I've noticed that suppressors work much better with certain bullets and weapons. Last time I was at a range there was a guy with a suppressed .22, who was shooting subsonic rounds, and the action on his rifle was louder than the actual shot, you could hear bullets hitting dirt or paper too. Another time a guy had a suppressed AR, in what I'm assuming is 5.56, and that thing still sounded like a fully unsuppressed .22, hearing protection was definitely required, it just sort of knocked the very peak of the sound wave off. There was a difference for sure, but it wasn't that big, and would definitely still be recognized as a gunshot from a distance, he also had to wear goggles and a face mask to prevent the blowback gas from getting in his face, it probably would have worked better if he had set the rifle up to be suppressed, but I've never heard a properly suppressed 5.56 before. You have to adjust the gas levels, and add a few parts, or so I've been told. I've never actually shot a suppressed gun before, just seen them around.
Every poacher dreams of a silencer for Christmas lol. Only 1 I would want would be for a 22, think i will be buying a 22 cal pellet rifle before next season to squirrel hunt with
Some of the new pellet rifles are more than potent enough to kill squirrel and other small game, I use a .177 that shoots just below the speed of sound, it takes pellets that will break the sound barrier, but I noticed that if the pellet goes back under the speed of sound (it shoots like 1,300 fps, and after about a hundred or so feet it will drop just below the sound barrier) while in flight it starts to do weird things, and it's easy to miss, shooting heavier pellets around 800-900 ft per second seems to be the most effective.
A 8-900 fps .22 would be more than enough to drop squirrels.