Come back and read the long links at the bottom when you have time.  They are fascinating albeit slightly tinfoil hat.

"He was the real McCoy. Bantam-sized, sporting a handlebar moustache and carrying a swagger stick, Mitchell Livingston WerBell III was a wealthy bon vivant, international arms dealer, designer of silencers, and right-wing covert operator. Based at his 60-acre Powder Springs, Georgia, estate, WerBell loved guns, fine whisky, and freelance coup d’etats. He was referred to as the “Wizard of Whispering Death,” 1 for being the preeminent designer of the modern-day silencer, his work credited with enabling the widespread use of silenced sniper rifles in the Vietnam War. 2 There are those who suspect that in the John F. Kennedy assassination some of the rifle shots (officially there were only three, fired by alleged lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald) may have been fired in Dealey Plaza using sound suppressors. Was the U.S. intelligence community (or rogue agents thereof) involved in the assassination conspiracy, as many researchers believe? If so, what role, if any, was played by this Powder Springs wizard called "the armorer of the CIA"?"


Silenced Rifles in Dallas?


Powder springs link

I always get the stories of the WerBells'confused, but if you grew up in Cobb County and are into guns they are famous and/or infamous.

I can't remember if he owned Brigade Quartermasters or was it RPB Industries (MAC-10) on Glover Street in Marietta...........or both.

Accountant

"Rifle Silencers?
Generally, people associate silencers with handguns rather than rifles. This is because the sonic boom of a high velocity weapon such as a rifle, is very difficult to silence and thus handgun silencers have been more prevalent in the past. Even if the muzzle blast sounds from the rifle itself were silenced, that still leaves the sound of the shock wave created by the high velocity bullet as it passes through the air. Silencers are nothing more than bafflers that muffle the sound, much like a muffler on a car. The greater the report or noise generated by a weapon, the larger the silencer needs to be. Silencers can thus be large bulky devices and difficult to conceal. Silencers have been and continue to be illegal for civilian use, although legal for military use. Despite the engineering difficulties in devising silencers for rifles, the utility of silenced weapons was not lost on the U.S. military; a silenced rifle would serve as a most useful instrument for shooting a sentry or guard from a distance. "

This guy has a lot more research to do. I did not read all of it, but I don't really need to after that.

You are thinking high velocity, light bullet.  Subsonic velocity heavy bullets exist and are quite deadly.

In fact, a long, heavy subsonic bullet retains far more of its initial velocity at 100 yds than does standard rifle loadings.

The article is an entertaining read, I grew up during those times.  There were, indeed, spooks and black ops  around.  One of my neighbors spent 10 years in a Cuban prison in the 60's, and the Gov paychecks arrived at his wife's house every month without fail.

Is there any truth in these articles?  Some, I am sure, but don't know what is legend and what is fact.

I bought a car from some people who lived across the street from the entrance to his place.
Didn't people refer to his place as the "farm"?
They said it was interesting watching some of the helicopter demostrations,but otherwise,you hardly knew anything was happening over there when they weren't shooting.

Reading on the history of all things gov.org and spook during the 60's, the ATL seems to get quite a few mentions.  It seems that it was quite the little hub for secret squirrel goings-on.  To what extent the above links have any degree of truth will remain unknown but my guess is that like most things in the gun world, there's more fiction than fact.  And the writer's in both pieces are pretty inaccurate on more than a few things that are obvious so that really makes me doubt some of the more over-the-top claims.

About the only thing I can say is that Werbell was definitely an eccentric guy and did found Scionics, which was one of the few companies doing suppressor stuff in the public eye at that time.  He did have connections to gov. org from OSS times and he definitely managed to run afoul of them in the 70's when the brought him up on drug charges along with the other individuals.  Also, I believe it's his kid that owns Brigade Quartermaster.