September 20, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1902, the first successful, commercially available gun silencer was invented by Hiram Percy Maxim. He also developed mufflers for internal combustion engines using much the same technology. Maxim was an American inventor, graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and son of Sir Hiram Stevens Maxi— inventor of the first portable, fully automatic machine gun.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories, and we love
to tell stories about how things came to be that
we now have come to know. One of them we
recently told on the Elevator Break how it created elevators
everywhere in big cities around the world. This one is
the story of how the silencer came to be. Telling
(00:31):
the story is Ashley Lebinski. She's the former co host
of the Discovery Channel's Master of Arms. Take It Away, Ashley.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
The name Maxim is most often associated with the development
of the machine gun. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim is credited
with an early successful machine gun, and his brother Hudson
was also known for something that was incredibly loud, which
was his development of explosives and propellant. The inventions of
the family were often known for their noise. The next
(01:04):
generation of the Maxim family retreated from that path to
focus more on silence. Hiram Percy Maxim, who was the
son of Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, was born in Brooklyn,
New York, on September tewod eighteen sixty nine. He was
basically a renaissance man throughout his life, and he would
revolutionize multiple industries, automobiles, weapons, aviation, and the radio. He
(01:31):
graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in eighteen eighty
six at just seventeen years old. Initially, Maxim was drawn
to the automotive industry. He's probably least known for this,
but he probably should be known for it most of all.
At the turn of the twentieth century, it was thought
that electric powered vehicles would be the wave of the future. Maxim, however,
(01:51):
back then, disagreed and would champion gasoline powered engines. By
eighteen ninety two, Maxim was building his own internal combustion engine,
and he updated that design and it won the first
American closed circuit auto race in eighteen ninety nine, and
of course he named it after himself. One issue that
persisted in his brain when it came to cars was
(02:14):
the noise associated with them, and so that's when he
shifts his kind of focus on engineering ways to create
sound suppression, and so by doing so, he then invented
and patented several types of automobile muffler systems that redirected
and slowed down a car's exhaust. Maxim then extended those
(02:35):
patents and an idea into the concept of firearms. Obviously,
Maxim grew up around firearms and he was keenly aware
of how loud that they could be, so he decided
to go in the opposite direction and make the weapons
less noisy. It was actually considered, it is still considered
today in other countries to be almost ungentlemanlike to have
(02:58):
a loud firearm. Maxim was inspired to create what becomes
the silencer in the bathtub, which sounds like the silliest
story on the planet, But he was in the bathtub
and he was watching the water form of vortex as
it drained from the tub, and he wondered then whether
gas in a firearms muzzle could be directed similarly to
(03:18):
reduce noise. He patented the Maxim silencer in nineteen oh
nine and the design that he had which differs from
modern silencer designs, but his design forced muzzle gases through
a series of curved veins that spun the gases and
reduced their pressure as they cooled. Essentially, reduced pressure equaled
reduced noise. Today, when you think about a silencer, a
(03:42):
lot of people associated with self defense, they associated with
the military or even something sinister. But back then Maxim
was just applying a concept that he created for the
automobile onto firearms, and it showed in kind of the
desirability of the product on the market. He designed the
silencer to be a civilian product. It was something to
(04:04):
be used in sporting guns because often if you were
hunting or target shooting, your firearm was pretty loud, and
so you saw it pop up in the different catalogs
and everything for people to buy rather than the military.
The military really didn't catch on with a silencer until
the middle of the twentieth century because the recoil out
of nineteen oh three was pretty hefty, and a silencer
(04:25):
didn't just reduce sound, it also reduced recoil, so it
was a great training aid for the military back then.
The Maxim Silent Firearms Company, which became the Maxim Silencer Company,
didn't just stop with silencers for firearms. They also sold
automobile silencers, air hoists, steam exhaust silencers, and motor boat silencers.
(04:47):
And they partnered a lot with General Motors to give
away a free silencer with every purchase, so if you
bought a car with General Motors, you got a free
silencer for your firearm. At the same time, that's fascinating
with the silencer or the suppressor is that it became
highly regulated. In nineteen thirty four, the National Firearms Act,
(05:08):
which is really the first big federal firearms law in
the United States, regulated several types of technology. They regulated
machine guns, short bail rifles, and shotguns and also silencers.
And what that meant was basically that you could still
acquire it, but you had to register it and go
through a much more intense background check and pay a
two hundred dollars tax stamp. Well, what's interesting is that
(05:31):
nowadays in America, it is a requirement to have a
muffler on your car, but to put one on your
firearm you have to go through a very long background
check and pay a lot of money to stick it
on the end of your gun to alleviate sound issues
when you are using your firearm. And America is kind
of a standalone in terms of the way that they
(05:53):
view silencers around the world. In many countries they're actually
seen as an accessory. You can buy them over the
counter without any background process. Because Europeans love hunting, they
love target shooting, and they think it's rude to have
allowed firearm and so It's interesting because I feel like
Hire Percy Maxim was such a brilliant marketer that he
(06:14):
marketed an item that was ultimately its modern day downfall,
and that was because they marketed it as an item
that was silent and brilliant when you think about it,
But silent today makes people think that then a silencer
causes a firearm to then in fact be silent, when
that's not really the case. It suppresses sound, and in reality,
most civilian accessible firearms still emit a sounds ranging from
(06:38):
one hundred and forty to one hundred and seventy five decibels,
and a silencer really only marginally suppresses that sound, bringing
levels down to around one hundred and twenty to one
hundred and fifty decibels. A lot of times you're the
comparison of it still sounds like a jackhammer, so it
brings it down to help things, but it certainly doesn't
silence that. And here's an example of what that gunfire
(07:00):
sounds like with and without a silencer. Hire and Percy
Maxim invented the silencer, But if you talk to a
gun person today, you'll probably hear them say that it
is a suppressor and the reality is is both as
(07:21):
correct and a lot of gun people will tell you
to never call it a silencer, but that's not fair
to the history. Because Maxim patented his invention in nineteen
oh nine as a silencer. It says that on the patent,
and then he liked the term so much that he
named his company that the Maxim Silencer Company. And if
you think about it, it's pretty brilliant marketing because who
(07:42):
doesn't want a firearm that doesn't make a loud noise?
And he really doubled down with this because he had
advertisements where you had a family that is sitting in
a room, you know, hanging out, and then in the
other room, the dad is target shooting, and it basically says,
this is so silent that you don't even have to
disrupt your family in the other room. So it's brilliant
(08:03):
marketing on the part of Hire and Percy Maxim. And
then that term then translates into the legal term of
silencer with the National Firearms Act of nineteen thirty four.
So a lot of people want to be more precise
and they'll say suppressor or moderator or if you want
to go back to its origins in the automobile industry muffler.
But they use that because it's a better descriptor. But
(08:24):
they really shouldn't pick on people who use the historical
original term, especially if they know what they're talking about.
It makes you wonder if he was not as good
at marketing back in the nineteen hundreds, whether or not
the invention would be as regulated as it is today.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And a terrific job by the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Angler. And a special thanks to
frequent contributor here on this show, Anshley Lebinski. She's the
former co host of the Discovery Channel's Master of Arms.
She's the former curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum,
and she's the co founder of the University of Ying
College of Laws Firearms Research Center. And what a story
(09:04):
about Hiram Percy Maxim, born in all places of Brooklyn,
learns to lower and suppress the sound and volume of
the engines of cars, and from that suppression of noise
became the suppression of the sound of guns for ordinary citizens.
The story of the silencer here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories, and we love
to tell stories about how things came to be that
we now have come to know. One of them we
recently told on the Elevator Break how it created elevators
everywhere in big cities around the world. This one is
the story of how the silencer came to be. Telling
(00:31):
the story is Ashley Lebinski. She's the former co host
of the Discovery Channel's Master of Arms. Take It Away, Ashley.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
The name Maxim is most often associated with the development
of the machine gun. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim is credited
with an early successful machine gun, and his brother Hudson
was also known for something that was incredibly loud, which
was his development of explosives and propellant. The inventions of
the family were often known for their noise. The next
(01:04):
generation of the Maxim family retreated from that path to
focus more on silence. Hiram Percy Maxim, who was the
son of Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, was born in Brooklyn,
New York, on September tewod eighteen sixty nine. He was
basically a renaissance man throughout his life, and he would
revolutionize multiple industries, automobiles, weapons, aviation, and the radio. He
(01:31):
graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in eighteen eighty
six at just seventeen years old. Initially, Maxim was drawn
to the automotive industry. He's probably least known for this,
but he probably should be known for it most of all.
At the turn of the twentieth century, it was thought
that electric powered vehicles would be the wave of the future. Maxim, however,
(01:51):
back then, disagreed and would champion gasoline powered engines. By
eighteen ninety two, Maxim was building his own internal combustion engine,
and he updated that design and it won the first
American closed circuit auto race in eighteen ninety nine, and
of course he named it after himself. One issue that
persisted in his brain when it came to cars was
(02:14):
the noise associated with them, and so that's when he
shifts his kind of focus on engineering ways to create
sound suppression, and so by doing so, he then invented
and patented several types of automobile muffler systems that redirected
and slowed down a car's exhaust. Maxim then extended those
(02:35):
patents and an idea into the concept of firearms. Obviously,
Maxim grew up around firearms and he was keenly aware
of how loud that they could be, so he decided
to go in the opposite direction and make the weapons
less noisy. It was actually considered, it is still considered
today in other countries to be almost ungentlemanlike to have
(02:58):
a loud firearm. Maxim was inspired to create what becomes
the silencer in the bathtub, which sounds like the silliest
story on the planet, But he was in the bathtub
and he was watching the water form of vortex as
it drained from the tub, and he wondered then whether
gas in a firearms muzzle could be directed similarly to
(03:18):
reduce noise. He patented the Maxim silencer in nineteen oh
nine and the design that he had which differs from
modern silencer designs, but his design forced muzzle gases through
a series of curved veins that spun the gases and
reduced their pressure as they cooled. Essentially, reduced pressure equaled
reduced noise. Today, when you think about a silencer, a
(03:42):
lot of people associated with self defense, they associated with
the military or even something sinister. But back then Maxim
was just applying a concept that he created for the
automobile onto firearms, and it showed in kind of the
desirability of the product on the market. He designed the
silencer to be a civilian product. It was something to
(04:04):
be used in sporting guns because often if you were
hunting or target shooting, your firearm was pretty loud, and
so you saw it pop up in the different catalogs
and everything for people to buy rather than the military.
The military really didn't catch on with a silencer until
the middle of the twentieth century because the recoil out
of nineteen oh three was pretty hefty, and a silencer
(04:25):
didn't just reduce sound, it also reduced recoil, so it
was a great training aid for the military back then.
The Maxim Silent Firearms Company, which became the Maxim Silencer Company,
didn't just stop with silencers for firearms. They also sold
automobile silencers, air hoists, steam exhaust silencers, and motor boat silencers.
(04:47):
And they partnered a lot with General Motors to give
away a free silencer with every purchase, so if you
bought a car with General Motors, you got a free
silencer for your firearm. At the same time, that's fascinating
with the silencer or the suppressor is that it became
highly regulated. In nineteen thirty four, the National Firearms Act,
(05:08):
which is really the first big federal firearms law in
the United States, regulated several types of technology. They regulated
machine guns, short bail rifles, and shotguns and also silencers.
And what that meant was basically that you could still
acquire it, but you had to register it and go
through a much more intense background check and pay a
two hundred dollars tax stamp. Well, what's interesting is that
(05:31):
nowadays in America, it is a requirement to have a
muffler on your car, but to put one on your
firearm you have to go through a very long background
check and pay a lot of money to stick it
on the end of your gun to alleviate sound issues
when you are using your firearm. And America is kind
of a standalone in terms of the way that they
(05:53):
view silencers around the world. In many countries they're actually
seen as an accessory. You can buy them over the
counter without any background process. Because Europeans love hunting, they
love target shooting, and they think it's rude to have
allowed firearm and so It's interesting because I feel like
Hire Percy Maxim was such a brilliant marketer that he
(06:14):
marketed an item that was ultimately its modern day downfall,
and that was because they marketed it as an item
that was silent and brilliant when you think about it,
But silent today makes people think that then a silencer
causes a firearm to then in fact be silent, when
that's not really the case. It suppresses sound, and in reality,
most civilian accessible firearms still emit a sounds ranging from
(06:38):
one hundred and forty to one hundred and seventy five decibels,
and a silencer really only marginally suppresses that sound, bringing
levels down to around one hundred and twenty to one
hundred and fifty decibels. A lot of times you're the
comparison of it still sounds like a jackhammer, so it
brings it down to help things, but it certainly doesn't
silence that. And here's an example of what that gunfire
(07:00):
sounds like with and without a silencer. Hire and Percy
Maxim invented the silencer, But if you talk to a
gun person today, you'll probably hear them say that it
is a suppressor and the reality is is both as
(07:21):
correct and a lot of gun people will tell you
to never call it a silencer, but that's not fair
to the history. Because Maxim patented his invention in nineteen
oh nine as a silencer. It says that on the patent,
and then he liked the term so much that he
named his company that the Maxim Silencer Company. And if
you think about it, it's pretty brilliant marketing because who
(07:42):
doesn't want a firearm that doesn't make a loud noise?
And he really doubled down with this because he had
advertisements where you had a family that is sitting in
a room, you know, hanging out, and then in the
other room, the dad is target shooting, and it basically says,
this is so silent that you don't even have to
disrupt your family in the other room. So it's brilliant
(08:03):
marketing on the part of Hire and Percy Maxim. And
then that term then translates into the legal term of
silencer with the National Firearms Act of nineteen thirty four.
So a lot of people want to be more precise
and they'll say suppressor or moderator or if you want
to go back to its origins in the automobile industry muffler.
But they use that because it's a better descriptor. But
(08:24):
they really shouldn't pick on people who use the historical
original term, especially if they know what they're talking about.
It makes you wonder if he was not as good
at marketing back in the nineteen hundreds, whether or not
the invention would be as regulated as it is today.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And a terrific job by the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Angler. And a special thanks to
frequent contributor here on this show, Anshley Lebinski. She's the
former co host of the Discovery Channel's Master of Arms.
She's the former curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum,
and she's the co founder of the University of Ying
College of Laws Firearms Research Center. And what a story
(09:04):
about Hiram Percy Maxim, born in all places of Brooklyn,
learns to lower and suppress the sound and volume of
the engines of cars, and from that suppression of noise
became the suppression of the sound of guns for ordinary citizens.
The story of the silencer here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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