Respecting the sound of silence – Silencers and Hunting
June 11, 2025Posted by derrek.sigler
One of the things we get asked about here is the use of silencers for hunting. Does it really make much of a difference? I went back to famed writer and hunter Bryce Towsley for his take on it.
Hunters talk about solitude and the soul restoring the silence of the woods. We work hard to be quiet, still and stealthy, to fit in unnoticed. We blend with nature and merge with the stillness as we slow down our movements and open our senses. Most big game hunting is a gentle, hushed, almost passive sport. The goal is to become part of the surroundings, to fit in until we are unnoticed by those who live here.
Then we shatter everything by pulling the trigger.
The great contrast
So it is that hunting is a contrast of events. The quiet sport that culminates with a loud explosion of noise. Guns make noise and there is no other way than to shatter what nature has created. Yet, a gun is by far the most efficient, humane, effective and ethical way to take game. Firearms may be in contrast to our quest to blend with the solitude of the woods, but they are, for now at least, the leading edge in the evolution of hunting tools.
Does that mean I would choose a completely silent gun if it existed? No, probably not. In some ways the sound of the shot is important to the sport, at least to many of us. It is a marker that we are there, that we have succeeded in the quest and brought it to a conclusion. It’s the “scent post” that hunters use to show that they are the predator in this contest and they have won.
I have been a big game hunter since 1966 when I shot my first whitetail deer with an ancient Model 92, .38-40 lever action carbine. That gun held a lot of ammo and I certainly left a rather extensive acoustical marker that day. My 11 year old self was so scared the deer would run off that I weighted it down with multiple bullets and every twitch brought another one. I made a lot of noise, but looking back, I think I wanted to do exactly that. I wanted the world to know what was happening, that I was there and I was a hunter.
I have been quite lucky in the years and decades since and I have been able to make hunting not only my passion, but in a convoluted way my profession. I was never paid to hunt, but I do get paid to write about hunting. Most of that hunting over the years has been with full octane firearms. While I have a bit more understanding and self-control than I did in 1966 and I tend to shoot a bit less, I still have shattered the stillness in a lot of places. I left my mark, even if it was fleeting.
The continuing proliferation of silencers used by hunters is a sign that muting that marker post a bit is not an unwelcome thing. Were I given today’s options of toning things down years ago, I would have welcomed it with open arms, just as I have now.
Ever see a picture you can hear? My ears are ringing just looking at this.
Hunting with silencers
Of course I use silencers for the obvious reasons, the hearing loss I suffer being the big one, but out of respect for nature and the places we hunt I would have liked to have been a bit less intrusive. I would have preferred to have shown a little more reverence to what I have come to love about those wild places.
Does it really matter? Perhaps only to me. Yet, in the end, that’s really all that matters.
Still, I was recently reminded about another benefit of using a silencer when hunting. A shot through a silencer seems to have less effect on the game, which, I suppose, might be important when you miss. (I wouldn’t know, as it’s common knowledge that gun writers never miss! We never lie either.)
Obviously the critters can hear the shot, even when using a silencer, but it seems to confuse them more than a full report firearm. I am guessing (I have asked, but they never reply) that game animals have trouble pinpointing the location of where the suppressed shot came from. The moving source of the noise as the supersonic bullet passes by throws them off. I have seen hogs and coyotes run right at the shooter to escape after the first shot.
Towsley took this 9-point buck and also filled tow doe tags. The suppressor helped with his success.
It’s clear that suppressed shots spook the natives a lot less than a full horsepower event and are less alarming. For example, in January 2025 I was hunting in the Mississippi Delta on a very exclusive deer lease.
The head honcho, a guy named Scooter, called me aside as we were preparing to head to our afternoon stand and said, “We need some help thinning our does, you don’t mind shooting a few, right?”
As a matter of fact, I do not.
I was testing some new ammo for a magazine article and needed data on how the bullet performed on whitetail deer. More importantly, I was pretty low on venison. I needed meat and they needed to control the doe population, where is there a downside anywhere in that?
“If you like, you can shoot two this evening,” Scooter told me.
I like the way he thinks.
Just before dark, the wind dropped and it became very still. It wasn’t long before a couple of spooky does showed up. Clearly they were aware of the management plan as they were wound up tight and acting trepidatious. I picked out what I thought was the largest. The 6.5 PRC with its new Super-Secret ammo whispered through the Banish Backcountry and that first deer acted like something had turned off a switch. I ran the bolt and sat quietly. The other deer ran off, but it was back in just a couple of minutes, confused about what happened but determined to get a mouthful of winter wheat. We grilled that one’s backstrap for dinner last night.
"That Super-Secret ammo is out under the name Barnes Harvest Collection. Sierra Bullets bought Barnes a little while back and this is their first collaboration. The Barnes ammo uses the Seirra Tipped GameKing bullet. I shot those two does and a rather nice 9-point buck with the ammo. The results were spectacular. There is a full report in the American Hunter magazine. " - Bryce
Would that second deer have come back while the little remaining light held if I were not using a silencer? Based on many decades of hunting, I do not think so. As a rule, gunshots “scatter the flock” and they don’t come back for a while. Yet, I have seen this behavior multiple times now when using a silencer on my rifle. I have shot doubles on deer and even triples on hogs and coyotes when using a silencer equipped rifle. Yes, it has happened with full blast rifles over the years too, but not very often. Certainly not as often.
Protecting my hearing is a big reason I have a silencer on my hunting rifle, neighbor relations is another, but if it also helps put more meat in the freezer then it’s all the more reason to take the volume down a notch.
Ready to start hunting with a silencer?
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Bryce M. Towsley is a full-time freelance writer and photographer living in Vermont. His work covers a wide diversity of subjects, focusing heavily on hunting, shooting, reloading, gunsmithing and firearms.
He published his first article in The Vermont Sportsman in 1980 and in the time since has published thousands of articles and photos in most of the major outdoor and gun magazines. His writing branches into many outdoor fields including humor, DIY, outdoor fiction and, when desperate for a paycheck, fishing. In Addition:
He is a Field Editor for NRA’s American Hunter and Shooting Illustrated magazines.
He has published ten hunting, gun, gunsmithing and handloading related books and contributed to several others.
He has contributed to several handloading manuals for companies including Lyman, Hodgdon and Barnes.
Two of the books have been on gunsmithing with a third slated for 2025. Towsley enjoys building or modifying guns in his machine shop. He builds many of the guns he shoots and hunts with.
Towsley published an action adventure novel, The 14th Reinstated, and another titled Trophy Hunter is slated for release in 2025.
Towsley has hunted extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Africa, Australia, South America, Russia and Europe for a wide variety of game.
Towsley competes in several shooting disciplines with rifles, pistols and shotguns and has traveled extensively in pursuit of shooting competition.
While many suppressors can be used on several different caliber firearms, we have some specific models that can make your shooting more enjoyable. Pick the caliber that you have in mind. If you don’t see your caliber, pick one close to it to see our recommendations.
