous to me.

It is quite common for criminals in the UK to "re-bore" replica or deactivated weapons. It is also very common for these guns to backfire, killing the shooter.

The idea of gun hacking simply put me in mind of these sad occurrences.

I'm not suggesting anyone is a mouth breathing redneck, or an inept criminal for that matter, lets put it this way: when I think of some of the things I've hacked in the more conventional sense, I wouldn't feel safe if those things had been potentially lethal :)

EDIT: before anyone else brings this up, it has just occurred to me that the category of "potentially lethal" includes every object in existence, especially cars, which people love to hack and I would never anyone accuse of being reckless for hacking. So feel free to disregard my whole point.