Hearing protection?

no protection for .22lr rifles, foam earplugs for everything else.

i REALLY need electronic muffs. i'm a little forgetful and have been forced to picked up and blow out spent .22lr casings and use them

you have to be careful doing that, but they work just about as good as foam earplugs. they loosen up and need to be adjusted often, though. not recommended for those with tremors

.22 either plugs or muffs,
Centerfire both.
Indoor range, both no matter what I'm shooting.

When I was younger and DUMBER I never bothered using any protection and I am paying for it now.

"...no protection for .22lr rifles...blow out spent .22lr casings and use them..." You must be very young. It's daft. Empty cases do nothing to protect your hearing. 10 or 20 years from now, you'll be wishing you used proper hearing protection.
You don't need electronic muffs or double protection, but empty cases does nothing. The industrial foam plugs will do, but proper hearing and eye protection is essential when shooting any firearm.
Hearing aids, currently run about a grand per ear.

i always use ear pro, and i use a set of caldwell electronic ear muffs they are awesome.

both plugs and muffs

"...no protection for .22lr rifles...blow out spent .22lr casings and use them..." You must be very young. It's daft. Empty cases do nothing to protect your hearing. 10 or 20 years from now, you'll be wishing you used proper hearing protection.
You don't need electronic muffs or double protection, but empty cases does nothing. The industrial foam plugs will do, but proper hearing and eye protection is essential when shooting any firearm.
Hearing aids, currently run about a grand per ear.

i'm not terribly young, just resourceful.

and i don't know where you get off telling me that it offers no hearing protection, is there something more to it than hearing the difference?

i don't use them for serious stuff, just like .22lr handguns and the like that would normally give me a very slight ringing if no hearing protection were present.

what you have to do is insert if only about halfway into the canal and then 'fold' it down into the natural 'crotch' below.

better than nothing, i can certainly hear the difference. sometimes i wrap they with a bit of napkin from the truck if i can find some.

I always wear electronic muffs.

Good ear protection is important. I certainly don't want to end up like my dad, who has to bluff his way through most conversations and who misses a lot of important things because he just didn't hear what was happening. Although he wears them, he absolutely hates being dependent upon hearing aids -- and even though the state of the art has improved, hearing aids are still much much worse than good natural hearing. Anyone who shoots without hearing protection, even once, even with smaller calibers, is on the fast track to being just like that.

Electronic muffs are a safety issue for me as an instructor and range officer. I have to hear what is going on around me and what is happening on the line. I need to hear what students are saying between themselves so I can address the questions that they aren't quite asking. At least a half-dozen times since I've been teaching, I've heard a sound that caused me to turn around and catch someone doing something unsafe behind the line in time to avert a potential tragedy.

pax

ear plugs only. i used to use earmuffs but got tired of having sweaty ears

I always use electronic muffs, although I leave them turned off when shooting by myself. I've only been shooting since last December, and this week for the first time I made the mistake of walking into the indoor range with the muffs still around my neck. That was an enlightening experience for a few seconds. I'm just glad that no one was shooting a rifle.

I always use electronic muffs, although I leave them turned off when shooting by myself.

Click to expand...

Hmmm, when I read this I just realized how totally spoiled I've gotten by the electronics. Doesn't it bug you to know someone could walk onto the range behind you without you hearing them? It never used to bother me, but it sure does now. I just don't like being startled while I'm shooting...

pax

i wear either plugs OR muffs....

sometimes i do forget though (with .22), or maybe for 1 shot of 9mm or something.

i said "Always"

Plugs and Muffs for me.
I forgot to also click "Always"

WHAT?

As for spent .22 casings, at first-look it would seem to me that they're a poor choice for two reasons: they're inflexible and metal conducts sound waves. If they're not flexible then you're only partially covering the opening to your eardrum. If they conduct sound then this is much less effective than foam, plastic, rubber, or muffs.

I always double up on muffs and plugs.

Muffs and plugs always, hearing loss sucks.

"As for spent .22 casings, at first-look it would seem to me that they're a poor choice for two reasons: they're inflexible and metal conducts sound waves. If they're not flexible then you're only partially covering the opening to your eardrum. If they conduct sound then this is much less effective than foam, plastic, rubber, or muffs.

I always double up on muffs and plugs."

yep.

but if you put it in and wedge it in the slight depression under your ear canal it covers things up well.

take it for what it's worth. a good alternative to NOTHING when you forget your earplugs/muffs/wtfever

I've used 40S&W rounds in a pinch. My ears prefer round noses in the 165g range. Foamies all the time, I keep a box in my trunk just in case.

Always. Sometimes plugs, sometimes muffs, sometimes electronic, sometimes a suppressor.

Always. Plugs a few times, but they don't feel good in my ears and sometimes distract me from shooting so I usually just go with muffs. Can't have suppressors in NJ D:

I generally do not wear ear pro if I am shooting a .22 rifle. Anything else I always have something, usually the orange foam plugs.

As an alternative I have used cigarette butts (mine only of course) when I was out of ear plugs.

Plugs and muffs always. And I can still hear my pager go off with them.

I usually keep some foam plugs in the bag and set in the car just in case as well.

Empty 22 cases do nothing to retard harmful sound compression. There are absolutely no sound absorbing qualities in sheet metal.

And to suggest that the 22 rimfire is innocuous is also ignorant. The 22 rimfire cartridge will produce 130 dB which will, over the long run, definitely harm one's hearing.

Keep in mind that, under 140 dB, the injury is cumulative. You won't recognize it after a single shooting session, but after some time, you'll begin to notice symptoms of damaged hearing. And once the damage is done, it's irreparable.

Don't be stupid. Go to Walmart and buy a pack of foam plugs for $1.30 and some muffs for $12 and be smart. Your future wife will thank you for it.

won't i be thanking myself if i have a nice ringing to drown out my nagging wife?

what do you guys mean it doesn't block sound? i can hear that it does. when i have them seated properly i have to read lips if people aren't talking loudly. i can hear the loud obnoxious crunching sound when eating a cracker, ect...

are you saying that even though i can hear the same through .22lr casings as i can through foam earplugs, i will still have my hearing damaged?

sharkhunter- yes! cigarette butts will work for me in a pinch also. they've saved me a few times.

I always wear plugs, even for a .22 rifle.

About the only time I double up is when I'm at the indoor range someone is shooting a .537 mag, .44 mag, .454, etc. Then I have to use the range's earmuffs, mine stay in the garage at Mom's.

You can get a box (200 pairs) of the EAR Classic earplugs at Northern Tool for about 30 bucks. Thats around 16 cents a pair. I've found that classics are the most uncomfortable earplugs, but the most effective as well. YMMV.