Do shotgun silencers exist and if so how effective are they?

…...anything which makes a loud noise can be ‘muffled’ .

.. it’s just a matter of how much you’re willing to spend and to what degree you want to muffle it

….and to what degree your muffling process affects it’s original functionality…......

I have never owned a gun and know little about them. but i would suspect that the nature of a shotgun and its many little pellets would mean that the shotgun would possibly lose some efficency by having a silencer on it.

a look on google leads me to beleve that they do indeed exist, but they all look like the cause the guns barril to have a narrower path. i dont know what effect that would have on a shotgun.

Yes, they exist and the DNR uses them when they shoot deer in our area.

The point of the shotgun is to be a loud, brash, short-range, and deadly weapon, not stealthy. Whoever would buy a shotgun solely for that purpose is an idiot who just shouldve gotten a sniper rifle…

Oh man there are movies where the silencers sound just plain silly.

Then again, watching old Steven Seggal movies where they dub in gun-noises is just as hilarious.

@Fred931
Have you ever fired a Beretta Shotgun or one of the new tactical Mossberg Shotguns? Both of these shotguns have a full choke that except up to 2“¾ shells. Now by the sounds of it you’ve not had much experience with CQB but there are times when you would want to silence a shotgun and be able to fire farther than 15 feet.
I can think of a million reasons as to why I would want to quite a shotgun down….The number one reason would be firing a shotgun in Close Quarters Combat is loud and can damage your hearing not to mention will give your position away to the floor above you and below you, not a smart move if you’re trying to be somewhat quite. Same reason they make close range pistols with silencers.

In the short of it, yes they make silencers for Shotguns and they work well. Hushovers do not quite the weapon as much however they will take the high end off and mellow out the bottom end depending on the shell. Some more than others….Hope this helps.

I also forgot to add that if you live in the lower 48 they are illegal.

The whole point of a silencer is to make the shot sillent. To do this you need two things, one to muffle the muzzle blast – that is relatively easy. The other issue is that the projectile/s has to be traveling at less than the speed of sound – with a shotgun this is not so easy. They make “sub-sonic” ammunition for various solid projectile pistol & rifle calibers, but sub-sonic shotgun ammunition is far less common, and often illegal. (If you do your own re-loading you can use sub-sonic specs and experiment a little.) Also it depends very much on the type of shotgun and the choke as to whether the gun is still going to remain effective. Using sub-sonic shotgun shells definitely reduces the effectiveness of the weapon.

@Fred931
Are you kidding? a 30–06 deer rifle (which can be used as a sniper rifle) can be heard from a number of miles away on a quiet day.

@judochop, not illegal, you just have to fill out the appropriate paperwork with the ATF and pay a $200 tax, just a sidenote

@Fred931 The point of the shotgun is to hurl many little pellets in a given direction at speed, in order to maximize your chances of hitting something. Up until very, very recently, shotguns were chiefly designed for hunting, and modified as need be.

@Nullo Yeah. Dunno why I posted here if I knew nothing on the topic. Oh well.