Shooting and ear damage

[Ghost Buster]

How much shooting will you need to do in order to damage you ears without wearing sound blockers?

I've heard people say you should always wear them but I never have. I've never really done much shooting though, and never on a constant or regular basis. Normally random hunting or target practice.

Do you guys wear those sound blocker things?

I kinda doubt it will do much damage, seeing as how people in WW2 fired constantly for years and didn't go deaf.

[benny vader]

Because when they do, it was marked off as "shell shock".

[5.56 SS109]

I always wear ear pro, no exceptions.

You will do a lot of damage to your hearing if you don't wear ear pro, especially if you are shooting rifles.

[Ghost Buster]

I guess some did go deaf, what I meant was that some didn't despite the intense gunfire. I doubt minor amounts of occasional firing will cause serious damage.

[mizled]

Eyes and ears. They're worth protecting.

[benny vader]

Originally Posted by mizled

Eyes and ears. They're worth protecting.

And don't forget lungs too. Gunsmokes are carcinogens and may cause impotence in men.

[mizled]

Originally Posted by benny vader

And don't forget lungs too. Gunsmokes are carcinogens and may cause impotence in men.

I'll be sure to tell my husband.

[The Cheshire Cat]

Double set of ear-pro when at indoor ranges. The mushy orange ones, and some big ear covers.

[benny vader]

Originally Posted by mizled

I'll be sure to tell my husband.

Dont just tell, buy him a chemical gas mask. It shows how much you love him.

[ACE_187]

Originally Posted by Ghost Buster

How much shooting will you need to do in order to damage you ears without wearing sound blockers?

I've heard people say you should always wear them but I never have. I've never really done much shooting though, and never on a constant or regular basis. Normally random hunting or target practice.

Do you guys wear those sound blocker things?

I kinda doubt it will do much damage, seeing as how people in WW2 fired constantly for years and didn't go deaf.

Seriously, guys shooting artillery and they still seem to hear well enough. So wearing big earmuffs shooting a pistol makes you look like a bigtime pussy. I've never wore them either. It only bothered me at first. Unloading a semi-auto pistol would mess with my hearing for hours now it doesn't bother me, or anything.

[benny vader]

Originally Posted by ACE_187

Seriously, guys shooting artillery and they still seem to hear well enough. So wearing big earmuffs shooting a pistol makes you look like a bigtime pussy. I've never wore them either. It only bothered me at first. Unloading a semi-auto pistol would mess with my hearing for hours now it doesn't bother me, or anything.

Oh yeaa ???? Carrying your gun with the safety switch on makes you a pusssy too so why dont you start from now on carry your guns loaded with the safety switch off at all times, tufff guy ????

Why don;t you.

[ACE_187]

Originally Posted by benny vader

Oh yeaa ???? Carrying your gun with the safety switch on makes you a pusssy too so why dont you start from now on carry your guns loaded with the safety switch off at all times, tufff guy ????

Why don;t you.

The gun I've been carrying lately doesn't have a manual safety but yeah...

Two different things. Carrying a gun with no safety (assuming you don't use a holster) could result in you shooting your dick off. Wearing hearing protection because you don't like loud noises (if you consider a pistol a loud noise) does make you a pussy considering guys listened to things much louder, constantly and are fine.

If I was target practicing with a .50bmg yeah, but even then I'd want to hear it once at least

EDIT: but if you wear hearing protection practicing, maybe when you are in a situation without it for the first time, and it will mess your hearing up because you're ears aren't used to it. That is something to think about. Half the experience is the noise anyway.

[Akagi]

Originally Posted by ACE_187

...wearing big earmuffs shooting a pistol makes you look like a bigtime pussy

Hearing protection is required at most ranges.

It only bothered me at first. Unloading a semi-auto pistol would mess with my hearing for hours now it doesn't bother me, or anything.

Well of course it doesn't now that you've blown out your high frequency hearing range.

I put it this way: What's the worst that could happen if you wore hearing protection and didn't need it vs. not using it and it actually was necessary?

You should be able to solve this.

[roasted]

Originally Posted by Ghost Buster

Do you guys wear those sound blocker things?

I kinda doubt it will do much damage, seeing as how people in WW2 fired constantly for years and didn't go deaf.

Always. After a long day on the range you can definitely tell the difference between adequate and inadequate ear protection.


WWII vets did go deaf, all the time. There is a reason why US soldiers use hearing protection in combat...

[benny vader]

Originally Posted by ACE_187

The gun I've been carrying lately doesn't have a manual safety but yeah...

Yea ... because it was designed to be market to market segment marked as "retards" ... such as yourself.

Wearing hearing protection because you don't like loud noises (if you consider a pistol a loud noise) does make you a pussy considering guys listened to things much louder, constantly and are fine.

Hey ... just because you own a little faggott gun that goes with a little girly "popp" doesnt mean everybody is also firing little girly gun like yours ok ????

They are MAN among us that fires REAL manly rigle that go with bangs instead of little pop like the phaggott you and the little phaggott pisstols that you fires.

If I was target practicing with a .50bmg yeah, but even then I'd want to hear it once at least

Have it the wrong way and that'll be the last you'll ever hear. Is your ego and what others think/say of you more important that your hearing ?????

EDIT: but if you wear hearing protection practicing, maybe when you are in a situation without it for the first time, and it will mess your hearing up because you're ears aren't used to it. That is something to think about. Half the experience is the noise anyway.

And maybe not.

[Akagi]

Originally Posted by ACE_187

but if you wear hearing protection practicing, maybe when you are in a situation without it for the first time, and it will mess your hearing up because you're ears aren't used to it. That is something to think about.

So what I'm getting out of that is since shooting messes up your hearing, always wear hearing protection when you're going to shoot.

The only time you're not going to have hearing protection available and you have to shoot is in a defense situation, which is much more rare than practice shooting. You could go your entire life not having to use a firearm defensively and thus never have to fuck your hearing up.

[Rude Louis]

Originally Posted by ACE_187

Seriously, guys shooting artillery and they still seem to hear well enough. So wearing big earmuffs shooting a pistol makes you look like a bigtime pussy.

Confirmed for 14-year-old who's never fired a gun.

[1983]

What! I can hear you!

Actually I was shooting squirrels with my new .223... Fuck that little bitch is loud... Hearing protection from now on.

My hearing's already fucked from working around machinery without hearing protection and one or two really close explosions but since I've lost it I'm careful to keep what I have remaining.

Hearing protection may be a pain in the ass but it saves you having to max the volume on your TV.

Al

[slicknickns]

Originally Posted by The Cheshire Cat

Double set of ear-pro when at indoor ranges. The mushy orange ones, and some big ear covers.

This. I wear the squishy ear plugs you put in your ear and then the ear muff style ones over my head. Been doubling up this way since I was 9 and my hearing is still in tip top shape.

[944]

Every round fired (yes, even that little .22lr) does damage, how much depends on the person. I'm 22 and am already loosing my ability to understand what someone is saying if there is any background noise and have permanent ringing in both ears, wear some fucking ear plugs



My damage isn't from gun fire though, mostly being in front of bands every weekend since I started driving

[944]

Originally Posted by ACE_187

Seriously, guys shooting artillery and they still seem to hear well enough. So wearing big earmuffs shooting a pistol makes you look like a bigtime pussy. I've never wore them either. It only bothered me at first. Unloading a semi-auto pistol would mess with my hearing for hours now it doesn't bother me, or anything.

Hearing damage

[tomjonesa22]

It's a must the damage is usually permanent. I learned the hard way by standing next to a man with a 454 mag. So I always wear ear muffs

[Average Fuckin Joe]

How much would firing a 9mm in a car, fuck up your hearing?

...cause it sounds like your wearing earmuffs afterwards, lol

[Ghost Buster]

Originally Posted by Average Fuckin Joe

How much would firing a 9mm in a car, fuck up your hearing?

I'd imagine firing any gun in a car would be brutal.

[5.56 SS109]

Originally Posted by Ghost Buster

I'd imagine firing any gun in a car would be brutal.

I touched off a few 125gr +P Corbons in a car once (with ear pro on) and my ears were ringing like a motherfucker.


It also feels like you are being slapped in the face because of the pressure spike from the gun going off.

[1983]

Originally Posted by 5.56 SS109

I touched off a few 125gr +P Corbons in a car once (with ear pro on) and my ears were ringing like a motherfucker.


It also feels like you are being slapped in the face because of the pressure spike from the gun going off.

Brings back movie memories.

Fire a replica gun in the car - YouTube

Fire a replica gun in the car - YouTube
Video: click to display

Al

[Kwinnie Bogan]

In some cases I think a lack of hearing protection is the safer option. I have a friend with an classic Australian made .22 sportster rifle who had picked his rifle up after firing at clay targets with a Spanish .410 and obviously still had earplugs in. This particular rifle has a 7 round magazine full of Federal low grain loads (seem to be more popular here than Super X), no safety, no recoil and is quiet enough without hearing protection that you'd think it was a pop-gun (well, it's a .22 so that's till up for debate..).

You guessed it, he loosed a round without even realising it, TWOP! Hit a tree only 15 yards away. He didn't even know until I pointed out the little wift of disturbed bark.





But apart from that, yes, always wear hearing protection.
Especially with rifles - back when I picked up my .308 Lapua slingin' Vanguard for the first time, I went spotlighitng in a valley. Popping roo heads in a valley from the back of a rapidly moving truck over undulating terrain by the light of astrong pencil-beam spottie is dicey enough without the newly discovered effect of FIRING A FUCKING CANNON* next to your unprotected ears breaking your concentration and thus your bead.

Roos are good fun to shoot though. Or should I say grasshoppers. For the most part they'll stop and stare transfixed like deer do if you hit em smack bang with the spottie, then pop em easy as pie..
After that it's just a matter of taking down as many others in quick succession as you can while trying to remain clean kills (Roos tend to flock, for the North Americans). A group of 4-6 is normal in the spring and summer, smaller groups in the winter and sometimes you'll come into a group of 12 or even more. No way you can cleanly go them all, nor do you really want to).

After that cruise up to finish them with your knife and dismember them for their meat and hide. Or if you've got a big buck lay off some shot in his direction as you approach. They'll pretend to be more injured than they really are, then kick your arse to pieces with grunting and bloody foam coming fro their chest if you don't. You don't want that for either of you.




*(The .308 amplified by the surrounding hills like an Ampitheatre that falls back in on itself)

[5.56 SS109]

Loudest firearm I have ever been around was a .30-06 A-Bolt with a BOSS muzzle brake.

I though it was a .338 WinMag or something nuts, but that brake amplified the shit out of that '06.

It was so loud it made me dizzy.

[Akagi]

Originally Posted by Kwinnie Bogan

In some cases I think a lack of hearing protection is the safer option. I have a friend with an classic Australian made .22 sportster rifle who had picked his rifle up after firing at clay targets with a Spanish .410 and obviously still had earplugs in. This particular rifle has a 7 round magazine full of Federal low grain loads (seem to be more popular here than Super X), no safety, no recoil and is quiet enough without hearing protection that you'd think it was a pop-gun (well, it's a .22 so that's till up for debate..).

You guessed it, he loosed a round without even realising it, TWOP! Hit a tree only 15 yards away. He didn't even know until I pointed out the little wift of disturbed bark.

Trigger discipline.

[Kwinnie Bogan]

Yeah, thoroughly thoroughly went through it with him, believe me!

It's also how my great uncle blew his brains out in the depression. Crawling through a sloppy barbed wire fence to gain access tos omeon's land and shoot him a rabbit or two to take back home when the butt got caught, swining the end of the barrel to point him directly in the head and simultaneously jerked the rifle in his hand causing the trigger to snag on his finger which shouldn't have been there. Shot hisself stone cold.

Ironic really, when everybody else was taking their lives because they were too weak tor too starved to face another day, he goes out trying to carve up a living from what the scorched earth had of its little to offer, and was too stupid to keep his finger outta there and and consequently shot himself.


The family reckon (he was discovered hours and hours later - at this time in the country you were lucky to se more than a dozen people in a day or three) he must have sighted a rabbit and been so carelss out of desperation, but I wuld put it down to stupidity. The moral is there's never any excuse time or reason when you should NOT abide by the rules we here sknow so very well.

Especially that one.

[Kwinnie Bogan]

Oh, by the way, all but three of his 5 children starved to death and the others did suffer from some malnutrition. Though only a percentage of that could be attributed to his los as their provider. He didn't do much else that the sons couldn't to attempt to provide.

Let that be a lesson to you - whatever lesson you want, but most pointedly one of trigger discipline.

[yawanur]

Originally Posted by benny vader

And don't forget lungs too. Gunsmokes are carcinogens and may cause impotence in men.

go go gadget!

[Infrared]

DO WHAT NOW?!?!



I always try to at least wear the cheap foam earplugs. I found these silicone ones recently (they feel like nonsticky Silly Putty) and plan to experiment with those. I think they're for all those ugly, pasty kids that get swimmer's ear, but they really block sound well too. I haven't been able to find my earmuffs for awhile but I will eventually get more.

Remember, if you have NOTHING ELSE, just fire two rounds of whatever you have (akwardly holding your ears while doing so), pick up the spent brass and stick 'em, primer-first, in your ears. Make sure they cool down though! Seriously, it does work well in a pinch. It's the cowboy thing to do. But don't rely solely on it!

[reggie_love]

Loud noise is essentially air hitting your extremely sensitive and extremely delicate auditory systems. Cells die, and they do not come back. It is empirically true that you are permanently damaging your hearing every time you shoot without ear protection.

You may think "oh it's not that bad" or "vets weren't deaf," but that's oversimplifying the process. Of course you will still be aware that there's noise, that takes profound hearing damage to lose, but you lose your highest frequencies so easily, and you won't notice but your world will get fuzzier as your hearing loses its definition. It's like you're taking the pixels out of the picture. You won't be able to make out speech as acutely as you could, and if it gets really bad everything will sound like you have a wet sock over your head. You won't even be aware of this process chances are, until you get into a quiet room and hear the crushingly loud high pitched ringing.

Fuck, billions of years of evolution gave you this fine hearing apparatus and you're just pissing its functionality away because you think earmuffs look dumb? Invest in your future, don't be another burden on society wasting air with your constant "HUH?"s. Wear hearing protection.

Source: I have hearing damage. It sucks. As I look back on how I got this way and all the times I didn't prevent it but could have, I've yet to find anything worth giving up your hearing over.

[1983]

Originally Posted by reggie_love

Source: I have hearing damage. It sucks. As I look back on how I got this way and all the times I didn't prevent it but could have, I've yet to find anything worth giving up your hearing over.

Only way it would be a good thing is if the wife is nag. Marital bliss is but a turkey shoot away.

Al

[Irukanji]

I don't bother wearing it when I'm shooting the .22LR, regardless of ammo. The .30-30 I'll wearing even if I'm standing 20m away from the person who is firing it lol.

[Vargus]

I've shot 150 rounds of 9mm in one sitting through a 3" barrel. My ears rang for 4 days. It's sometimes hard to understand speech since firearms usually damage more of your upper range, which alot of verbal cues come through there.

After that I always wear earpro.

[Infrared]

Hey Kwinnie, I just read that roo story of yours and I gotta say that's the fucking wildest story I've read in a long time! Your wording is so weird and yet still understandable, and it painted a wild picture in my imagination...I actually started daydreaming about being there during a balmy, warm Australian night, insects and weird birds singing, the engine roaring, roo eyes shining back at me...no, I'm not high, lol. Bravo, chap. You should be a writer, man, seriously.

[1983]

Originally Posted by Infrared

Hey Kwinnie, I just read that roo story of yours and I gotta say that's the fucking wildest story I've read in a long time! Your wording is so weird and yet still understandable, and it painted a wild picture in my imagination...I actually started daydreaming about being there during a balmy, warm Australian night, insects and weird birds singing, the engine roaring, roo eyes shining back at me...no, I'm not high, lol. Bravo, chap. You should be a writer, man, seriously.

Just remember in the outback some things are bigger than others so make sure to bring a proper bug swatter.



Or



Al

[benny vader]

Originally Posted by 1983

Only way it would be a good thing is if the wife is nag. Marital bliss is but a turkey shoot away.

Al

Wait till she signs you up for ASL classes or worse .... she start coming up with homebrewed sign language and gesturing her hands and arms wildly at you, non stop, day in and day out.

Then you'd wish the muzzle flash was bright enough to blind you as well on that fateful turkey shoot.