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rm9792 wrote:I didnt know any PD in the USA used an AK platform.

It was hypothetical. I have no idea if any PDs use them.

Beiruty wrote:I catched some of the part where the silenced AK was made. But wow $2800 for an AK with Quad-rail wih integrated Silencer
Too much $$$$ for a SAIGA.

To be fair, you're not paying $2800 for a <whatever>. You're paying $2800 for an integrally suppressed <whatever>. It's certainly not worth that much to me, but if you're married to the AK platform and you need it to be integrally suppressed... <shrug>

As a real-world example, let's say my PD is buying new carbines. It's $950 for a Saiga AK and $675 for a Red Jacket stainless steel suppressor, so the integrally suppressed version is an extra $1,175.00/unit. Based on my city's population, if every single officer is getting one, buying one of those instead of a regular AK & suppressor would cost each taxpayer... <drumroll>... less than a buck and a half ($1.47, to be exact). If my PD thinks it'll save lives, I'll cheerfully get water instead of tea next time I go out for dinner (and with what they're charging for tea these days I'll probably come out ahead anyway).

Mike1951 wrote:In the first episode, they supposedly suppressed a 12 guage, yet it was still 144db.

The suppressed AK was still 122db.

According to OSHA, anything over 120db is dangerous and produces pain. So in neither case did they actually achieve the goal of creating something that could be fired without hearing protection.

OSHA's cutoff is 140dB A-Weighted, Slow Response. I don't know what weighting they were using on the show, but for these purposes A-Weighting is at best inaccurate because it throws away so much low-frequency stuff. By "so much" I really do mean scary amounts of it. As in a 20Hz sine wave played at 150dB (yes, that's one hundred and fifty) would only register as 100dB on an A-Weighted meter. I can't find any specific info on what "Slow Response" means, but it involves averaging the volume (as in dB, not cubic inches or anything) over maybe a second, but that's just a guess. I think I read somewhere that "fast" response was supposed to be 1/8th of a second, but there's a fair-to-good chance I'm mis-remembering that. Anyway, neither of them correspond to the peak impulse measurements you'd need to accurately measure the loudness of a gunshot.

And now it's time for Dave's Trivia of the Day! <applause & fan-fare>
Did you know that, on average, at sea-level, the loudest sound wave possible in earth's atmosphere is 191dB? Louder than that and it becomes a shock wave. What's the difference? Well, what we perceive as sound is just a series of over-pressures & under-pressures in the air. As sounds get louder the pressure differences grow, and at 191dB the difference between ambient atmospheric pressure and the high-pressure and low-pressure waves equals 1 standard atmosphere of pressure, which means that the low-pressure part of the sound wave would be a perfect vacuum. Well you can't get lower than a vacuum, so if the sound is louder than 191dB, earth's atmosphere can no longer transmit the sound without clipping off the bottom of the low-pressure wave, and instead of a sound wave we get a shock wave (which can be as loud as you want).

TLE2 wrote:I'm surprised I haven't seen any mention of the Discovery series "Sons of Gun". I like it, but then I'm easily amused.

Same here. (On both counts )

Chemist45 wrote:The show is entertaining, but I have a few problems with it.
In one episode, a couple comes in to buy a home defense weapon for the wife.
Red talks her into buying a suppressed .22 handgun.
Five minutes later they are having a shooting contest and Red's daughter brings a shotgun proclaiming "My daddy taught me a handgun is what you use to fight your way to a real gun. This is a real gun!"
Well yes it is, but what about that other woman?

I'd missed the suppressed part. Anyway, I think the idea was that they were going with the .22 because they're so easy to shoot, then get her something bigger when she'd proven that she could handle the .22. At least, I think that's what was going on.