Ear protection and hunting

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I asked the same thing!

When you are out in the woods...waiting for the elusive Buck or Doe to pop out of the brush...in to a clearing where you can get a clean kill...the adrenaline pumps up...your heart starts racing a bit..or a lot depending on your make up, and everything is concentrated on the animal. Everything around you becomes quiet. It's just you and Bambi. I will testify...when you pull that trigger...the sound of gunfire is so minimal that you'll wonder if you pulled the trigger. You are lucky if you pull the trigger once in a hunting trip...at least for deer in my area, but I was worried about the same thing and I was told to not worry. Seriously...I shot and didn't even feel the recoil! I was in my zone!! :D

Now...if you are popping off prairie dogs by the dozens..well I would wear some ear protection. That might be excessive torture to your ears!
 
A pair of Peltor-6 here.

I already have the low ringing from not taking better care earlier in life. They're not expensive, they work well and I get to keep what I have left longer.
 
I do not wear hearing protection when hunting but I do when ever I'm shooting at targets and such. When hunting I don't notice the noise or the recoil but I do when shooting targets. My youngest son killed his first deer at 7 with my ruger #1 .270 he had never fired it before but the deer was about 100yds away and it was late evening (dusky dark) and the 2.5 X scope on the 44mag marlin that he was carring didn't give him a good enough look at the deer to make the shot so he used my gun with a 2X7 just before he shot he asked me if it would kick and I told him no. He shot the deer fell and I asked him if it kicked and he said no and I asked him if it was loud and he said no. So there is something to the noise and kick thing when you have hair in your sights. At least in my family.
 
Now I wear ear protection. One shot wiped out 35db in my left ear years ago. I don't like that constant ringing, I don't want it to get worse, I don't want it to spread to my good ear. 12 or so years of this ringing has been annoying at best.

I wear my Peltor Tactical Pro's while hunting. For me, they improve my hearing and they protect what is left. During deer season, they, as others mentioned, keep my ears warm. What is not to like?

For those with magnums and muzzle brakes, buy some electronic muffs now while they can still save your ears.

Clutch
 
Pro Ear.
Expect to pay around $250.
Five year warranty, excellent hearing protection and excellent amplification, separate volumes, speakers and circuitry in each (left and right) muff as L&R are not inter-connected. Each side takes two N size batteries (Like AA but a bit stubbier).

I like these, especially when hunting with my 500 Magnum 4" barrel!

I had to buy hearing aids last year as I killed my hearing in 1975 when I got a new 45-70 and shot off a box of 20 without hearing protection. Add many rock concerts and loud equipment to that. Now I wear two hearing aids every day and am proud to have them as it means I hear everything again.

When you are young and think all that loud music is not going to hurt you, just wait. It will be too late when you finally smarten up.
 
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After doing some research

Hear it or not its doing damage.

Dads out there teaching kids to hunt should consider this.
 
http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=7173634&postcount=18

the link above is a pic of what stepson's use... purchased them from Cabella's (on sale) for about $39.95... They have a microphone, take AA batteries, block gunshot sounds, yet allow you to hear normal conversation on the range during practice... Earplugs are much cheaper, but the sound feature is a benefit... 2 boys are supposed use them when hunting (per wife)...

The negative about them, is that you lose all sense of "sound direction" when using them... I am a bit hard of hearing,(very possibly to shooting) so i had no argument about the boys not using them.
 
I always wear triple flange ear plugs when bird hunting...usually triple flanges + muff's when in the duckblind.

Target shooting = triple flanges + muffs esp. on a public range due to the magnums being shot the next stall over.

For small game with a 22 rifle then I don't wear any.

Large game hunting = triple flanges.

I find that you can hear just as good as wearing a set of triple flange or muffs as you can shooting the gun one time and having worn nothing.


YMMV
 
My father in law teased me about wearing electronic hearing protection on the 11 days of hunting we did last year. Of course, on one of those mornings he mentioned he is often up early and then sleeps on the couch with the TV on to help block out the ringing in his ears that he hears when it's quiet. He didn't make the connection between the hunting without hearing protection and the ringing in his ears. You are too old to succumb to peer pressure by older hunters who lived in an era where nobody wore hearing protection.
 
I always wear my Peltor Comtacs for hunting. In the winter, they help keep my ears warm! In the summer, they help keep bugs out of my ears. You can hear more with electronic muffs than you can with plain unaided ears, yet get proection from loud noises.

Be careful, I tend to turn up my muffs to hear more, forget, and then think the horrendous rustling noise is a giant hog only to realize it is a little skunk...and that I have the volume up tooooo loud! :)
 
People think that a .22 is not loud enough to damage your hearing. Like any loud sounds, the frequency and duration is what will do you and your hearing in.

Sure, you could fire a .22 rimfire rifle one time and most likely not injure your hearing, however any more than one time and all those noises, that are supposedly "not real loud" begin to take their toll. Go for 50 years of shooting a .22 rifle every other weekend and that might be all you need to perform MAJOR damage to your hearing!

It is not true that your ears must "ache" in order for damage to be done. When you add up all the times there are noises above certain decibels (loudness), all the times you thought you were not really hurting your ears adds up to hearing loss and many times tinitus which frequently goes with hearing loss.

For over 35 years, I have had ringing in my ears. For over 20 years, when I go to bed in a perfectly quiet room, I can hear chirping. It sounds as if I have crickets outside my window. I know in my mind that there are no crickets during the middle of the winter at ten degrees out, however, I just need to think I am hearing crickets so they can put me to sleep. If I lay there and think that what I am hearing is all in my head, I most likely would get so wound-up, I would get out of bed and not sleep!

I have two hearing aids that I must wear every day. Without them, I miss half of what is being said to me from a certain frequency up. Anyone with a low voice, like most men, I can hear just fine. I have a real hard time hearing everything my wife and most women say to me. I began wearing the hearing aids last fall for the first time and I could not believe everything I had been missing without them! Yes, they were well worth over $2,000 (for the inexpensive ones, that is)!
 
I will tell you what. I got a chance to hunt at a buddy's place and he has hunting stands that are plywood boxes, little huts on stilts, if you will. The rounds I fired whilst in the boxes were VERY loud despite the muzzle being outside of the box. The muffs did their job, of course, but the sound was still much louder than just shooting out in the open.

Whether electronic or not, if you are in a box, hearing protection would be a very very good idea.
 
What??? Huh??? Come again???

The only time I've ever noticed the sound of the rifle being too loud was when I killed a mule deer in Montana shooting prone. It was about 300 yards away and not spooked so I got down prone in the snow to get a rock solid rest. When I fired I was shell-shocked. I couldn't hear anything for about 5 minutes and was somewhat disoriented.
 
Double up with protection

Double up. ear plugs and electronic muffs.


Keeps your ears warm.
Better sound protection.
Electronic muffs, even with ear plugs in, can detect little leaves rustling sounds

Prices have come down significantly in the last several years as volume of sales have increased. Here Amazon has the HLs for $43. I bought mine four years ago for $58 http://www.amazon.com/Howard-Leight-R-01526-Electronic-Earmuff/dp/B001T7QJ9O

Also, regardless if you perceive the BOOM or not during a hunt, the ears are damaged. And as rcmodel already said, damage done is damage done. Hearing loss is a one-way street that you don't come back from.
 
I do a few things depending on the situation. Usually it's as simple as having a pair of earplugs that are connected by a string wrapped around my neck so I can easily put them on in seconds when needed. I usually do this when I'm moving around. When I'm still hunting (turkey, for example), i use a Walkers Game Ear that works really well for amplifying more subtle sounds (but makes a racket when you're moving).

With these two approaches I've ended up having protection for most of my shooting over the last year or so. It doesn't always work, like last weekend when a tom turkey spooked out of the brush in front of me and I had no time to waste before shooting, but I'll accept a few loud bangs every now and then as long as most are muffled.
 
I got a pair of the peltor double sided plugs and use the side that blocks out impulse noise. They work relatively well, although hearing isn't 100% while they are in.
 
Believe it or not, the body provides an auto immune hearing protection during periods a heightend adrenaline.
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That is incorrect. I have read two books by Grossman, and he mentions (in those) no such thing. More, I have a bit of knowledge in these areas: even if Grossman said that somewhere else, there is no such thing.

There is a psychological phenomenon called auditory exclusion: folks in gun fights often describe shots as "pops"--or they didn't here them at all.

Psychological mechanisms are no defense against the irreparable physical damage done to hearing by gunfire. Adenaline, shmadrenaline!

Yes, I am a hunter. Yes, I wear hearing protection when hunting big game, in the form of low-pass filter ear plugs--the ones with the little holes in them and internal baffles. I use those plugs because I don't like the sound dampening of full plugs or standard muffs, and I can't shoulder dependably with electronic muffs.

One exception: I do not wear hearing protection when hunting dangerous game.

And of course, this is just the internet, so believe what you will.
 
Auditory exclusion is a real phenomenon. However, it just means your brain was distracted and didn't notice the gunshots, not that your ears didn't suffer damage nevertheless.

I wear Peltor 6s when hunting and have hundreds of hours experience with them. If you adjust them to the same volume level as normal you have no problem locating sounds, indeed I sometimes forget that I have them on.

Don't leave home without them!
 
I wear hearing protection at the range, but not when I'm hunting. I know it isn't good for my ears, but you have to be able to hear the game and communicate with your partners. Plus, half the time I forget to put my earplugs back in if I've taken them out for some reason.
 
I wear hearing protection at the range, but not when I'm hunting. I know it isn't good for my ears, but you have to be able to hear the game and communicate with your partners. Plus, half the time I forget to put my earplugs back in if I've taken them out for some reason.
Click to expand...

That is why folks here are talking about electronic hearing protection. You didn't read the thread I take it. Electronic hearing protection allows you to hear the game, communicate with partners, and in many cases, actually hear the game much better than you would without the electronic hearing protection.
 
baylorattorney said:
LEGALIZE suppressors.
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In some countries a can isn't a big issue. In the USA, the panicky assumption is you want to shoot someone in secret. In some of those other places, it is a matter of not disturbing your neighbors if you have some farm pests.
 
In some countries a can isn't a big issue.
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Well sort of. In Namibia and South Africa, for example, just getting approved to own a gun, even as a professional hunter, is a big deal. But, yes, once you've gone through that process, getting, say, a .308 suppressed bolt rifle for pests is no additional hassle.

Maybe Switzerland or Israel are different?
 
I was wondering if silencer's would ever enter into this string... That is something that if legalized, would be a huge improvement in safety from a hearing perspective...I agree... Legalize suppressors.

I often use archery equipment when noise is a big deal, to "hide" the shot... like around a couple overpopulated neighborhoods; both with deer and deer loving residents who like to feed & watch them. One rifle shot will alarm some the local residents considerably, especially if they think you have just harvested their "pet deer"...

I hunt legally, and sometimes encounter interferance from this non-hunting crowd... Silence and non-detection is often the best stategy... in the archery case, it's a different sort of hunting and ear protection... the silence with archery shots is protection for the neighbor's ears...
 
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