did anyone lose some of their hearing because of gunfire?

[Standing Wolf]

Yep. I'm male, so I'm pedisposed to lose some hearing, anyway. I'm 57, so hearing loss of one degree or another is probable. I come from a long line of people who went deaf in middle and old age.

On top of all that, I used to shoot bullseye indoors with inadequate hearing protection.

I've learned to compensate reasonably well, but still annoy people by seeming to ignore them when they speak to me beyond my sight range. I doubt I listen to music 10% as much as I did years ago: I just don't hear it clearly.

 

[lamazza]

41 and and practically deaf without my hearing aid-hate to wear it too.
Carl so true about the movies-I won't go to theatres anymore because the voices are so muted.

 

[dave5339]

41 here also.

Spent my early years shooting a lot of shotgun and 22 with no hearing protection.

Went into the Marines in 83 and wore my issue plugs sometimes, mostly at the qualification ranges, rarely in the field.

Made a bad mistake one day on the battalion firing line. Thought it was a M60 crew set up on the other side of the bushes from me. Fire for effect was called and I discovered it was a Ma Duece over there. I had no plugs in at the time. Big mistake.

And yep, hearing loss is a fact of life with me. Sitting here right now in an office with no one else in here and hearing a constant high pitched ringing.

Semper Fi

 

[english kanigit]

The only time I don't wear my ears is shooting 22 rifles.

EK

 

[Berek]

I lost some hearing here and there over the years, but about 3 years ago, one session became extremely painful. Now, I can hardly hear from my left ear except for the constant ringing. Every now and again, a loud sharp noise produces a sharp pain. Haven't shot on the range without since.

 

[eastwood44mag]

My hearing is shot (no pun intended). Been bad for years, and it's getting worse.

Never shoot without plugs.

 

[hso]

Not surprisingly, many of us have suffered permanent hearing damage. There are dozens of threads on hearing protection and hearing loss because so many of us didn't use their hearing protection properly (if at all). The sad thing is that many more hear have hearing damage without even knowing it and continue to risk what they have. The problem is that most hearing loss is due to repeat small incremental chipping away (folks that were in the service and had their hearing blown out by cannon and explosions would be the exception) that we don't even notice until it's too late (except for the ringing).

I spent hours on the range this weekend with my wife and a dozen other folks training with AKs. I wear plugs and electronic muffs and will wear them regardless of what's being fired so that I can keep what hearing I have left.

 

[KC&97TA]

When I was younger we'd use hearing protection only when siteing in or target shooting, all hunting was done w/o protection. All USMC ranges I've either been on or conducted have had hearing protection, but I've found when I'm teaching/training others, I often don't get my plugs or muff's on in time.

The majority of my hearing damage was done in Iraq, were hearing protection isn't as viable of an option when "hunting". And I've been rocked with 2 road side bombs and an RPG to top it all off. There's a hearing test that you can't fake the funk on, it shows significant hearing loss in certain frequencys associated with gun shots and explosions. The constant ringing of my ears is enough for me to constantly wear muffs anytime I'm around fire arms and explosives, I've fallen in love with my electronic muffs.

 

[Ovid]

I was shooting about 250 rounds of 9mm at an indoor range, and had plastic ear plugs in. My right ear plug was still in my ear, but appearantly it came loose at some point during the session . My ear was ringing as I was leaving the range, but I didn't realize how bad it was until I used a phone with my right ear, and my hearing sounded 'garbled' (for lack of a better word). Scared the hell out of me, as I had no idea if I had done any permanent damage, but after a week or so, my hearing was back to normal, and AFAIK it did no long term damage. Now I wear ear muffs AND ear plugs.

The interesting thing is that during the range session, I didn't really experience any discomfort.

 

[grimjaw]

Between the occasional shooting of .22's and shotguns, loud music (both listened to and played), and other stuff, I suffered damage somewhere. Hearing in one ear is noticeably different than the other. Also, I find it very hard to hear people in crowded, noisy rooms to the point that I want to leave.

jmm

 

[Ralph]

Yes, from being around 175mm and eight inch Howitzer self-proplelled guns at
LZ Sandy, 23 miles from Phan Thiet.

 

[lawson]

the majority of my hearing damage came from being in the direct vicinity of an explosion. i have pretty severe tinnitus.

i used to be able to tune my guitars by ear, and now i can't. protect your ears!

 

[entropy]

Between a battery of M109 SP's ripple firing right behind my tent at 0300, and the fougasse demos we did for the infantry, I have a bit of tinnitus, but am surprised I don't have much loss. I actually have excellent high frequency hearing, a side effect of childhood asthma.

 

[ball3006]

I am hearing impared.....

mostly caused by jet engines, '50s technology noisy, but I beleive all that hunting I did back in the 50s without any hearing protection started it. At least Uncle Sam pays me beer money for the loss. I no longer can hear SWMBO shouting at me across the yard.....which, may not be a bad thing..........chris3

 

[afasano]

Yep! Guns, power tools, loud music, and the doc says it's just because I'm getting old.

 

[flashman70]

Six years as a weekend warrior in the field artillery on 105s and 155s didn't help my hearing. Nor did rock & roll concerts - Jimi Hendrix was the loudest by far. I find that I have a hard time distinguishing what people are saying to me when we're in a noisy environment, such as a restaurant. Getting old isn't a treat, but it beats the alternative.

 

[panzermk2]

I had all my protection on (CVC and plugs) and it did nothing to stop the niose. Inside or standing anywhere near a main battle tank on the firing line, worse when bore sighting sitting next to each other will fry your hearing period. throw in 1300 CuIn air cooled engine or a jet turbine+ the general niose from driving down the road
HEARING gone. Hence the term "Tankers ears"

 

[nwgunslinger]

In 1973 I was at the range and simply forgot to put my ear muffs on after a ceasefire. It was one of those ranges with a wall on each side of the shooter. I fired one round from blackhawk .44 mag and was deaf. After a couple of days I slowly began to hear things again but my ears have been ringing ever since. It's call "tinnitus", there is no cure or effective treatment. As I age it becomes worse. Any kind af ambient noise renders me effectivly deaf. I can hear what people are saying but cannot comprehend the words, they're just lost in the noise. Some voices are much harder than others to hear, primarily because of the frequency of their sounds. I can't hear high frequencies at all so naturally more women fall in that category. It's a pretty normal occurance to be in the car with my wife and she'll be talking. I know she's talking but I don't understand a word she says. Sometimes that's OK, other times it's not.

 

[jondar]

Ditto on the wife talk. Above the road noise I can't understand what she says. Like a foreign tongue. HOWEVER; I may have Rush Limbaugh on the radio and every word he says comes thru clear as a bell. The news anchors on Fox, especially the girls, have perfect diction and I catch every word. I think some people are just sloppy talkers and don't try to form their words like others.

 

[Duach Laidir]

I've just celebrated my 72 birthday and I still can hear fairly well if people will only not talk so darned soft

I started shooting when I was about ten, with a .22. Didn't do any with centerfires till I was 15 and then only with a .32/20. So I don't thinkthat I was affected back then.

Joined the Army at 18 and had plenty of gunfire of all sorts but never had ear protection. Even if it had been available it would have been a No-No in the Infantry.

I was in the 3rd Bn Royal Australian Regement in Korea and we weren't allowed to wear anything that covered our ears even in the winter.
"Better frostbitten than dead because you couldn't hear"

Back home in1955 I became an Armourer and still didn't have ear protection(none of us did). There were ear-plugs available but we didn't take any notice of small arms fire and when we went on artillery shoots ear-plugs were,rightly or wrongly, looked upon as a hazard if one caught some real muzzle blast; it was always a possibility where muzzle-brakes were fitted.

When I was finally diagnosed with a hearing problem it was put down to exposure to small arms fire.

My advice is WEAR PROTECTION, I almost heard that ! !

Duach.

 

[Brisco Pike]

Over the years I know I have been gradually losing my hearing particularly in the high freq range but I didn't realize how bad it was until just this month. I have one of those atomic clocks in my office that you need an engineering degree to set and for some reason it didn't reset for daylight savings so after 15 minutes of pressing this and that I got the time changed but in the process I must have set the alarm. Anyway, a coworker who was standing down the hall from my office came in and asked if that was my alarm going off. I said, "What alarm?". I picked up the clock and held it next to my ear and I could hear a faint chirping, "Oh, that alarm". Jeez!
I understand that there are vitamins and supplements that you can take that are supposed to help with some hearing problems. Anybody tried those yet? I took my dog to the vet for hearing problems and she prescribed high potency vitamins which worked on the dog. Maybe there's hope for us.

 

[Frandy]

I'm 57. When I was 17 and at a local outdoor range shooting my 03-A3, a blackpowder-rifle shooting fellow fired AFTER we were told to stop firing so we could go downrange to view our targets. Foolishly (hindsight), I had removed my ear protection after the cease fire command, and the blackpowder BOOM left me with my initial dose of tinitus. It kept me out of a Marine pilot training program in college and out of tanks after basic training in the army.

Ever since that blast, I've always taken consistent and considerable effort to protect my hearing (when shooting, mowing, leaf-blowing, and so on), but over the years I've certainly continued to lose some hearing.

 

[white_interpreter]

well, very good post. ill wear them.

do i need them while shooting with revolvers and .9 also?

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Twenty two and a half years in the Infantry (and a little stint in the Artillery) didn't do much for my ears. Being blown up a couple of times didn't help (an RPG-7 went through my command track one time, and the other time we hit an anti-tank mine). In my day they didn't issue ear plugs, either.

WEAR YOUR EAR PLUGS!! WEAR MUFFS OVER THEM! EVEN WHEN SHOOTING .22S AND ESPECIALLY WHEN SHOOTING HANDGUNS OF ANY CALIBER!

There. Did you hear that?

 

[Bwana John]

There. Did you hear that?

Huh?, What?, sorry man I got to be looking at your lips to hear what you said.

Firearms, and bagpipes. The summer building chairlifts when we found and detonated an old recoilless round 40 meters away didnt help either.