3 Types of Gun Shot Sound Free – AK47, SPAS12 and 9mm

Download these high-calibre, professional-quality weapon and shooting sounds – and there’s no copyright implications for using them in your sound design or  video editing

There’s something invigorating about great on-screen action, and that often comes with a lot of theatrical violence and gun crime. We don’t advocate for real violence or gun crime, of course, but we definitely do advocate for high-quality gun sound effects for use in your work!

For this reason, we’ve compiled a ‘sidearm’ sound effects pack, holstered within this article. Simply enter your email below to start your gun shot sound download.

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These royalty-free gun shots cover the key bases of pistol, machine gun and shotgun, and have all been generated as high-quality, 24-bit, 48kHz WAV sounds for professional audio production. What’s more, these gunshot and gun battle sound effects are all royalty-free for use in media production.

But Wait! You can Customise your Gun Shot Sounds Completely with Krotos Studio

Krotos Studio is a powerful sound design tool for filmmakers and sound designers. You can think of it as a Foley studio in your computer. It enables you to design and perform original sound effects without any need for expensive microphones, or a recording studio. Gun sounds in Krotos Studio can be performed as you like, applied with a distance you set, and exported with a simple drag out!

Using Krotos Studio’s gun shot sound presets

Let’s jump into Krotos Studio’s Weapon category and take a look at its SPAS-12 preset to show you how to export your very own shotgun sound effect for use in your productions.

It’s worth noting that the SPAS12 preset in Krotos Studio is only available in the premium version of the software. However, you can follow along with the tutorial with the free Lazer Pistol preset. You can access the trial version of Krotos Studio here.

Step 1: Open Krotos Studio

You can open Krotos Studio as a standalone application, or from within your favourite media (video or audio) editing software.

Go ahead and open it up, and navigate to the Shotgun SPAS12 preset in the Weapon category (or the Lazer Pistol if you’re using the free version of Krotos Studio).

Step 2: Adjust your settings

You’ll be met with a screen of different modifiable settings.You can play around with the settings until you’re happy.

You can adjust the perceived distance of the gun shot sound, the pitch, the tonal character of the sound, and finally, you can adjust the slider to change the mix volume between the Strength and Mechanism of the sound effect.

Step 3: Record and export

Once satisfied with your settings, you can record your sound effect by enabling the Start/Stop recording button.

You can then click and drag the freshly recorded audio file into your editing software’s media timeline for use in your production, or save it to your file library for later use.

How to recreate gun shot sounds using Foley

Recreating a realistic gun firing sound using foley can be a challenging task and it usually requires some creativity–combining numerous impact sounds together to create the whole powerful sound of a gun shot.

DIYFoley have taken it upon themselves to do a pretty neat job of creating a realistic pistol shoot sound in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK43eBUFG5s

In the video they get creative with typical household objects, such as a staple gun, plastic bowls, and a coffee maker to record various sounds that can replicate gun noises. They even layer the sounds of a plastic bag and some vocal noise with their household objects to build up the total gun shot sound.

They rely on combining the sounds together and processing the audio digitally to make up the whole sound of a gun shot impact. The result is pretty impressive, and something that most people should have the resources to replicate in their own DIY environments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOcKe-QMuCI

Increase your sound design workflow with Krotos Studio, whether you’re a beginner, intermediate, or advanced designer. Krotos Studio gives access to reliable, high-quality sound assets, such as gun shot sounds at your disposal when you need them in your productions, saving you the hassle of having to manually search and build your own library.

Great examples of gun shootouts in Hollywood

It’s hard not to mention on-screen shootouts without bringing up Quentin Tarantino. From the ultimate climax at the end of Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, to the absolute bloodbath at Candyland in Django Unchained, most of Tarantino’s films are prime examples of effective pistol-popping action.

We can’t forget those cult-classic Arnold Schwarzennegger movies from the 80s, as well as Syvelster Stallone's Rambo. Even Dolph Lundgren and Rob Van Dam’s 1992 action-packed Universal Soldier was way ahead of its time!
The 80s and 90s truly set the bar for the action genre with its hyper-masculine (often steroid-using) heroes and antiheroes. We also got to see Arnie go toe to toe with the legendary Predator in that same era. What a time to be alive!

This Distinct Chatter article makes a great argument as to why the 90s was the best decade for the action genre. What do you think?

How to professionally record high-quality gun sounds?

Did you know that most gun shot sounds you hear in video games are actually entirely synthetic? That’s right, most gaming companies choose to artificially create their shooting sound effects to avoid legal complications and technical challenges. It’s usually much easier for experienced sound designers to re-create their sounds digitally.

But some gun sound effects must be real right? Yes, however, due to the fast velocity of a bullet, and how fast sound travels, it can be hard for microphones to capture the totality of the real-world firing sound. Because of this, recorders usually have to rely on a combination of different types of microphones, all set up at different distances from the sound source (the gun).

The low-end thud caused by a gun shot takes longer to materialise than the high-end firework-type sound, and both of these frequencies occur at different amplitudes and sensitivities, which is near-impossible to capture on a single microphone. So, people attempting to record real gun shots need to be strategic with their recording approach.

This is a very complicated topic in itself, but there’s a brilliant article going into depth on how to professionally record real-world gun shots here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVvxGkjWIds

Krotos Studio’s premium version comes with a few different gun shooting sound effects, including a 9mm pistol, a SPAS-12 shotgun, an AK47 assault rifle – all great additions for any sound designer's audio asset library.

You can even sign up to the Krotos Studio trial today, and try out 14 completely free, high-quality sound design presets before you make a decision to purchase.