Imagine shooting an 81mm mortar without plugs. As a young pup, I was a gunner on one and you really had to shoot with one plug out so you could hear the corrections coming from your squad leader on the field phone with the FDC. Take that and all the times I've shot .45/9mm or 5.56 without protection and you can imagine I've got some pretty serious hearing loss in my right ear. Left's still good.
-gunny out.
while i bow to your and others' experience in real-life shooting (have done some myself) and can fully understand and appreciate your reasons as to why a .50 cal silencer would not work to my self-said satisfaction, i have to point out there is a thing, a device, if you will, called "suspension of disbelief". mainly used in literature began 100's of years ago, which has evolved to include modern literature, comics, movies, and most relevant on this topic, video games. it requires the audience of whatever genre to forego what is possible or not in real life, and accept the implausible in a fictional setting. being that the Fallout universe is entirely fictional in which anything and everything is possible, even though the devs strive to make it as realistic as possible: i mean really...are there any real-life examples of say, rad-x, radaway, stimpaks, mutants of any sort, ghouls, and/or energy weapons?
so, my point is...why can't there be a silencer for a .50 cal weapon that actually silences, too?
however, there remains the "balance" aspect, without which would make the silemced AMR a God-weapon.
so, on second thought, despite my personal preferences for a silencer that would make a BLAM into a wiff, i hereby withdraw my complaint.
in-game balance outweighs any and all personal preferences.
thanks to you and all others replying to get me to think this through.