Firing the .357 Magnum and Ear Damage

FWIW, Medicare in general doesn't cover hearing aids or anything to do with them. Some of the "Advantage Plus" (Medicare Part C) plans help, though.

The V.A. does - usually, anyway - do a good job with hearing care, but it can be tough to get into the program. One of the things we do at our clinic is exams and "nexus letters" for veterans who have been denied hearing-related disability, and it appears to me that denial is the usual response for initial hearing loss and tinnitus claims.

If you conceal carry ... and wear ear protection ... wouldn't that "give you away " to the bad guy's .
Sort of like wearing a sign ... " Look Ear Protection ... I'm Packing Heat " ... l
What a problem ,
Gary

thought about this. reality is a couple shots might hurt, or do some damage, but - if you're shooting to save yourself or others from imminent bodily harm or death it seems like a reasonable trade off and the lesser of two evils. if I was at home and had time, I'd put electronic ear muffs on for sure, they seem to actually enhance your hearing and that might come in handy, you might hear a voice or footsteps where you otherwise would not.

That being said, I have a .38 Special revolver and a full size 9mm set aside for inside home defense and I don't think I want anything louder that I don't shoot that well, that I'm slower with to make follow up shots.

I permanently damaged my hearing a year ago from a single .40 S&W shot outdoors. I'm really bewildered about what happened but I went to an ENT and he examined me and said I damaged something internal and it's permanent.

I always wear hearing protection but I was out at the range and took off my ear pro for a couple minutes while I was doing something. I went to resume shooting (.40 Shield) and forgot to put my ear pro back on. I took one shot and my left ear went pretty wild. I assumed it would recover after a couple days but it never did.

Oddly, I have a hereditary deal with my left ear because several members of my family have some significant hearing loss specifically in the left ear. But that one shot cooked that ear so I'm a believer that an indoors shot without ear pro would have a reasonable to high likelihood of permanent damage. I would understand more if my situation happened indoors but this much permanent damage from a single outdoors shot is shocking to me.

I wish I knew what happened inside my ear but it appears that the details don't matter since the MD says there's nothing I can do but buy a hearing aid.

I've been a bit depressed over the whole thing so my recommendation is to be vigilant about your ear protection. But in a self defense scenario, hearing is secondary to surviving.

My personal anecdotes regarding .357 magnum without hearing protection are like others here.

In the 70s and 80s we didn't normally wear hearing protection unless at a public shooting range that required it. I mostly fired rifles and shotguns in those days. My handgun time was very limited with a few cylinders full of .45 ACP out of my grandfather's revolver.

Then one day in the 80s I'm with an older friend that made good money as a machinist. He asked me to tag along and shoot his AR15 and Dan Wesson .357 mag revolver. None of us were wearing hearing protection. The 20" barreled AR15 was tolerable. The Dan Wesson smacked my ears so hard they shutoff. I was fairly deaf for a couple days due to that. But we fired the guns outside and I was in my 20s, so my hearing seemed to recover okay.

Later in the 90s I was with my brother ready to shoot my new Ruger GP100. We were outside but under a metal roof about 8 feet above the ground. The blast from the first shot hit my right ear hard and felt like an ice pick had pierced it. It hurt like hell. My right ear rang for at least 3 months.

Of course, one of my carry gun options is a 2.5" barrel .357 magnum revolver. God help me if I have to light it off without ear protection.

I'm aware of 2 cops from back in the day when 357 revolvers were the norm who had to retire medically after firing their guns because of hearing loss. They were no longer able to pass their physical. Both incidents were in enclosed areas during a struggle and the gun discharged closer to their head than normal.

Noise induced hearing loss is caused by damage to microscopic hair cells in the inner ear (cochlea) which is a snail-shell-shaped cavity in the skull. The hairs responsible for high pitches are most susceptible to damage, which is why shooters often hear men okay but have trouble with female voices and other high pitched sounds.

The damage, for what it is worth, can sometimes be at least partially overcome with steroid injections through the eardrum and into the middle ear. It has to be done quickly, within a few days of the exposure, so if it happens to you, it's a great idea to treat it as a medical emergency.

Same as other old guys. Lots of shooting in the 50s through the 70s with no ear protection. .357, .30-06, 12 gauge. I have significant and irreversible hearing loss mitigated to some extent by top of the line hearing aids. I protect what's left with custom ear plugs under electronic muffs.

Take care of your ears . It can take many years and your hearing loss will gradually get worse even without shooting. Sounds you don't consider that loud over periods of hours like at a workplace can cause serious harm. Anything over 80db will cause damage if the period is in hours a day. This means you won't really notice it until you have to keep saying "what" and/or you hear a high pitched sound(tinnitus) continually. It sucks enough to get old.

Good hearing aids cost in the thousands. If you were in the military the VA has very high quality hearing aids available.

As a side note 6-10 db is subjectively considered a doubling in loudness. And as stated earlier it works logarithmically so even 3db more loudness is significant when it comes to your ears. A decibel is actually a ratio but look at a db as about as quiet of a sound that you can hear and multiply that by 3.

The worst ear-bashing I have taken started with a raging inner ear infection that actually burst my right eardrum when I was 15, and then was finalized with a couple more right eardrum perforations while water skiing in my 30’s. Now, despite the tinnitus from these issues and 45+ years of shooting, through my right ear I can hear literally no bass. All I can hear are higher pitched sounds.

My left ear also rings, but that one allows for bass to be heard.

I will say that plugs and muffs together are a must when I go to the indoor range. I learned the value of doubling up when shooting in a stack during SRT training. More than once I had AR-15 shots being fired as the shooters barrel was over my shoulder during high intensity extraction drills, etc. That stuff would be 100% no bueno without ear protection.

Stay safe.

I've shot 357 Sig and 9mm indoors wearing double hearing protection; 357 Sig is notably louder. I'd think 357 Mag likely worse due to cylinder gap.
With 10mm the 155 gr. @ 1,400 has subjectively more blast than a 180 gr. @ 1,200
Based on shooting indoors with double hearing protection, a 180 gr. 40 S&W (950 fps) from a semi comparatively ear "friendly" (perspective).
In this thread OP ditches revolver for a semi because hearing, what?

I write this at age 67 and clearly remember when the ringing in my left ear started. October of 1978 we were shooting outdoors when I tried my Charter Arms 357 for the first time. We didn’t wear hearing protection but sometimes ripped the paper off of old cigarette butts to use the filter as an earplug. The ringing is none stop yet I rarely think about it and am thankful for good hearing protection and the hearing that remains. All that said, in a self defense situation it should be life or death, hearing protection or not I would try my best to live.

.22 mag, .32 mag and .357 mag are some of the loudest guns I've experienced.

I'm at my 82nd year, killed a lotta game in my time and been involved in at least a couple of defensive circumstances discharging firearms...........Truly, I cannot recall EVER hearing a gun discharge during any of those events..........my loss actually dates from about my 15th year when a buddy discharged a .12 double at some quail and as he was slightly behind me and to my left he managed to rupture my left ear drum..........That, coupled with military and police time when hearing loss was not considered only added to the disability. From the Garand in basic to the 14's and 16's less any protection to the use of sticking .38 wadcutters and cigarette butts in ones ear canal as a LEO has left me with loss I'm only glad to say I still have some left and I'm religious about protection when casually shooting.........hunting, not so much.

I will note that I've always felt a 4" .357 has always seemed to me to be a particuarily offense round, especially the semi wad commercial stuff from the early '60's, maybe just me but I have always had an aversion to the stuff!

I started losing my hearing at a very early age according to an ex girlfriend in college who was studying audiology. Did a hearing test for in college and she stated it had started. Rock n Roll, shooting and dirt bikes through the years with no hearing protection. This started in the late 60s we did wear no hearing protection. Got me some nice hearing aids now for when I want to hear. By the way Medicare does not pay for hearing aids with just part A and B. I guess if you have supplements it might but my secondary through retirement covers most of mine. Wear your hear pro. I wear it for everything now to save what I have left...

Just remember, not all .357 Magnum cartridges are equal, and not all 9mm cartridges are equal. So the idea that one is X number of decibels and the other is Y number of decibels, is a little far fetched. I'd be willing to bet that where the two cartridges overlap (at 124/125gr @ 1200-1250fps) there's no real difference between the two. Not in decibels, or in terminal performance.

So I guess if you're really worried about hearing in a self defense situation, forget gel tests, forget chronograph results, forget terminal performance, just test your ammo next to a decibel meter and choose the quietest.

warnerwh said:

It can take many years and your hearing loss will gradually get worse even without shooting

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I am not sure that is so. My wife is 81 and can still hear like a bat. She even hears noises outside sometimes and when I check there is nothing there. In all seriousness I am not kidding about her still being able to hear very well. Much, much better than I am capable of.

My hearing is shot from years of shooting without ear pro, all my jobs in the military, and lastly, going to very loud and poorly EQed punk shows for years.

chicharrones said:

Dan Wesson .357 mag revolver.

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That is the gun that got me. It only got me once as I immediately put on my muffs after that one shot.

Threads like this are why I started wearing double ears for rifles and pistols. My perception is revolvers are louder than autos but maybe not.