Is it legal to hunt with a can in VA?  I can not find much if any information on this.  

Does anyone hunt with a suppressor in VA?

I called the Verona VDGIF office last November and spoke to the LT. in charge. I asked, "It is legal to hunt with a suppressor or silencer on a firearm?" and his immediate response was "No, you cannot do that." I explained that I had searched through the VA code and was unable to find a reference and asked if he could provide the code section that prohibited it. He said he did not know the code section off the top of his head but would look it up and call me back.

About four hours later he called and stated that as long as the the silencer was legally possessed, it was okay to hunt with it.

I haven't searched the federal code. It's possible it is prohibited there.

Please don't take my word on this. Contact a VDGIF office (or attorney) and inquire for yourself.

Randy

Believe it is legal as have not seen anything to the contrary in the regulations. Just be careful about asking. A friend asked the VDGIF office next door years ago if it was legal to hunt with machine guns, and the next year the regulations were amended to state that it wasn't legal.

It is perfectly legal to hunt in Va., WVa., and Pa. in our region.  I do believe my wife has a letter from all three states affirming it somewhere.  I know I've been hunting in Va. and WVa. with suppressed firearms with no problem for years.

HR's wife here, yes, hunting with a suppressor is legal as long as the rifle it's mounted on is legal (e.g. not a machine gun).  It's also legal in WV and PA, and I have done it in all three states.

I wrote to the VA DGIF law-enforcement division and got a letter stating it was legal, and suggest you do the same in case you run across a warden who doesn't know the law.

how well does a hunting rifle suppress?  I have zero experience hunting or using suppressors and am just curious how much thought is put into balancing good sound suppression with effective bullet velocities.

if you hunt with 22LR is very , very quiet!!!

There are also no restrictions on hunting with night vision, as long as you are allowed to take the game during the night hours (predators, racoons, etc)

IIRC, DMAP and DCAP are not hunting, per se, so hunting restrictions should not apply. Just FYI.

Yes, it is perfectly legal to protect your hearing and respect your neighbors while harvesting Mother Nature's bounty.  

~WTS

This is a good idea and I think I will go this route....

Did you use the address on the website or did you send it to a particular department or person???

web site address

I shot Bubbles suppressed bolt gun (.308?) many years ago, and was definitely impressed.  While the supersonic round did obviously crack going downrange, muzzle blast and recoil reduction were dramatic.  Coupled with a static action (bolt action), there was very little noise back at the shooter.  The trade-off is obviously the additional length and the risk of running in to uninformed DGIF or neighbors who think you're a terrorist.  

I don't hunt, but I suspect an animal not knowing where the noise came from would disorient them for a second (to your benefit).  You would probably also be able to hunt in areas that would otherwise cause complaints.  I believe bullet velocities increase slightly with a suppressor, and am not aware of any ballistic drawbacks to suppressors (besides a slight change to your point-of-impact).

How about hunting for games in VA with SBRs?

Are legal SBRs allowed?

Thanks for the reply!  Sounds like it works well enough with normal ammo, but would it be a bad idea to use subsonic rounds for hunting deer?  I guess shot placement is the more important factor over velocity.

BMWguy - my understanding is that anything besides an MG is okay.

6gunsal - you're venturing in to scary territory .  Loading a .308 down to subsonic results in a very anemic round, which you could have to partially compensate for by using a heavier bullet.  It doesn't seem like slowing a 3,000 fps round down to 1/3 of it's natural speed is a good idea, though.  I have a few buddies that use 300 whisper with good results, but bullet drop becomes an issue after a few hundred yards.  

I'm sure there are some here who can weigh in with more authority on the topic.  I usually just suppress my supersonic rounds (5.56, .308) and live with some supersonic crack.  9mm is about the only round I play with pushing subsonic by playing with bullet weights, but that's fairly irrelevant to a hunting discussion.  I think the challenges with loading typical hunting calibers down to subsonic cause most people to look at specially-designed subsonic rounds like the 300 whisper.  That's a lot of money to put in to eliminating the supersonic crack for an occasional shot while hunting!

hmm, gotcha.

Just do not get caught hunting illegaly while using a NFA item. Make sure you are hunting in a legal location and legal time.

The 300 Whisper puts a 220 grain bullet out the muzzle at around 1000 fps.  Suppressed, it's quite the devestating close range deer round.  Don't use it over 150 yards unless you are really confident in your marksmanship.  At 60 yards, the deer go down like a ton of bricks with it.  I've shot a few deer with the .300 Whisper and I really like the round.  There is little recoil, almost no sound from the muzzle and if put together right, it's a very accurate package out to about 250-300 yards.  

You can reduce the .308 to subsonic levels but as Blackfox said, it's a problematic issue.  The rifling in most rifles is designed to stablilize a bullet traveling at super sonic speeds.  When a bullet is launched out subsonic, given the twist rate, it won't stabilize.  Most .308 rifles use a twist rate of 1-10 to 1-12.  You need a twist rate of 1-7 to 1-8 to stabilize a heavy subsonic round.