On Hearing Protection...

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When i started being a union carpenter many years ago, it was against union rules to wear ear protection because you were deemed to be Unsafe from not hearing a yelled warning, (it was actually because the oldtimers thought you were a pansy to need them) so after many months of nailing baseboards in empty apartments with a pnuematic nailer I was getting ringing in the ears every night. After a trip to the doctor, I was given Dr. orders to wear ear protection and given drops which helped greatly. Tinninitus (sp) is caused by echos in your head which would not happen if you had not destroyed the tiny hairs which used to deaden those echos.

Forcing all people around to wear ear muffs or plugs is big. I have noticed that not all loads make the same sound, or generate the same SPL. I recently switched to Inter. clays for my shot gun powder because it is significantly less loud than other powders, do not konw how but it is. stand behind a trap range and listen to the various guys shooting and you may hear as i did one guy who is a good bit quieter than the others then ask him for his load data. I have also found that titegroup is less loud in my 45 too.

The navy now has a pill that supposedly reduces the impactof noise on the human ear.
http://www.asha.org/about/publications/leader-online/archives/2004/040217/040217a.htm

http://www.thehearingpill.com/

http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/media/approach/issues/marapr04/WhatDidPaddles.htm
 
I do Civil War Reenactor(sp?). On the line I have noticed that once the battle gets going (the shooting starts) the hearing in my left ear will go to crap. whats got me confused is why regardless of where I am in relation to the others on the line it just happens in the left one.

Why is this?
 
Hi Silent-Snail:

Please tell me you're making a break from historical accuracy and wisely using earplugs!

~ Blue Jays ~
 
Silent Snail

The left ear is the first to go in right handed people, because it's the ear closest to the muzzle.
 
Dang...im really sorry about that. :what: :eek:

Ive got to get soem hearing muffs now...for what little shooting ive been doing ive been using foam earplugs...they make a noticable sound difference, but its obviously not enough.

I dont think ill go shooting again until i get some muffs to use with plugs!

I wouldnt go shooting again in two weeks anyways, so i may as well...
 
Order placed with the web vendor linked above...will report on what and when. S&H was very reasonable -- about $3.50 for US Mail.
Click to expand...

Order arrived today by first class mail (my choice; was cheap). That's five days and only three business days since my order. Got exactly what I ordered -- 50 pairs of the Leight 33dB foam plugs. Great service and reasonable cost...hard to get too excited about a big padded envelope full of earplugs... :D
 
bagpipes, cannons, and shotguns.

im 22 and already have occasional bouts of tinnitus,
as the bass drummer in a scottish bagpipe band, 20 pipers will surrounded me and blasted me with a hurricane of sound in multiple ranges, couple that with a few near concussions from cannon blast, and a good 7 years of skeet

i pay oh lord do i pay.

now i double with plugs and muffs,
 
The first gun that I ever shot was a .410 (I believe) shotgun at a YMCA camp over 40 years ago. We weren't given any eye or hearing protection. I shot guns for years after that with inadequate hearing protection, and I certainly have hearing loss (not the selective type, as my wife says, but bonafide hearing loss). I wear the heavy-duty non-electronic Leighting muffs at the indoor range but do not also wear ear plugs because my hearing is impaired, and I cannot hear any conversation or anything at all with the muffs unless someone is practically screaming at me. I am seriously considering getting a pair of the Sordin Supreme PRO electronic muffs. I know that at $235.00, they cost twice as much or more as the Peltor and comparable muffs. Has anyone had experience with them? Is it worth the price in my situation?
 
Huh, what was that?

As a kid I not only fired a .22 and a .410 outside sans ear protection, but the NRA range that I used for target practice never recommended any ear protection. I also used to ride on top of the weed sprayer, behind the tractor, as a cloud of 24D wafted up around me... without even thinking about a mask. I wonder if this explains why I sometimes leap three feet out of bed an night during a sound sleep, for no particular reason? And all this time I thought the Lord was calling me to some task that demands great agility...

Seriously though, I don't see why the technical problem of noise reduction is much greater for "pulsed sound" than for a continuous sound like a jet engine? The only issue would be response time, because one gun report is about the same as any other. The details of the sound signature can't be that unique, so if the electronics were fast enough it could be triggered by any sound above a certain decible level and then progressively "dialed in" within a matter of microseconds. Such circuits are certainly technically feasible, although it might be prohibitively expensive to develop them for such a small customer base.
 
Like many others here I started shooting in another time. Those early rounds plus chainsaws, lawn mowers and rock music took their toll. Then I joined the Navy and fired more guns. Usually we used these fairly inadequate christmas tree like plugs when qualifying with .45ACP 1911A1 and M-1 Garand, but off the training range I fired a Thompson SMG and 12 ga. riot guns w/o hearing protection. The combined effect of the above was that I had tinitus by age 22.

I started wearing serious hearing protection for shooting in 1978 and remember taking my muffs off only to discover a speedloader I'd missed. So I loaded the gun and fired one round of full house 158gr .357Mag from a 4" Ruger -- wow, that physically hurt. My ears were ringing the rest of the day. By this time (age 26) I still had tinitus and hearing was about 55 dB down at 6KHz. Now I'm about 60 dB down and anytime I choose to listen, the ringing/chirping is there.

These days my typical hearing protection when shooting clays is a set of fitted plugs which work very good with shotguns. When I shoot high power rifle I wear the plugs and a pair of Peltor Tac-6 muffs so I can hear range commands. For handguns (indoor) I wear the plugs and a set of serious muffs. At work on the flightline I wear just the fitted plugs and when I fly I wear the foam type plugs under my headset. Adjust the volume up to account for the 22 dB reduction and it works quite well.

Recently I bought a Noise Reduction headset for listening to music or DVD sound when I watch a movie on the laptop -- they're great. The ambient noise is significantly reduced which allows me to reduce the headset volume and still hear better.
 
Thanks for the heads-up, Mr. McCracken.

*runs off to buy another set of muffs and a sack of earplugs from Wally-World*

~GnSx
 
one more in the boat, between hunting with various 12 guages and a muzzleloader, and 5 years of military service so far I've lost just enough hearing in my left ear to be just below the official deaf range, although its only across a certain freq. range. my right ear is perfectly normal though, makes sense being right handed. I tell you what, sitting next to a Ma Duce as the assistant gunner is physically painful even with foam plugs and hands over the ears.
 
canit5462.sized.jpg
 
wow, only 2kHz? ouch.
i bought some "christmas tree" style baffled plugs at bass pro on the last trip. hated them. they hurt like hell, so i went back to the old foam jobs.
 
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