Quote Originally Posted by Scaleguy24 View Post
Am I under the correct assumption that a suppressor and a silencer are actually very different in the way they affect the dB level of the actual gunshot? Therefore a suppressor would still be ok but a silencer would not be?
A sound suppressor and a (sound) silencer are the same thing. Silencer is the legal term used by the ATF (probably due to the fact that the NFA law was written back in 1934). Suppressor is the industry/technical term. In reality no firearm suppressor truly silences the report of a firearm, so the term silencer is somewhat of a misnomer.

With subsonic rounds like .45 and subsonic .22, the overall sound of the firearm discharging is very quiet, but not completely silent. Most of the sound you hear with rounds like these are the click of the action cycling (on a semi-auto) and the impact of the round. On supersonic firearms, .40's, 9mm's and most rifle rounds, the sound suppressor significantly subdues the report of the firearm, but you still hear the sonic crack of the bullet as it breaks the sound barrier.