Hearing damage 45 ACP

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hdwhit said:
Everyone's different so it's hard to say.

The volume of the ringing in my ears from uprotected exposure to gunfire dropped by half over the course of several months and then it stopped getting better and has since been continuous for the past 34 years.

The lipo-flavanoid stuff they sell in the drugstore has helped some people who use it shortly after exposure. I didn't find out about it until years later and it didn't do anything for me.
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how shortly after exposure are we talking?
 
zaitcev said:
People get used to doing it in favourable conditions. I shoot .223 in the desert without any hearing protection and hearing loss is not yet detected. However, if you're in a confined area, it changes everything.
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The problem with hearing loss is that you don't realize it is happening until your wife tells you to turn down the radio or television because you have it turned up so loud. You also get pretty good at lip reading not realizing that is what you are doing. Take the advice of someone who didn't use hearing protection and now needs two hearing aids.
 
so does anyone know how bad specifically 45 acp rounds are for your ears?..

what does it matter? Shooting without hearing protection is idiotic. Indoors many will use double protection. It may take years but tinnitus can develop with age. Loud music, loud motorcycles, shooting can all cause it to develope along with the hearing loss.

There is absolutely nothing that can cure it except get used to it. if you are concerned, see a audiologist.
 
zaitcev said:
People get used to doing it in favourable conditions. I shoot .223 in the desert without any hearing protection and hearing loss is not yet detected. However, if you're in a confined area, it changes everything.
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No people don't get used to it. It just becomes less painful as you lose your hearing. Go get a hearing test.
 
this cannot be such a rare thing to happen. Knowing that any idiot can get a 45 and shoot it without hearing protection why is there not more research on this? to what degree is possible?
Trunk Monkey said:
No people don't get used to it. It just becomes less painful as you lose your hearing. Go get a hearing test.
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  1. There was research done by all of us who were dumb enough not to use hearing protection

    I make a point of getting in on every hearing protection thread I find because I made the mistake of not protecting my hearing and lost most of it.

    I was an artilleryman in the Army for several years and afterwards worked as a sheet metal fabricator/ machinist. I started my manufacturing career operating a Strippit 1250 CNC Turret Press and made a point of using hearing protection then but it was too late.

    I am 51 years old, I can’t use a telephone without head phones, I have to use the closed captions when I watch TV (or turn it up so loud the neighbors can hear it), my wife has given up on asking me “Did you hear that?”, I’ve lost a lot of the enjoyment of music (MP3 head phones will damage your hearing too BTW) and I have to lip read my grandkids

    My point is, once your hearing is gone, it’s gone and by the time you realize I know exactly what I'm talking about it will be too late for you too.

    Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection
 
Tinnitus is no joke, its serious and accumulative you young'uns may have dodged a boolit popping off a few rounds but I'll tell you the ringing never goes away. I don't know exactly how bad my hearing loss is but its mostly in the high frequency range.
For me it was straight pipes on the bike, loud guitars and sitting on top of a TD-20 dozer for 15 years.

My ears now have a constant background noise like static on an AM radio.
A smart man learns from his mistakes but the smarter man learns from the mistakes of others.
 
George Dickel said:
The problem with hearing loss is that you don't realize it is happening until your wife tells you to turn down the radio or television because you have it turned up so loud.
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I know. But I get tested every year, which is hopefully objective. Also, I don't have many years left to live anyway.
 
My first time ever shooting a handgun...I was 20, touched off 18 rounds of .38 Special with no hearing protection. My ears rang for six weeks. Since then I have never shot without hearing protection.

For perspective on the whole matter, I also had never had an ear infection until I was 30, and heck if I don't think the ear infection did more damage than any prior amount of shooting without hearing protection. Four years later, my hearing still isn't quite normal.

My father spent two years in the Navy... forty-five years later, he literally cannot hear thunder if the windows are shut. Hearing loss is a fact of life...it's not a matter of if, but when. Protect what you have, because it's all you'll ever have.
 
Meplat 308 said:
my hearing loss is but its mostly in the high frequency range.
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I'm the same way - I've lost the upper third of the frequency range for normal human hearing. But I don't have tinnitus. That would be horrible. I know how it feels to have my ears ring after I've foolishly touched off a few handgun rounds without hearing protection. Luckily, the ringing in my ears always stopped after a few minutes. Even so, I still cringe every time I see some idiot on TV pull his revolver, hold it just about level with his head, and fire it in the air to signal someone. I always think, "Dang! That had to hurt!"
 
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Your ears don't heal....once those cells are gone they are gone.

Mine went years ago...not from guns, but I did do that, but from race cars.

If you think of your hearing as a block of stone, then hit that stone with a hammer. Some of that stone is going to chip away....this is what happens to your hearing if you are around loud noises. The noise may not be that large of a hit but after time and time again that stone will chip away.....bla bla bla.

Very simple but pretty accurate.

If you are "in a moment" you might not even hear the gun....ever think of those guys in the military.....start to have things get a little nutty and you really don't even hear the gun shots.

So I can see how someone could be so ramped up getting to shoot for the first time and just not hear it...not sure if this is the OP or not....but it is odd how the human body works.

But the higher freq is what tends to go first, this is why we get a medical pass if we ignore our wife in later life....hay it was that time in the gulf that wasted my hearing dear.....too bad she still does not buy it.
 
Noticed a couple of things. When I hunt I have no ringing in my ears after shooting. Not sure why

I do have tinitus. I blame the military. When we lost or didn't have earplugs the Drill Sargent would have us put cigarette butts in our ears at the range. Lol. Not much help with an M60 or M16

I always wear electronic hearing protection when shooting at all times. I can still hear, actually even better sometimes.

There are several rifle calibers I noticed I can shoot without ringing in my ears. Any rimfire, 38 Special (lever rifle), 30 Carbine and 22 Hornet. Most of the other I shoot will cause me to have ringing.
 
One hearing unprotected shot out of a 357 mag about 45 years ago taught me a lesson that has stayed with me for life. Some ringing but no noticeable hearing loss, thankfully.

Since then, hearing protection has been redundant: cotton stuffed tightly in the ears with muffs on top. This works for me...

I also carry cotton balls in my pants pockets all the time for use whenever background noise is a bit loud, like cutting the grass, hammering nails, clanging metal, etc..
 
There is a reason the local gun club rule is, if you have no eye or ear protection, you stay off the firing range.

Summer of 1961 age 13 I got a bad case of permanent tinnitus in my right ear shooting a .22 pistol outdoors apparently with water in my ear from swimming or with blocked sinus or probably both contributed to it.
One bad ear, but I had a good ear left and made a point of using hearing protection when shooting.
August 1992 age 44 I had a car wreck with basal, temporal and orbital skull fractures and developed worse tinnitus in the left ear.
My bad right ear became my better ear. Both have rung continuously since then.
I use ear plugs at the range, plus muffs when shooting. Also I use muffs when doing any activities that I know will worsen the ringing: shooting, lawn mowing, weedeating, vacuuming, Fun Fest concerts, Bristol Motor Speedway, Blue Angels air shows.
Twenty years ago I could not hear the high organ notes in the intro to "Inagaddadavida"; recently I just started hearing them again.
People say if their ears rang constantly it would drive them crazy.
People who know me say that would be a very short trip for me.
I like to paraphrase Nietzsche, bad experiences that don't kill me make me stronger, and smarter if I learn from them.
 
zaitcev said:
People get used to doing it in favourable conditions. I shoot .223 in the desert without any hearing protection and hearing loss is not yet detected. However, if you're in a confined area, it changes everything.
Click to expand...
Your words "not yet detected" is key,
Actually, you do not get used to it. You will discover that as you age. At the very minimum, put a handful of foam plugs in your glove box and gun case. I store a few pairs in the handle of my AR. Hearing loss is permanent.
 
Carl N. Brown said:
My bad right ear became my better ear. Both have rung continuously since then.
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damn.

I've always been very protective of my hearing while shooting since I was a young lad.
However, one fourth of July when I was a teenager, I lit a full pack of black cats and ran like heck, like anyone would do. Usually, that would give you plenty of time to get distance between you and the firecrackers so the noise isn't so loud that you need hearing protection. BUT... in a freak stroke of bad luck, the string of black cats went off in such a way that a single cracker was launched into the air before it went off, and exactly in my direction (somehow)... despite me being probably 7+ yards away at the time, that single black cat went off right behind my unprotected ear (sounded like it was inches away, and IIRC I could feel the blast on my neck), which resulted in ringing in my ear for close to a week. After a day or so, I was seriously worried that I would have tinnitus for life, but THANKFULLY it did go away. Needless to say, my enthusiasm for black cats waned dramatically after that close call! :eek:
 
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AlexBradley said:
so does anyone know how bad specifically 45 acp rounds are for your ears? Ive tried searching it and cant get any good answers. Will my ear be the same? its only the left one specifally.
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I've talked to people that have gone to concerts and stood in front of the loudspeakers who had ringing that lasted a full week. Chances are the ringing will go away from a one time thing like you did. That being said, I hope you invested in a good set of muffs and/or some ear plugs.

I've probably shot thousands of rounds out of my 12 ga when I was in my teens without hearing protection, but after one cylinder out of my first handgun, a .22, I quickly started wearing protection any time I shoot (with the exception of subsonics out of .22 rifles). I even wear hearing protection when I mow, run the weed trimmer, make long cuts with a circular saw or table saw or run a hammer drill through concrete. I know too many people that need hearing aids and it looks miserable, so I'm doing my best to prevent that.
 
fpgt72 said:
But the higher freq is what tends to go first, this is why we get a medical pass if we ignore our wife in later life....hay it was that time in the gulf that wasted my hearing dear.....too bad she still does not buy it.
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The reason your wife "still does not buy it" is probably because, like my wife, she's wise enough to know the difference between "hearing loss" and "selective hearing.":D
 
Heavy metal concerts (and other concerts I suppose) as a teen and young adult, a few years on a motorcycle, listening to loud music through headphones (as a youth), and one shooting incident*, all led to my tinnitus. It can be quite annoying at times. Mine comes and goes. I can go days without ringing, but when it comes on, I know it will last no less than a few hours, and often it will last days or even weeks.

*Just before our last trip to the range during basic training (a night shoot which were always fun with all the tracer rounds going downrange), my plastic container that held my ear plugs must have come open and they were gone. Instead of dealing with the wrath of my drill sergeants, or worse, not getting new plugs and not being allowed to shoot, I decided "what harm can it do just once?" Big mistake. I don't remember for sure if it was just my company on the range or if was more, but even just my company would have been 150-180 rifles on a full auto range. My ears rang for about a week straight and my tinnitus seemed to have started shortly thereafter.
 
In '68 we were loading .357s for the new pistol with both IMR-4227 and 700x. When we came for a visit to this farm, we tried both. The 4227 rounds were LOUD, the 700x LOUD & PAINFUL. It was like the difference between pressure & icepick.

I may still have most of those old 700x-loaded .357s in the basement ... none of us would touch them afterwards.

-----------------------------------
re: hearing loss ...

Dad told a story related to him by one of the "boys" with whom he worked.

This fellow went to the doctor to have his hearing checked. After the the test, the doc asked him how many hours he had in the B-25. ??? How did the doc know that he was in B-25s during the war? Turned out that there was a narrow band of mid-range hearing that was destroyed by the sound of those engines.
 
Trunk Monkey said:
  1. There was research done by all of us who were dumb enough not to use hearing protection

    I make a point of getting in on every hearing protection thread I find because I made the mistake of not protecting my hearing and lost most of it.

    I was an artilleryman in the Army for several years and afterwards worked as a sheet metal fabricator/ machinist. I started my manufacturing career operating a Strippit 1250 CNC Turret Press and made a point of using hearing protection then but it was too late.

    I am 51 years old, I can’t use a telephone without head phones, I have to use the closed captions when I watch TV (or turn it up so loud the neighbors can hear it), my wife has given up on asking me “Did you hear that?”, I’ve lost a lot of the enjoyment of music (MP3 head phones will damage your hearing too BTW) and I have to lip read my grandkids

    My point is, once your hearing is gone, it’s gone and by the time you realize I know exactly what I'm talking about it will be too late for you too.

    Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection Wear your hearing protection
Click to expand...
Did the Army supply and require you to use hearing protection?
 
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