[hiredhand]

Does an assault rifle make a different sound than, say, a hunting rifle?

Not really. The AR-15 fires the .223 Remington round as well as the 5.56mm NATO ("functionally" identically other than pressure specs). The AK-47, and SKS and variants fire the Russian 7.62x39mm round.

The 7.62x39 round sounds like a Winchester .30-30 (a popular hunting cartridge), and the 5.56mm NATO rounds sounds a whole lot like the .243 Winchester round...another popular hunting cartridge.

It's fairly easy to differentiate between pistol, rifle, and shotgun cartridges...even within close proximities due to aural tonal qualities of the blast. But it can be fairly difficult to differentiate between small bore, centerfire rifles whether they be hunting rifles or semi-autos. They all pretty much sound the same, with minor exceptions. They're certainly impossible to differentiate from one another generally.

[Gilbo_3]

what gets me is the whole 'lockdown' thing...guy I worked for several years back went to pick up his daughter as usual, [leaving me to deal with customers] and it happend to be a tornado watch or warning at that time...

they would NOT allow him to retreive his girl...I was dumbfounded when he returned, waaaaaay later than expected and highly agitated to hear the tale...

tornado will be the least of ms sourpickles' worries if it were my kids...