A Deep Dive into the Opportunities and Challenges of Airgun Sound Suppression
Silence in the shooting sports has never been accidental. It is engineered. It is studied. It is earned through repetition, failure, and a deep understanding of physics that most shooters never see. I’ve learned that firsthand over many years in this sport. I started, like most of you, as a shooter just trying to make my airguns quieter. Then I became a product tester, a content creator, and eventually found myself working directly with DonnyFL. Today, I get to be part of the team developing what I truly believe are the most advanced airgun moderators and airgun suppressors in the world.
I wanted to take the time to write this Field Notes blog to pull back the curtain a bit. What follows is not marketing fluff. It’s a technical look at the realities we deal with every day as we go through continuous improvement and new product development. The pursuit of quiet at DonnyFL has never been about chasing a single decibel number. It’s about understanding how air behaves, how pressure moves, and how sound is actually created at the muzzle of an airgun. That understanding is what has earned DonnyFL worldwide recognition, not by copying existing designs, but by building systems specifically around the realities of air-powered platforms.
At the core of every DonnyFL airgun moderator is a deep understanding of airflow disruption. Airguns behave fundamentally differently than firearms. When compressed air exits an airgun barrel, it is not the result of a chemical explosion. There is no instantaneous pressure spike. Instead, an airgun releases stored energy over a longer dwell period, producing a massive volume of expanding air that continues to accelerate the projectile as it travels down the barrel.
That air has to go somewhere. If it exits the muzzle unchecked, it forms a sharp pressure wave that our ears register as a loud report. Our job is to slow that air down, redirect it, and break it into smaller turbulent structures before it can form that wave. At DonnyFL, we spend an enormous amount of time turning a violent blast of air into controlled micro-eddies and turbulent currents, reducing velocity and spreading pressure over time and space before it ever leaves the muzzle.
This is where true airgun-specific suppression begins. DonnyFL airgun suppressors and airgun moderators use carefully chosen combinations of mesh screen diffusion, felt-based absorption, monocore structures, bore-diameter-specific exit caps, and in some models advanced internal baffle geometries. We do not take a one-size-fits-all approach. Every design decision is informed by caliber, power level, and, critically, valve behavior. In models like the Yokozuna, Sumo, Ronin, Emperor, and Great Kami, we use proprietary geometries designed specifically around the longer air pulses found in both high-powered small-bore airguns and modern big-bore platforms.
One limitation that is unique to airguns, and one I talk about often because it is so commonly misunderstood, is mechanical noise. A simple dry fire test tells the story immediately. Dry fire a rimfire or centerfire firearm and what you hear is a soft click of the firing pin. Dry fire a high-powered airgun and you’ll hear a surprisingly loud mechanical report. That sound is not air escaping. It’s the hammer, spring, and valve assembly slamming forward and rebounding under spring tension. That valve slap is an inherent part of how airguns work, especially those designed for higher power levels that require heavier hammers and stronger springs. No airgun suppressor or airgun moderator can eliminate that sound.
This mechanical noise becomes even more pronounced depending on airgun design. In many platforms, the valve is located close to the shooter’s ear. In bullpup designs, it can sit almost directly beneath your cheek weld. As power levels increase, hammer mass and spring force increase as well, amplifying the perceived noise of the firing cycle. From the shooter’s perspective, this can make a high-powered airgun feel louder than a suppressed rimfire, even when the muzzle report is actually lower. This is one of the fundamental challenges of airgun sound reduction.
While DonnyFL moderators are engineered to dramatically reduce the sound generated by expanding air at the muzzle, the internal mechanical noise of the firing cycle remains outside the scope of suppression. Understanding this distinction is critical. True quiet in airguns is governed not just by muzzle design, but by the unavoidable physics of mechanical energy inside the action itself.
One of the biggest advantages we have in designing airgun suppressors is material freedom. Firearm suppressors must contend with extreme heat as well as pressure. Combustion produces intense thermal loads that force designers into specific alloys and metals, often at the expense of ideal sound-damping properties. Airguns operate under a completely different physical reality. When high-pressure compressed air leaves the valve, travels down the barrel, and exits the muzzle, it expands rapidly and cools. In many cases, the air leaving an airgun is actually colder than ambient temperature. That’s basic compressed gas physics, and it changes everything.
Because DonnyFL airgun moderators are designed exclusively for airgun use, heat management is not a constraint. We don’t need to cool gases. We only need to slow and disrupt them, while dealing with significantly higher volumes of air. That gives us access to a much wider range of materials that would never survive firearm temperatures but are perfectly suited for airflow control, turbulence management, and acoustic energy dissipation at airgun pressures. These materials are selected to withstand thousands of shots at typical airgun pressure ranges without degradation or loss of performance.
That material flexibility allows us to experiment with diffusion layers, composite structures, and internal geometries that remain stable over long shooting sessions. Instead of fighting heat, every design decision focuses on airflow behavior, pressure decay, and sound attenuation. The result is an airgun suppressor that delivers consistent performance shot after shot and requires less frequent servicing to stay effective.
Independent testing across countless YouTube reviews consistently shows DonnyFL airgun suppressors ranking among the quietest available. But what truly sets us apart isn’t just peak suppression numbers. It’s the depth of platform-specific tuning. Choosing the correct airgun moderator isn’t just about caliber. Power level, valve design, dwell time, and tune quality all matter. An airgun with a long valve dwell or excessive wasted air will always be louder than a well-balanced system, even if both are shooting the same projectile at the same velocity.
That’s why many DonnyFL designs feature larger initial blast chambers. These chambers are built to capture excess air released when the valve remains open as the pellet or slug exits the barrel. That additional volume allows us to absorb and slow the pressure pulse before it escapes, dramatically reducing perceived sound. Without enough internal volume, even the best baffle geometry can be overwhelmed by sheer airflow.
One of the most counterintuitive aspects of airgun sound suppression is how loud high-powered airguns can be compared to suppressed rimfire firearms. A .22LR cartridge may generate over 15,000 PSI to push a 40-grain bullet to around 1,050 feet per second. A high-powered airgun can achieve the same velocity with a similar projectile using far less pressure. The difference is volume and time. Airguns rely on large volumes of air and long barrels to build velocity gradually, much like an exaggerated potato cannon effect. That gradual acceleration creates a massive release of air at the muzzle that must be managed.
Rimfire cartridges, by contrast, produce a brief, violent pressure spike that is easier to trap and cool inside a smaller suppressor volume. That’s why, in some cases, a suppressed high-powered airgun can sound slightly louder than a suppressed rimfire, despite operating at far lower pressures. Add in mechanical noise from hammer and valve movement, and the difference becomes even more noticeable.
At DonnyFL, every airgun moderator is designed with these realities in mind. We analyze and test hundreds of airgun platforms, from backyard-friendly setups to extreme big-bore hunting systems, to ensure each suppressor matches the unique behavior of the airgun it’s intended for. The goal is not theoretical silence. It’s practical, repeatable, hearing-safe performance that enhances the shooting experience without sacrificing accuracy or reliability.
The science of silence is never finished. As airgun technology evolves, valve systems change, power levels increase, and tuning strategies advance, we continue to study, test, and refine. Quiet is not a single solution. It’s a moving target shaped by physics, engineering, and real-world experience. Being part of that process, after starting as just another airgunner looking for a quieter shot, has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career.
Here at DonnyFL, that pursuit drives everything we do. And the science of silence is still being written.
