Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hearing protection - what is most effective

This may not be in the correct forum, but my question is what have you found to be the most effective hearing protection? I have some Pro Ears with electronic amplifiers that I paid way too much for but they have stopped working. Moreover, the audiologist says the electronic muffs may not stop the sound of gunfire quickly enough. I looked at some new Peltors without any electronics and found one had a noise reduction rating of about 31, which is very high. But they are very large muffs and I fear will make securing a good check weld impossible. So, any suggestions?

i have a set of $25 Caldwell electric ones that work well, they were even comfortable when the guys were shooting braked 338 Lapua's at the Ice Breaker Shoot last year.....more expensive ones might be more comfortable to wear all day as i had to let my ears breath about once an hour....

I just use Peltor shotgunners db21, mainly because the shearing and trucking stuffed my hearing anway.

I wear earplugs and then put on muffs. Just cheap wally-world versions of both. Each product markets 27-30DB reduction, and I've never had a problem. My dad rocks some custom molded ear plugs that he swears by, but he also wears muffs too.

I am very careful about my hearing, unless the eagles come on the radio.

On our elk hunt in Colorado about thirty years ago, my Japanese hunting partner told me that a cheap hearing aid (with a shirt-pocket receiver) under good muffs was the most effective hearing protection that he'd found. The hearing aid received all the sounds of the shooting and conversation but didn't pass-on into the ear the piercing, harmfully high decibels of the muzzle blasts.

I have a set at home that irritate my ear canal immensely, cost me a couple of hundred dollars for aught gain.

I send my PRO-EARS back every three or four years for a rebuild.

Haven't tried them all but they have been the best of the ones I've tried. Battery life is excellent.

Properly fitted custom molder plugs offer more protection that foam plugs worn WITH muffs. They don't have to cost several hundred, either. Most dealers make then for about $50, unless you go to a doctor or hearing-aid place. They WILL charge you a lot.

That's a good idea, Rocky.

I wear plugs & muffs. Plugs aren't necessarily enough protection, and muffs are good until they get pushed by a stock or the seal is compromised by shooting glasses. Even with the seal broken they still offer some protection, but should be supplemented by plugs.

I'd love to have a pair of Howard Leights. Some of my friends swear by those. I'd still wear plugs with them, but at least I'd hear a little more of what's going on without fearing muzzle blast.

I had mine done by an audiologist and IIRC they cost me something in the neighborhood of $65-$70. I've been using them better than fifteen years now and still get days where I'm half way home from work before I remember to take them out.

For those who would ask if they are effective. You bet yer ass they are. My 264 Win Mag sounds like a dull, hollow, Thump.

Unless I'm badly mistaken, that's not how electronic muffs work. Your audiologist seems to think that they allow all sounds through and try to "cut off" quickly. The muff actually cuts the sound; the electronics pick up ambient sounds and relay them through a speaker. The relay has plenty of time (milliseconds) to assess the sound and decide whether or not to pass it on. I'm no engineer, so I don't have the technical vocabulary to describe how they work, but I'm certain it's not by trying to cut off sounds ... it's by relaying (and in some cases amplifying) sounds low enough not to be screened out.

If a sound engineer wants to explain more clearly, please do; likewise, if I am incorrect in my understanding, also happy to be corrected.

All that said, at the range I wear a set of Peltor Tac-7s that I've had for years over foam plugs. I turn up the volume so I can hear conversation ... but the report of gunfire is more than adequately suppressed. I also wear the Tac-7s without the plugs when hunting with a handgus. With volume set correctly, I can hear ambient sounds, don't have to worry about the sound of the gunshot ... and they keep my ears toasty warm!

I wear both plugs and muffs these days.

When aiming a rifle the cheek piece lifts the right ears muff off of my head.

that sounds right to me cause if i can stand next to 3 guys shooting braked 338 Lapuas and not even flinch when they pull the trigger than electric muffs work just fine....

The most effective is plugs with muffs over them

orange triple flange to certain extent and situation

Works for me.

if you are a right handed shooter
your left ear will lose hearing faster than your right
and vice versa for leftys
with a long arm
pistol shooters the sound wave is well in front of you but it is still an issue

the sound wave exits outta your skull thru your oppisites sides ear bones
had it explained to me by audiologist in the army

i got constant tenitus never goes away ever
20 % rated hearing loss
2 hearing aids i dont wear in public(cause i think it is a perceived sign of weakness to the general public)
i started lossing alot of hearing in 92-93ish when i went from line squad leader to weapons squad leader
started getting "rountinely expsoed to hazardous noise" annotated on my hearing test
i started getting ringing in my ears and that is what made me go one day to sick call for an audiology appt outside of 5 year physicals



lost most of my hearing running mg teams and antitank teams being deployed and during training

it just constanly builds up over time with hearing loss

i ran a machine course in the 101st for 9 months
that was alot of rounds i was exposed too

hard to run em effectivly wearing plugs giving commands and letting gunners know changes to fire missions espically in real world situations overseas

lose alot if you get even to the guns muzzle blast at times even if you are 10-15 feet away
fuggin 7.62 automatic fire will rock your world for sure espically if you get that effect from guns on either side of you that you are running
make ya backup real real quick
even 6 inches will releive it
something you learn from experience
only takes a couple of times and you learn real fast how to judge your distance off the blast

i think every weapons squad leader learned that lesson very early on
it just cant be helped at times depending on terrian and the situation
grenade blast from 8-10 feet away in mosul dont help much either

blowing up daisy chained claymores less than 25 ft away on the other side of huge laying down teak trees in panama dont help either

training with combat engineers breaching wire blowing bangolores dont help either
those have some big time shearing effect on your ears noise wise

most of these times i had plugs in during training
i can only imagine what my hearing would be like if not wearing them during training stuff

but fugg in the real [bleep]
you just cant wear plugs and be effective at all



all i do nowadays is fire maybe 20-40 rounds of ot6 and 30-40 rounds of 50 cal out my ml thruout the year and maybe 10 turkey loads also
and the old orange triple flange or foam plugs seem to do well
but then i cant really tell
and hunting most of the time you fire 1 shot maybe 2 and you dont even notice it cause of the limited firing of hunting




i hunt with slumlord sometimes
i swear to god the man can hear a mouse fart at 25 yards
he can hear good
i cant
i can see good
he has problems with that
so it kinda works out for both of us
we have good hearing and sight combined between the both of us

Bullmoose03: I use a combination of top quality (non-electronic) ear muffs along with the better quality foam "ear plugs".
I dare say nothing gets through that is harmful to my hearing.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

If we only knew then what we know now. All those gun shots, days with a chainsaw, construction and loud concerts.

Ear muffs for me. Ear plugs for concerts. Red wire nuts when nothing else is available.

This reminded me of a co-worker I took out shooting in September up in SD. He was a big time cowboy, never met an equal in that department.

Well I brought extra muffs and plugs, and he just said 'Nah'. We fired off 200 45 ACP from a 1911, 20 or so rounds from my 7-08, and a few from his 8mm mauser. I can't imagine he has any hearing left.