I don't wear earplugs with this am i alright

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ALWAYS wear eye and ear protection when shooting! Anything over 85 decibels for for long periods or louder for short periods can damage your hearing, always protect your hearing.
 
I'd wear hearing protection even with a .22 to be cautious.

A bit of a tangent, but those decibel ratings for various rounds surprised me. I've heard 9mm and .45 without protection, and they are both far too loud to be around without it, but I also heard .223 fired out of an AR without protection and it was way louder (bad idea, I know, I'd never been to a range before back then). Rifles just seem far louder to me than handguns save for the big six-shooters; if I don't have earplugs in properly handguns won't really bother me but rifles will have me adjusting them or doubling up in a hurry.
 
your 13 right, just play your music at the normal level and you will not hear the gun fire.
i thought some one was going to answer that phone.
 
Somebody tell me what the kid said, I can't hear him. Fired too many shots without ear protection when I was a kid.

jm
 
I don't use hearing protection with 22LR. But with everything else I definitely do. I may have to rethink the 22 as well. My Marlin 60 just never sounded very loud...I can't remember any 22LR sounding loud. Huh.
 
.22 out of a rifle isn't too bad...not even uncomfortable for me actually, but a .22 from a pistol is really loud, uncomfortably so. I may be partially deaf already, i suppose.
 
wear hearing protection. .22s can be loud enough to harm your hearing. In fact the few times I've shot a .22 pistol without hearing protection, I temporarily heard muffling, which signified to me that damage had been done.
 
The deal is, if you live long enough, you lose your hearing. This process can be sped up considerably by doing lots of fun things like shooting and going to rock concerts.
 
is it alright with a .22 though
Click to expand...

Let's put it this way. I fired scores of thousands of rounds out of a .22LR rifle during my growing-up years. I never wore hearing protection then. I now suffer some hearing loss, particularly for higher frequency sound waves. I cannot say for certain that the years of firing .22LR is responsible for it, but I suspect it was.

That said, I wear hearing protection all the time, now, as well as eye protection. Older and wiser, they say. When you are young, you are less likely to consider these things, or to consider the consequences of repeated actions over time.

Also, when I was a kid, a .22LR case ruptured in an old Remington rolling-block rifle. I still have a black piece of unburned powder (or some other debris) stuck in my eye (it's actually stuck in the cornea, over the iris). I am fortunate to still have two good, functioning eyes. Had I been wearing eye protection, that could have been avoided.

Do as you will, but I strongly recommend hearing and eye protection.
 
.22LR out of my 10/22 i thought was okay without hearing protection but i'll be stopping by the store for some muffs today after reading this thread.
 
If I wear 30 db muffs and shoot about 100 rounds of 22 and 100 rounds of 9mm or .45 (200 rounds total) about once a week will I suffer hearing loss???
 
Shooting , or being around, 22s for over fifteen minutes WILL cause hearing loss. Always wear protection.

Our airgun shooters also wear ear plugs to help keep them from being distracted by others during practice and matches.
 
Just because it doesn't hurt your ears like a 'Pink Floyd' concert doesn't mean it isn't damaging your hearing. at least wear plugs. I usually wear plugs and muffs.
 
Makes me think of the old story about two old shooters sitting around at the range and visiting one day. One said to the other "Boy, since I got my hearing aid I can hear as good as I used to." The other asked, Oh, what kind is it?" The first guy looked at his watch and replied "It's 10:30."

When I started shooting no one even knew about hearing protection. After a lot of years shooting and working around noisy machinery I have very poor hearing. Wish I had known to protect mine years before I did.
 
Yeah wearing ear plugs/muffs can be annoying or uncomfortable, but when you consider how much losing your hearing could suck, i have just one question: Why not wear hearing protection? There really isn't a good reason not to.
 
Go get a hearing test. Bet you there's some frequencies already being damaged.

A 22 pistol is actually quite loud.

Hey if you don't like wearing it, I suggest electronic muffs. You can still hear normal stuff just fine.
 
The thing about hearing loss is, you don't notice a thing until you don't notice a thing.

Wear hearing protection ALWAYS!
 
No hearing protection while shooting now means no hearing to protect later.

Muffs over plugs worn properly should be the standard for all shooters. I you can afford them, or can get someone to gift a pair to you, electronic muffs over plugs are the best.
 
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If I wear 30 db muffs and shoot about 100 rounds of 22 and 100 rounds of 9mm or .45 (200 rounds total) about once a week will I suffer hearing loss???
Click to expand...
I'm not a health and safety professional but...
The numbers I see for a .45 are 159.8 dB, you lose 5dB on your muffs for wearing safety glasses and breaking the seal so you're effectively exposed to 135dB per shot. The osha guideline for exposure says at most 100 sound impulses a day at 140db and 1000 impulses a day at 130dB. It seems like those are pretty safe numbers although I'm sure it couldn't hurt to throw a pair of plugs on underneath.
 
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