When I’m thinking about movies with Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton or Pierce Brosnan as a James Bond, I agree – it’s hard to imagine. But Daniel Craig? Nowadays Bond using even panzerfaust wouldn’t be so strange.

It is, in fact, possible to silence a pistol or a rifle to the point where the loudest sound is the click of the mechanism. Here is an example.

There was an integrally suppressed rifle called the De Lisle carbine, developed for British commandos in WWII, that was equally quiet, although the suppressor was much thicker.

Anyway, cans looked more like the silencers in the movies, and were perfectly adequate for a .22.

I wasn’t familiar with that Winchester Long Z ammo, but a little research reveals that it’s really sub-sonic, with a muzzle velocity of just 800 feet per second, rather than 1,000 or so, for most sub-sonic ammo.

I’m a little surprised you used a Coke can, because I’ve read that plastic Coke bottles were the go-to silencer for Chechen snipers. (Actually, I’m not surprised, because plastic Coke bottles weren’t around when I was a kid.)

The Israelis, of course, use top-notch equipment: a Ruger 10/22 with full-length suppressor, bipod, and 4x scope.

Anyway, my friends and I certainly experimented with silencers, which helped no end in giving us places to shoot. Using a .22 rimfire rifle, as suggested, we found that a Coca-Cola can, fit over the end of a barrel, and stuffed with crumpled up newspaper was quite sufficient. The bullet would pass through the paper fairly easily, but the hot propelling gasses would be lost in all the folds and the result would be about as loud as clapping your hands.

This no doubt destroyed any accuracy. But we couldn’t aim anyway with a Coke can covering the sights.

Then someone came up with silence ammunition. Called, if I remember correctly, Winchester Long Z, these .22 rimfire rounds sounded, when fired from a normal rifle without any newspaper, like a hand clap. The loudest sound was the semi-automatic action reloading the next bullet.

Since then I’ve read many, many books in which the author, narrator, or wise old detective assures the naive youngster that silencers do not work in real life. The truth being that they can work very well, if the ammunition is suitable. We never bothered, but I’m sure a bolt-action rifle with a Coke-can silencer and the Long Z could probably be fired in a restaurant without notice.