Hearing protection

I had my ears checked yesterday by a specialist, along with a hearing test. Turns out my left ear has suffered some permanent damage and I cannot pick up high frequency sounds as well as my right ear anymore. The reason is firearms. I am right handed and my right ear is covered up when I shoot.

I wear muffs when I’m at the range. However, I do not wear any when I hunt because I need to hear a deer walking, a turkey gobbling, or a pheasant flushing. Is there anything I can wear while I’m hunting that will muffle the sound of the gun going off but still allow me to hear normal sounds?

If I do not do anything about this, its just slowly going to get worse. I would like to hunt for many more years, but I also need to try and reduce some of the damage from shooting.

Thanks

I’m in the same boat as you, also have tinnitus in my left ear; had a hearing test a year ago and the doc said the samething as your results.
I’ve thought about getting custom made plugs as they’re supposed to allow to hear normally while allowing to block the loud noises.

Since tinnitus started in my early 20’s, I’ve been wearing Surefire plugs for practicing and hunting. They’re comfortable and cheap. While dear hunting, i leave them in loose, then when I see a deer, I immediately press them in fully. Upland and duck hunting I leave them fully inserted and can still hear what I need to, is it like not wearing any? Nope, but Its worth saving what I have!

Walker game ear?
http://www.walkersgameear.com

My prairie dog crew all wears electronic ear muffs.
We mostly do it for safety – so we can easily hear each other when we call out a shooting hazard “Car, Cattle, Etc”… Also quite fun to be able to talk to each other while shooting at a high rate and have a normal conversation without anyone yelling or even talking loud.

I have reduced hearing from 12V battery blowing up in my ear as well as 10’s of 1,000’s of shots and a few very close shotgun shots…and working in noisy factories, farming, etc.. If you don’t speak up, i say WHAT or PARDON a lot and i watch TV with captions. (I get OSHA test every year)

I quite enjoy wearing those electronic ear muffs when prairie dog hunting as i can turn them up and hear birds sing that i wouldn’t hear without them, insects, yada yada.

There is a large variety of electronic ear muffs. I wear some cheap ones with great results. Sky is the limit depending on what you want them to be to you.

I have the ear muffs that I use for hunting and shooting. They amplify quieter noise but block gun shots. They throw me off when calling for ducks so I pull them off one ear when calling. They are also Bluetooth which is nice.

I’d go straight to the earbud style though. Well worth the money. Walkers game ear sells them.
DT

I have friends that have custom molded ones as well. I’ll post the company later when they get back to me.
DT

I have instamold custom earplugs, work too good to be useful hunting unless they came up with something new. Mine are about 6 years old

I’ve made the investment in the custom molded ones by wildear, spendy but well worth it. Also they are a minnesota based company. Tetra is another brand that has come out aswell.

I like electronic muffs, but they are too hot for me to wear anywhere but at the range. I can’t see wearing them hunting except maybe in a treestand situation, but…

Maybe I’m the only one here, but the electronic muffs seem to mess with my stereo hearing such that noises are directionally “off” by quite a lot. Anyone else noticed this? A noise that is at say 090 degrees in actual location will “appear” to my hearing like it significantly back or forward of its true location if that makes sense.

Bottom line is I think the only real solution is go to the top end plugs like the brands Justin mentions above. I have talked to both these makers at shows and I’m sure these are the investment that’s worth the money.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

such that noises are directionally “off”

Higher end ones have multiple mics to help reduce this. Lower end ones may have only one mic.

Earbud style hearing protection by Walker’s Game Ear is probably your best choice for the shotgun stuff. For deer hunting consider buying a suppressor for your rifle. They aren’t cheap and you need to jump through some hoops, but they will help protect your hearing. Fun fact, even though guns are highly restricted in Great Britain, suppressors are widely used (maybe even required) for hunting. I wish they didn’t have the hollywood stigma here; they are nowhere near as quiet as movies would have you believe, but they definitely protect your ears!

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

I like electronic muffs, but they are too hot for me to wear anywhere but at the range. I can’t see wearing them hunting except maybe in a treestand situation, but…

Maybe I’m the only one here, but the electronic muffs seem to mess with my stereo hearing such that noises are directionally “off” by quite a lot. Anyone else noticed this? A noise that is at say 090 degrees in actual location will “appear” to my hearing like it significantly back or forward of its true location if that makes sense.

Bottom line is I think the only real solution is go to the top end plugs like the brands Justin mentions above. I have talked to both these makers at shows and I’m sure these are the investment that’s worth the money.

i have a pair of walker razor electronic muffs. for the range they are great but for deer hunting i couldnt stand them. i experienced the same thing you did of not being able to tell which way noises were coming from

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

Higher end ones have multiple mics to help reduce this. Lower end ones may have only one mic.

Mine have multiple mics. It’s not like there is no direction to the sound, it’s just that compared to my regular hearing, my perception of where the sound comes from is off by let’s say somewhere between 10 and 30 degrees.

So I can hear that there’s a deer to the south of my stand, for example. But while the sound may appear to come from compass heading 180, the deer could be anywhere from heading 160 to 200. It is highly variable for some reason. I’ve been looking for the sources of a sound only to realize that I am looking 20-30 degrees too far left or right.

Grouse

I HAD the same problems. I now have hearing aids that help me EVERYDAY to hear better and I got them set up with different functions. I have several settings and I have a setting for windy days (can drive you crazy) and also a hunting setting that lets me hear normal sounds but will cut out gunfire. I think if I was just shooting a range and was firing often, I would still wear some muffs, but for regular hunting they work great. I can hear the game I am after and the biggie, I can hear other people talking at me. Yep, hearing aids are expensive if you want good ones, but that is the case with most stuff. I had to ask myself, how much is hearing worth???

I have gone through a few different one to find what I like best. Stinks spending a bunch of money on them and not happy with how I felt wearing them but I’d rather keep my hearing then not. Tried basic muffs with amplification they work at the range and wing shooting but when it’s 5 degrees out makes wearing stocking hats difficult. Went to around the neck walker brand with bluetooth and like those but the neck part would shift and push buttons on me if I turned my head to much. Currently using Caldwell E-Max shadows, kind of like airpods, with bluetooth and sound suppression but they also have dual microphones to pickup animals sounds. So far I’ve liked everything they have except with phone calls, people seem to not hear me as clear.

Not trying to tell a guy to spend a bunch of money but that’s the only way I figured out what worked best for me. Being in my mid-30’s I’d like to keep my hearing as long as possible seeing how hunting impacted my grandpa and dad without using it.

Walker razors at the range, Peltor TEP in-ear when duck/goose hunting.

I just noticed this thread and a lot of comments I would’ve made have been made already. I don’t recall the brand (they were bought at Cabelas, around $85) but I’ve used electronic over the head earpro and they worked pretty well. When I was a range instructor we’d turn them on and you can actually hear normal conversation pretty well but then they dull the volume of gunshots pretty effectively.

Good post to get people thinking. I’ve had tinnitus since I left active duty army (about 14 years now) and I don’t play around with that stuff anymore. I wear double ear protection at ranges and I wear earmuffs while mowing now (I know, what a genius to think of these things after my hearing goes downhill).

I tried the walkers with batteries. They work very well, can hear conversation but still stops the gunshot noise. However, go with the rechargeable. The batteries on mine die in 1 day, and it’s a pain changing them while in the stand. They also amplify your beard scraping against your coat, wind blowing, etc, but it’s worth it to save your hearing.

I also have a pair of decibullz. Super cheap and they work well. My word of caution though is that you only get one chance to mold them. Once you’ve pushed the mold to far or thin, you can’t correct them. But they are custom fit. Normal conversation is a little muffled with these.

If money is no object, go with the Walkers rechargeable. Or try them both I guess.

I have the Walker Ear buds rechargeable, they help with the noise, comfortable to wear but like mentioned, the directional part throws me off. They do pick up the wind noise on a windy day but for the money I am happy with them. Use them for pheasant hunting. Like I tell the younger ones I hunt with, wear hearing protection now so you don’t have trouble later. Wish I did, no fun to not hear in a restaurant or outside in the wind when someone is talking to you.