Firearm suppressor
Silenciador de armas de fuego
- Date
- 1909 · confidence high
- Place
- Hartford, Connecticut, United States
- Credited to
- Hiram Percy Maxim
- Field
- Conflict
What it is
A device screwed onto the muzzle with baffles that slow and cool the combustion gases, reducing the report. Patented by Maxim in 1909 and sold as the 'Maxim Silencer', it passed into military and special-operations use.
Maxim came to the firearm suppressor from his experience with engine exhaust mufflers; he was the son of Hiram Stevens Maxim, inventor of the machine gun.
What it led to
- suppressed weapons of the Second World War
- special-operations weapons
- noise reduction in sport shooting and hunting