Loudness of guns fired indoors

jrdolall said:

Tommygun I am not a part of the United States of the Offended. I take it all in stride. :banghead:

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LOL! Nice

Guns are loud.

Last month I fired one round of 9mm out of a 4.1" barrel outdoors (on grass, no walls, no ceiling), just-because I never had. It was loud. Sounded a lot like a pop, ears rang but only for about 10-15 seconds. I would never try that indoors or with a rifle or a .357 magnum and that one round for scientific purposes will suffice. Heck, even for indoor pistol shooting I make sure to wear the big honking NRR 32+ muffs, not smaller/slimmer muffs.

I've dislodged my earmuff with the stock while shooting a carbine in, I don't know, a mini shoot house I'd guess you call it...it was loud. I always wear plugs under muffs when shooting rifles now, at least a plug on my right ear (right handed, almost always shooting from right shoulder, most likely side to dislodge protection).

I've taken my hearing protection off outdoors around .22lr rifles and although I don't make a habit of it, don't recommend, and don't let others do it when I'm an RSO or similar, it's not bad.

My HD carbine has a suppressor.

jrdolall said:

I never used ear protection through decades of shooting, chain saws, etc and, in my mid 50's, my hearing is still pretty good.

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Has that been confirmed by a hearing test? I know a lot of people that think they hear just fine but don't.

Forgot my ear pro outdoors one time & touched off one round of .45ACP. My ears were ringing for about an hour.

I fired 1 .38 round outside in a field once. Never again.

Putting ear protection on is not going to be near the top of my list of action items if something has motivated me to grab my firearm in the middle of the night.

Beyond that, putting on "dumb" ear muffs or ear plugs or non-powered electronic muffs is going to deprive you of a very important sense, especially in a dark situation. It would be very important to hear creaking floors, squeaking doors, muffled footsteps, etc. in events leading up to a potential confrontation. JMHO

I experienced a painful shooting event last month. The outdoor rifle shooting range I support has a three sided building where the open part is towards the targets obviousy. We all knew the guy on the end, 4-5 stalls away was working on his Barrett 50 cal. We all already had our muffs out to wear in addition to our ear plugs. We were cautiously preparing our own stations wearing just our ear plugs until we could see that he and us were ready to shoot. Without any warning he squeezed off a round. Even wearing industrial ear plugs, the sound penetration from the Barrett triangular muzzle brake device physically hurt. Then of course came the smell of ammonia filling the building. He received a tongue lashing from the rest of us about giving some sort of warning before beginning again. Nothing was necessarily wrong about what he did other than not being polite and giving a little notice when shooting a firearm of that magnitude in close quarters. It was probably even louder to those of us beside his position than the actual shooter. Brass screens 5 stations over would move from the shock wave when a round was fired. I only live 5 miles from the Barrett facility that makes the rifles. I see quite a few around. They are beasts for sure. Most of us would just walk out a few minutes while he was shooting. Much easier than concentrating on your own target in complete silence and then having a Barrett 50 cal go off within 20 feet beside you. Whew!

plodder said:

PHP:

Putting ear protection on is not going to be near the top of my list of action items if something has motivated me to grab my firearm in the middle of the night. ...

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Well, it sure is on mine. My Peltor Tactical 6S headset, in addition to protecting my hearing from the noise of gunfire, greatly improves my hearing.

Firearms? Chainsaws? Farm machinery?
You guys have no idea what really damages hearing.
24 years, wife and THREE daughters.

What?

Hahahaha!

jrdolall said:

I never used ear protection through decades of shooting, chain saws, etc and, in my mid 50's, my hearing is still pretty good. I really started using hearing protection maybe 10 years ago. ....

Tommygun I am not a part of the United States of the Offended. I take it all in stride. :

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I see you found the emoticons.........

I consider my spending on firearms to be a slow waste of money. I consider my investment in silencers to be the best money Ive ever spent.

After too many years of stupidity in my youth, shooting everything I could with no ear pro, loud music and concerts every chance I got, now I'm cursed with terrible tinnitus, and it sucks. Badly. I don't shoot anything anywhere now without ear pro, although it's essentially too damn late.

Sure wish I could afford at least one suppressor for a home defense weapon. Let alone for general range use on several guns.

Sounds like my youth, Rondog. Even with double protection (in and on my ears) my tinnitus gets aggravated by a range outing.

Indoors at my house? Here is my bedside rig in the nightstand drawer for things that go bump in the night. I want to be able to still hear after the first shot. There might be a second intruder.

Rondog, solution might be a pistol cartridge in rifle form? .38 lever? Barrel length helps with noise.

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I generally keep a Compact .45 1911, a 9mm BHP, and a Plainfield M1 Carbine handy for spook duty. I'd love to put a suppressor on the M1 Carbine, as it's my favorite.

Happy new years!!!!!!!!!!!

I went to an outdoor range this afternoon, and at one point one of my earmuffs somehow got slightly out of place and I heard one shot with it in that condition. It was the first time I ever heard a gunshot without ear protection and I was amazed at what I guess I would call the sharpness of the sound. Very unpleasant.

Never indoors, but I shot once outdoors without hearing protection. I was 19 (immature, maybe a bit of the adolescent stupid "I'm indestructible" syndrome), had no experience with guns until I joined the Army, and I lost my earplugs just before our last trip to the range in Basic Training. I had the plugs that morning, but sometime that day they fell out of the case and I noticed while marching to the range. I was more scared of telling my drill sergeant I lost my plugs than the damage that being on the rifle range without them might do (I knew the kind of ass-chewing I'd get from the drill sergeant, I did not know how bad shooting without the plugs can be).

It hurt like heck, and my ears rang until the next day! Never, ever, again, aside from a life or death situation, will I fire a gun without hearing protection!

Don't be like me - my ears will ring until I draw my last breath, and there ain't a damn thing I can do about it.

I am one of the formerly-ignorant Lucky Ones, having fired thousands of rounds of CF ammo outdoors without hearing protection and still no ill effects.

About the time I started using hearing protection (periodically ~20 years ago & fulltime ~10 years ago) I had my hearing checked and it was OK ... and I have noticed no issues since then.

With the exception of, maybe, 5 times in my life (using "ears", btw), I never shoot at "ranges" (beside other active shooters and/or within an enclosure however minimal) and I have always either been the guy shooting or was standing back behind the guy/gal shooting, which may have mitigated the harmful effects.

There is an old buddy of mine, however, who I introduced to shooting on a visit to our farm (where I now live) almost 40 years ago. If he is still alive (we lost touch years later), his ears are still ringing. First time any of us ever heard of Tinnitus.

Strange thing is that none of the people with whom I grew up shooting outdoors suffers from Tinnitus ... although a couple do suffer from some obvious hearing loss.

AlfonsDeWolf said:

Hawaiian, whatzat knife?

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Microtech Crosshair.