The SOUND of a GUN?

What type of gun is it and where would it be shot? (indoors, outdoors, in a [big or small] room)
If in a room, what is in it, if anything? [is it cluttered or with things spaced apart]
At what, would it be shot?
The range as well, is good info.

it's in a bareen forest with heavy snow falling. Dead of winter. Deer hunting. The "bang" resounds of trees and an old stone wall.

My metaphors have been absolute shit, and it's really that last element I need before I submit this story to the shop.

oh the gun:
[I]twenty-gauge double barrel fox sterling worth [/I]

[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]Does anyone have a unique way to describe the sound of a gun shot? It's a twenty gauge double barrel shot gun to be specific. My metaphors just feel too cheesy, and I'm not a fan of words like "[I]Crack[/I]," "[I]Pop[/I]," "[I]Bang[/I],"

Anyone have an idea on how to make sound?[/QUOTE]

With something such as a double barrel armament the sound itself is going to be fairly full. It also depends on how many times this shotgun is fired. If its in rapid catalog succession the sound will be different than a one shot, one kill scenario. The scenario and the area are vital parts to know of imagining how it'd sound. But I would say something like "the applaud of thunder".

Lots of trees? Are they bare?

A gunshots decibel, even a .22 is just as loud as a jet engine, while the threshold of pain itself, is 130dB. I dunno what you can do with that, but its something.

What's the scene like? That makes a difference when I write. Here's one I used in a short story. The man with the gun has the other character tied up, and he's trying to get some info from him.
____________________________________

Smell of cold and damp. Hands numb; tied. Not your hands, right?

"Who was she?"

"I donnn nnnoww," he mumbels throught brusied lips. The blood makes them stick to each other.

Cold revalation, pressed against his temple. The click of the hammer. Revolver. "Think." he says.

"I think-eye nnneww er from collig. Maybe eh party, somethin."

"God, I can hardly understand you. They really fucked you up."

The gun presses harder, the sound of the trigger slowly rocking ever so slightly closer to firing, the hammer rocking just a smallest distance in the world, dancing the line between this world and the next.

"Well fuck it then, who needs you anymore?"

*Click* Emptyness rings.

"Oops, I must have forgotten to load that one."

"Fuck you, you fucking... shit," he screams, "Whadoyou wan me say? Thas all I know."

"Watch it, fuck stick, remember who has the gun. Make sure you don't forget," he cocks the gun again, pulls it away from Johns temple, and screams "Remember! Me, motherfucker! I've got the gun!"

*CRASH* It was the brightest black you've never seen. Never, it was feeling and hearing and seeing all at once. Separating eternity from eternity.

*Crash* Quieter now, as your ears begin momentary hearing loss, it sounds like spinning and slamming and vomitting.

*crash* Hours passing in seconds, time speaking to you between round after round, fading into unattainable echo, speaking your end and the end of all you'd ever wanted.

crash... It was a locomotive crushing your skull from every direction, steel and earth and bone and tissue, coming together at the speed of light. The sound was less each time.

crash....

Ring.

Echo.

Footsteps.

Spinning.

The ground meets his deafened head.

The light under the door to the shed is now a vertical line pulsating with the locomotive sound of the blood rushing behind his ears. Your ears. Or his...

Hours and seconds and everything hushes.

You're back. Slowly you put it together. Yes, you're John. Mostly deaf, but you can hear him talking again.

"I made sure and loaded all six chambers this time. Care to try this again?"
_______________________________________________________________

I tried to make the sound a feeling as well, since a lot of times, if you've ever shot a gun, you can really feel it in your chest. It's an invasive sound, you know. It rapes your senses all at once until they're indiscernable from one another.

Hope this helps.

[QUOTE=ireLocus]I'm stunned. I have really no idea what that means...

Though, since you usually say you seem to come off as "sarcastic" cleverly masked as "bitchy" (Oh, if we, your fellow culties, only understood you...), I'll assume that's how you meant to come across this time as well.

So, uh... you're sitnky winky with your spanky wanky, so no more yanky the ...

Fuck I have no idea how to respond to that.

so.... in the immortal words of Al Pacino in [i]Scent of a Woman[/i], "Fuck you too."

Have a day. .)[/QUOTE]
woowww, chill out and have a brew man. Mini just states things directly how they are, no harm done.

Back to the gun....

The seeing sound gives me a migraine. Jeebes. thunder, I wouldn't use that since it has been used a lot, but thanks for pointing thunder out, lots of things sound like thunder.

Mini, I do like the threshold for pain. are you talking about the level of pain an eardrum can stand? cfop spilled tea..

Locus...
i do want to avoid words like crash, bang and such

[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]woowww, chill out and have a brew man. Mini just states things directly how they are, no harm done.

Back to the gun....

The seeing sound gives me a migraine. Jeebes. thunder, I wouldn't use that since it has been used a lot, but thanks for pointing thunder out, lots of things sound like thunder.

Mini, I do like the threshold for pain. are you talking about the level of pain an eardrum can stand? cfop spilled tea..

Locus...
i do want to avoid words like crash, bang and such[/QUOTE]
Yes, when sound is so loud it starts to hurt. when shooting guns a lot, like in hunting, you become used to this level of sound, and the threshold grows larger, becoming more dangerous. thats how loud guns are, anyways.

[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]woowww, chill out and have a brew man. Mini just states things directly how they are, no harm done.

Back to the gun....

The seeing sound gives me a migraine. Jeebes. thunder, I wouldn't use that since it has been used a lot, but thanks for pointing thunder out, lots of things sound like thunder.

Mini, I do like the threshold for pain. are you talking about the level of pain an eardrum can stand? cfop spilled tea..

Locus...
i do want to avoid words like crash, bang and such[/QUOTE]
that and the fact that she's pretty much always bitchy to me even if I'm not talking to her. she can't seem to leave well enough alone.

anyways... we don't really need a ref, I'm sure we'll sort things out. either way, it never fails to entertain.

So....

Don't focus on the *crash*, look at the other words I used... I was trying to explain the sound of the gun as more than just a sound. It becomes part of the environment, it permeates more than just your ear drums. This is speaking form experience shooting guns. Big guns. The sound blurs across your other senses, ya know. Describing only the "sound" really doesn't give the full effect.

Now in the woods, there won't be too much echo to worry about, especially if it's snowed a lot, seeing as snow tends to deaden sound and make them more immediate and fleeting at the same time.

The sound has to have a shape to it, maybe describe that. But make it more than just the sound, and words like crash and bang will seem a little less... ordinary.

[QUOTE=ireLocus]that and the fact that she's pretty much always bitchy to me even if I'm not talking to her. she can't seem to leave well enough alone.

anyways... we don't really need a ref, I'm sure we'll sort things out. either way, it never fails to entertain.

So....

Don't focus on the *crash*, look at the other words I used... I was trying to explain the sound of the gun as more than just a sound. It becomes part of the environment, it permeates more than just your ear drums. This is speaking form experience shooting guns. Big guns. The sound blurs across your other senses, ya know. Describing only the "sound" really doesn't give the full effect.

Now in the woods, there won't be too much echo to worry about, especially if it's snowed a lot, seeing as snow tends to deaden sound and make them more immediate and fleeting at the same time.

The sound has to have a shape to it, maybe describe that. But make it more than just the sound, and words like crash and bang will seem a little less... ordinary.[/QUOTE]

Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

and yeah, shit, I tend to ref. just my way. like harmony.

Also i do like the threshold for pain angle, didn't think of that at all mini, so thanks again.

And also, have snow fall off some of the branches that are really close to the character. That will help to show what's happening, instead of just telling alone.

Ok, that's all I've got for now.

I'm eating home made pizza today... plus I gotta go get some mice to feed the snakes....

Peace out.

A twenty gauge shotgun would hardly even kill someone unless it hit them in the head. A shot to the chest would most likely just cause a lot of bleeding.
The higher the gauge, the smaller the bore of the gun. Still, any gun is loud so what you would hear being close to the rifle(What both people would hear, because you would have to be standing very close in order to kill the man) would be just a loud non-mechanical crack, like a cemenet wall breaking in an earth quake or a firecracker going off right next to your ear, most likely a small ringing in the ears would cover the rest of the sound, making you feel like everything is moving in slow motion.

To the people not near the gunshot, the original blast would cover up the sound of whatever the bullet hits(unless it hits steel, probably, not likely in your forest) and sound more like a sludge hammer smacking down on an anvil or something, then the sound would be moving farther and farther away until it was gone, because of the open space. Picture the sound as a ghost moving incredibly fast trying to get away, the ghost howling a cracking sound that gets lower and lower until it fades away, most likely there wouldn't be any ringing for anyone more than fifteen feet away because of the wide open space.

The trees themselves wouldn't change the sound of the shot to any degree that a normal human ear would notice.

I don't know if there's an iced over lake in the setting of your story, but ice cracking sounds a lot like a shot gun. If you've ever been ice fishing in an ice house, you know what I mean. But if you don't, when it's really quiet when you fish, big old trucks drive by your ice house. And when they do, there's huge booms underneath the ice from it cracking. It really booms, like a gun shot.
Just a suugestion.

[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]Does anyone have a unique way to describe the sound of a gun shot? It's a twenty gauge double barrel shot gun to be specific. My metaphors just feel too cheesy, and I'm not a fan of words like "[I]Crack[/I]," "[I]Pop[/I]," "[I]Bang[/I],"

Anyone have an idea on how to make sound?[/QUOTE]

I know a 20-guage doesn't have the deep boom of a 12. It always startles me how incredible loud a gun is. I only go target or trap shooting occasionally, and even with ear plugs, even outdoors, I physically feel it if I'm anywhere near one going off.

The movies always give guns a thundering quality that really isn't right for most guns. A 12-guage or a large caliber magnum will give you something kind of like a movie gunshot, but a 20 would be more high pitched. I also notice a metallic ring to gun shots, the barrel vibrating after the fact. And if you're not wearing ear protection, a second or third shot would seem quieter because your ears will be ringing.

Kevin Jamison's book 'Missouri Weapons and Self-Defense Law' has a good section on PTSD and the reactions people have to the stress of situations involving guns. Heightened and dulled perceptions, screwy sense of time, intrusive thoughts, etc.

KABOOOOM!!!

...how's that for a metaphor...

No really, can't you just say something short along the lines of "the small thunder of a twenty gauge double barrel shot gun split my brain in two" and just move on with the story. I mean I think little details like this should sometimes just be left little details cause when you unpack every word or action you kind lose your reader along the way. Like when people walk through galleries, if you keep babbling on and on about every single picture, you'll bore your audience to death after the first hall. Yeah, I'm ranting, but just make sure the reader really gets that it's a gunshot and doesn't have to reread two pages to decipher the metaphor. Anyway, I really should top ranting right now.

The man was standing in the white forest and suddenly he heard the sound of a shotgun shot: "PWNED!!!"

I dont know if you took care of this already...but I'd just like to make the note that if the character is deer hunting, a double barrel 20 gauge is a silly weapon. Unless he is shooting slugs, which would make an entirely different sound then buckshot. Two barrels from a 20 guage wouldnt kill the deer unless you were standing on top of it with the barrels to its head. And if you did shoot it and it bled to death somewhere, the buckshot would ruin the meat. I dont know if he is actually shooting a deer..all I know is I would hunt deer with a big bore rifle, the sound of which would be loud, but very crisp and clean. Shotguns aren't really good for killing anything other than birds or smaller game like rabbits, unless, like I said, you are shooting slugs.

Hope this helps a bit-

[QUOTE=JPledger]I dont know if you took care of this already...but I'd just like to make the note that if the character is deer hunting, a double barrel 20 gauge is a silly weapon. Unless he is shooting slugs, which would make an entirely different sound then buckshot. Two barrels from a 20 guage wouldnt kill the deer unless you were standing on top of it with the barrels to its head. And if you did shoot it and it bled to death somewhere, the buckshot would ruin the meat. I dont know if he is actually shooting a deer..all I know is I would hunt deer with a big bore rifle, the sound of which would be loud, but very crisp and clean. Shotguns aren't really good for killing anything other than birds or smaller game like rabbits, unless, like I said, you are shooting slugs.

Hope this helps a bit-[/QUOTE]

Good call. I've known a couple of people to use shotguns with slugs to hunt deer, but not many. Bows and high powered handguns are probably more popular, though JPledger is spot-on when he says the weapon of choice is a high power rifle. The size of the projectile isn't so much the issue as the velocity, the distance you can accurately shoot with. A 30-06 or .308 (a.k.a. 762 NATO) doesn't have a huge bore. Smaller than the barrel of a 20-guage, but there's a LOT of powder behind the bullet, a nice long barrel for it to absorb the energy of the firing and take on a spin from the rifling. All this is a huge advantage if you aren't good at finding deer stupid enough to get as close as you need them to for a bow or a slug.

I'm sure it varies from state to state, but .357 and .44 magnum handguns are legal to hunt deer with in Kansas and Missouri, I believe. And I had an uncle who hunted havalina with a .357. But I digress.

When I made my first response, I'd missed your (Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde's) clarification of winter deer hunting. I've done some shooting but never the hunting. I would say that in the various environments I've shot in (indoor ranges, outdoor skeet setups, farms), the surrounding landscape makes a huge difference on the way any gun sounds. In a closed shooting range, a 9mm has some authority, but outdoors it comes off more high-pitched and less impressive. The big handguns (.44 magnum for instance) sound like artillery in almost any surrounding, but only by comparison to other guns.

Woods, rocky terrain, deciduous trees without leaves in winter as opposed to evergreens, being on a plain or in a valley would all make a difference on how your gun sounds.

And never understimate imagination. When I read 'Read Badge of Courage' I was stunned to find out Stephen Crane was not a Civil War vet. In fact, he wasn't even a dirty thought in has Daddy's mind when that war ended. By his own account, his research was a fucking football field.

Granted, if you go into specifics that don't ring true to someone with intimiate experience, you'll alienate readers. But if you get the right gun in the right situation, whatever details your character would take away from it is something the reader will buy. If it's going to be something unusual like a 20-guage shotgun for deer, you'll have to put more head authority behind it.

[QUOTE=JPledger]I dont know if you took care of this already...but I'd just like to make the note that if the character is deer hunting, a double barrel 20 gauge is a silly weapon. Unless he is shooting slugs, which would make an entirely different sound then buckshot. Two barrels from a 20 guage wouldnt kill the deer unless you were standing on top of it with the barrels to its head. And if you did shoot it and it bled to death somewhere, the buckshot would ruin the meat. I dont know if he is actually shooting a deer..all I know is I would hunt deer with a big bore rifle, the sound of which would be loud, but very crisp and clean. Shotguns aren't really good for killing anything other than birds or smaller game like rabbits, unless, like I said, you are shooting slugs.

Hope this helps a bit-[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Chixulub]Good call. I've known a couple of people to use shotguns with slugs to hunt deer, but not many. Bows and high powered handguns are probably more popular, though JPledger is spot-on when he says the weapon of choice is a high power rifle. The size of the projectile isn't so much the issue as the velocity, the distance you can accurately shoot with. A 30-06 or .308 (a.k.a. 762 NATO) doesn't have a huge bore. Smaller than the barrel of a 20-guage, but there's a LOT of powder behind the bullet, a nice long barrel for it to absorb the energy of the firing and take on a spin from the rifling. All this is a huge advantage if you aren't good at finding deer stupid enough to get as close as you need them to for a bow or a slug.

I'm sure it varies from state to state, but .357 and .44 magnum handguns are legal to hunt deer with in Kansas and Missouri, I believe. And I had an uncle who hunted havalina with a .357. But I digress.

When I made my first response, I'd missed your (Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde's) clarification of winter deer hunting. I've done some shooting but never the hunting. I would say that in the various environments I've shot in (indoor ranges, outdoor skeet setups, farms), the surrounding landscape makes a huge difference on the way any gun sounds. In a closed shooting range, a 9mm has some authority, but outdoors it comes off more high-pitched and less impressive. The big handguns (.44 magnum for instance) sound like artillery in almost any surrounding, but only by comparison to other guns.

Woods, rocky terrain, deciduous trees without leaves in winter as opposed to evergreens, being on a plain or in a valley would all make a difference on how your gun sounds.

And never understimate imagination. When I read 'Read Badge of Courage' I was stunned to find out Stephen Crane was not a Civil War vet. In fact, he wasn't even a dirty thought in has Daddy's mind when that war ended. By his own account, his research was a fucking football field.

Granted, if you go into specifics that don't ring true to someone with intimiate experience, you'll alienate readers. But if you get the right gun in the right situation, whatever details your character would take away from it is something the reader will buy. If it's going to be something unusual like a 20-guage shotgun for deer, you'll have to put more head authority behind it.[/QUOTE]
Guys thanks for the thoughts. I might use them in a different area for a different story. I disagree in this case.

A. High power rifles were and still are illegal in the state I’m writing about, “it’s a shot gun state.”

B. The character is loosely based of an old hunter I knew as a kid. The gun I mentioned was the only gun he and many of his cronies used. Also there method of hunting seems in stark contrast to today’s view. I don’t hunt, so I don’t know what kind of high power weapons people are using today. The hunters I’m talking about had an almost Native American spiritualism. The actual real life person I'm basing the character after thought nothing about tracking a deer for days.

C. The 20 gauge is also how locals get married in these parts. The father carries it as he walks up to the boy who knocked up his daughter and says, “boy, I reckon you’ll be hitched soon.”

again though, thanks for the thoughts on the subject.
ps. they used slugs

The thing about shotguns you might explore is not so much the thunder or the explosion of the sound. Lots of rifles make a good deal of noise. What makes the shotgun unique amongst all others is the chack-clack of the chamber loading. It's a universally understood sound. A lot of great moments in theatre don't even use the sound of the weapon. The sound of it cocking is so much more menacing. Maybe you play up that aspect of the weapon, then mention the shot itself, but then you don't have to lay all your descriptive eggs in that basket. Dig?

[QUOTE=angrylush]The thing about shotguns you might explore is not so much the thunder or the explosion of the sound. Lots of rifles make a good deal of noise. What makes the shotgun unique amongst all others is the chack-clack of the chamber loading. It's a universally understood sound. A lot of great moments in theatre don't even use the sound of the weapon. The sound of it cocking is so much more menacing. Maybe you play up that aspect of the weapon, then mention the shot itself, but then you don't have to lay all your descriptive eggs in that basket. Dig?[/QUOTE]
Hell Ya i dig. good point.

and that is once BAD ASS avatar!

If they did in fact use slugs, then you are going to want them to be relatively close to the animal when they fire, slugs aren't very accurate unless you are firing them out of a modern rifled slug barrel, which is unlikely to be on this style of weapon. A shotgun shot in tree's would boom, then you would hear the peppering sound of the buckshot spraying the surrounding area, this is because when you fire a birdshot round the pellets widen out into a cloud and you would undoubtedly miss with some of them. With slugs you would hear a boom, with a loud wet smack as the slug obliterates the meat.

In regard to the sound of a shotgun cocking, I normally associate that with the racking sound a pump shotgun makes when you chamber the next round. With a break style shotgun as in a double barrel twenty gauge you would hear the double click of the hammers being pulled back, but there would be no racking because it is a single load type of weapon. What you would hear that would be distinctive to that style of weapon is a kind of "bloop" noise when you drop the barrels down and the spring kicks the spent shells back out of the barrels. Not all shotguns do this, some dont have a shell eject and you just get your fingernails under the primer casing and pull them out. Also, most hunters pick up their shell casings out of respect for the area. Not doing so is like throwing down a soda can or something, just rude.

Just some things to keep in mind-
J.

[QUOTE=JPledger]. Also, most hunters pick up their shell casings out of respect for the area. Not doing so is like throwing down a soda can or something, just rude.

J.[/QUOTE]
j, some good stuff there, but my fav is what you ended on. i completely forgot about the casing. it says something about the hunter, so I'm going to work that in.. i can also wrap some symbolism around it, Thanks mate! and cheers

[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]High power rifles were and still are illegal in the state I’m writing about, “it’s a shot gun state.” [/QUOTE]

I'd never heard of such a thing. It's something you might want to work in as a head-authority thing. National gun laws tend to be geared towards what looks scary to people unfamiliar with guns. The 'assault weapon' for instance, or the magazine capacity limits.

[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]The actual real life person I'm basing the character after thought nothing about tracking a deer for days. [/QUOTE]

The hunters I know consider trailing the animal integral to hunting. They'll do their best to take a shot that will kill quickly, as much of anything because it's the humane thing to do. Plus, if the kill wanders outside the area you can legally hunt in, you may find yourself trespassing on the farm of a guy who doesn't allow hunters. For what it's worth, I don't know how much of that bears on your story.

[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]The 20 gauge is also how locals get married in these parts. The father carries it as he walks up to the boy who knocked up his daughter and says, “boy, I reckon you’ll be hitched soon.”[/QUOTE]

This is kind of surprising to me as well. 12's are common as hell and most people I know who involve their kids in hunting think of a 20 as a 'kid's gun.' They'll take a 13 year old duck hunting, for instance, and Dad carries the 12 and the kid gets the 20 or .410. I don't know, maybe for an all-purpose gun (slugs for deer, shot for ducks, quayle, etc.), a 20 is as good as anything.