Silencers, barrel extensions and "velocity"

General Discussion
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This is something that’s bugged me since the game released!
What does increase or decrease in bullet velocity actually mean in the game, and in combat?
They should make it clear, what velocity affects, and not leave us guessing.
Realistcally, increased velocity should mean more damage, less bullet drop and more recoil.

Does it affect any of this?

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In real life, yes, a longer barrel lets the bullet build more velocity.

But, adding a silencer does not decrease velocity. It actually increases velocity, although it’s too little to speak of. A silencer also decreases recoil significantly, probably around 50% on a standard caliber rifle! A silencer does not decrease accuracy if mounted correctly. Also, less recoil always makes the person behind the rifle shoot better. The real downsides to a silencer are of course increased weapon length and weight. But the biggest problem is heat. If you shoot 10 rounds with a silencer on, that thing is hot as hell, and the heat mirage now makes it impossible to see properly through your scope, if you have one. Emptying 3 full mags with an assault rifle through a silencer would simply burn out both the silencer and the barrel muzzle.

Also, mounting a silencer on an SMG or a pistol would make it relatively silent.
That’s not the case for silencing calibers like the 5,56 mm, 7,62 mm, .243, .270, .50 BMG etc.
A bullet exiting the barrel at 2,5 times the speed of sound makes a boom, or something like a very loud crack of a whip. It protects your own hearing most of all, but the sound carries a long way.

Enough about that, I know it’s just a game, but games often attribute false downsides to silences, to compensate for the obvious advantage it gives you.

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I don’t ever notice a change in stats with any barrel accessory. Enemies still detect me the same with suppressors and barrel extensions don’t cause flatter trajectory, increased round speed or help deal any additional damage that I’ve noticed.
And on the topic of suppressors on actual firearms: suppressors decrease muzzle climb due to adding weight to the end of the barrel but increase felt recoil due to increasing bolt velocity through over-gassing. Most modern weapons usually have adjustable gas blocks to mitigate this.

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Now you are talking about suppressors on semi-automatic rifles, which sadly I have never tried firing. On a bolt-action rifle with no moving parts, the recoil is greatly reduced. As I said around 50% on regular hunting calibers, according to my local gunsmith (and my shoulder).

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Based on my own testing, velocity does affect the ballistics, and an increase seems to reduce damage fall-off for both SMG’s and and combat rifles, but it does not appear to increase recoil meaningfully.

Suppressors appear to just apply a flat percentage damage decrease (before factoring in decreases due to distance) without really altering the velocity of the round (at least, not meaningfully, a suppressed .44 Magnus appears to have the same ballistic trajectory as one with a compensator and one without any muzzle hardware.

Minor nitpick, it only helps up to a certain point (I think the turnover point is about 1 meter for a standard NATO 7.62x51mm load, much more than that and you get an exponential decrease in velocity proportionate to extra length).

Depends on the type of suppressor. Wet suppressors absolutely decrease velocity, but they also don’t decrease it enough to be meaningful.

Again, depends on the exact design, but generally yes (because most suppressors end up causing the expanding gas to pull the body of the gun forwards.

Also depends on the design of the suppressor. Some designs have a negative impact on the spin-stabilization of the bullet.

Yet again, depends on the suppressor. You can get nice ones that have integrated cooling (usually passive, but I have seen designs for ones with a water cooling jacket), and the solid metal baffle designs actually cool off pretty well as long as you’re not firing continuously.

Realistically, the only thing in game that should be particularly quiet when suppressed is the .32 ACP. 9x19mm NATO rounds are not horrible when suppressed, but they’re still far louder than the game makes them out to be, even if you’ve got an SMG with a long barrel.

OTOH, I’m pretty certain you can get subsonic .243 Winchester rounds IRL, they just don’t have particularly great ballistics.

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I’m the opposite,never fired bolt actions suppressed so I’ll take your word for it