The truth?

I'm posting this because I think there is an enormous amount of disinformation about using suppressors for hunting.
According to what I can find ear damage can occur in as little as 85 dbs. The pain threshold is around 130db. When shooting my 7 mag, with a tuner brake, indoors I use my foam ear plugs and head muffs. Each is rated at around 30db reduction. Outside I use Walker electronic ear buds rated at 32 db reduction. I found the Walkers tolerable but not ideal. When using my 308 I find the Walkers better but not by much.
Suppressors reduce the sound level about 30 db. A standard 308 is about 156 db, the 7 mag,167db without a brake. I'm sure mine is louder! A reduction of 30db doesn't come close to being hearing safe with either gun. Clearly it does bring them below the pain threshold. But you often hear the claim that suppressors make your gun hearing safe. Unless your shooting subs I don't believe any suppressed supersonic cartridge is hearing safe. It might be "pain free" but it's not hearing safe!
I'm thinking this new suppressor generation are going to make a lot of lawyers rich in the future when they lose their hearing. I have tinnitus likely from years of shooting 22lr rifles with no hearing protection in my youth. 22lr rifles are 122 db.

Hearing loss is not just related to db level, but how long the exposure is. 8 hours of 85 db will cause hearing problems, a fraction of a second at 85 dp will not.

I think your looking at this wrong. Most of us that run supressors, at least the people I know, don't go to the range and shoot without ear pro, even supressed. If you are hunting and take a shot with an unsupressed rifle, you WILL get more hearing damage than a supressed rifle. Also, everyone, and also every animal, within miles will know there was gunshots, and your rough location. Additionally, suppressors make rifles much more pleasant to shoot. The concussion you feel from your brake is no longer there, and it's a MUCH better scenario for new shooters.

If the sole and only intent was to make a rifle 100% without question hearing safe, to never cause the smallest amount of hearing damage, supressors would need to be much larger, and even then, the hypersonic crack of the bullet may be over that threshold. That is simply not the intention, never really was. It's to make rifles more pleasant to shoot, REDUCE (not remove) hearing damage potential, reduce your signature, noise pollution, and stop muzzle blast.

Now sub sonic cartridges and rimfires, they absolutely can be suppressed to be hearing safe and extremely quiet.

Problem is that hearing loss can start over 85db--- BUT hearing loss numbers are time weighted so since a gun shot only lasts for milli seconds it is hard to definitively put a number on what gun shot dB will cause hearing loss--- plus it's "all noise within an 8 hour work shift" as denoted by the federal agency....so if you fire multiple shots suppressed within an 8 hour "shift" it all adds up to hearing loss--- so 1 shot suppressed from a magnum rifle may be "hearing safe" but when does it change to hearing damage? 2 shots 5, 10?
I still wear plugs or muffs--- but doubling up on protection doesn't double the dB lloss-- I can't remember the equation but you can't add plugs to muffs numbers

codyadams said:

Hearing loss is not just related to db level, but how long the exposure is. 8 hours of 85 db will cause hearing problems, a fraction of a second at 85 dp will not.

I think your looking at this wrong. Most of us that run supressors, at least the people I know, don't go to the range and shoot without ear pro, even supressed. If you are hunting and take a shot with an unsupressed rifle, you WILL get more hearing damage than a supressed rifle. Also, everyone, and also every animal, within miles will know there was gunshots, and your rough location. Additionally, suppressors make rifles much more pleasant to shoot. The concussion you feel from your brake is no longer there, and it's a MUCH better scenario for new shooters.

If the sole and only intent was to make a rifle 100% without question hearing safe, to never cause the smallest amount of hearing damage, supressors would need to be much larger, and even then, the hypersonic crack of the bullet may be over that threshold. That is simply not the intention, never really was. It's to make rifles more pleasant to shoot, REDUCE (not remove) hearing damage potential, reduce your signature, noise pollution, and stop muzzle blast.

Now sub sonic cartridges and rimfires, they absolutely can be suppressed to be hearing safe and extremely quiet.

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I guess my beef is that companies advertise that their product makes your gun "hearing safe", it doesn't. My other question is if you should use ear protection with a suppressor anyway, what's the point? As to your point of everyone hearing your gunshot for miles that's certainly true but I deer hunt on a ranch that's 1100 acres with stands separated at least 1000 to 1500 yards or more with rolling hills. You hear the suppressor guys shoot! Your just not sure what direction the shot came from. BTW, I have 2 suppressors, when I'm hunting with supers, at night, I'm wearing he Walkers. Gun shots during the day are common out in the country.

cohunt said:

Problem is that hearing loss can start over 85db--- BUT hearing loss numbers are time weighted so since a gun shot only lasts for milli seconds it is hard to definitively put a number on what gun shot dB will cause hearing loss--- plus it's "all noise within an 8 hour work shift" as denoted by the federal agency....so if you fire multiple shots suppressed within an 8 hour "shift" it all adds up to hearing loss--- so 1 shot suppressed from a magnum rifle may be "hearing safe" but when does it change to hearing damage? 2 shots 5, 10?
I still wear plugs or muffs--- but doubling up on protection doesn't double the dB lloss-- I can't remember the equation but you can't add plugs to muffs numbers

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I know doubling up on ear protection doesn't double your protection but it does help especially on indoor ranges. I don't know at what level instant hearing damage occurs, I've been looking for that.

gvjm said:

I guess my beef is that companies advertise that their product makes your gun "hearing safe", it doesn't. My other question is if you should use ear protection with a suppressor anyway, what's the point? As to your point of everyone hearing your gunshot for miles that's certainly true but I deer hunt on a ranch that's 1100 acres with stands separated at least 1000 to 1500 yards or more with rolling hills. You hear the suppressor guys shoot! Your just not sure what direction the shot came from. BTW, I have 2 suppressors, when I'm hunting with supers, at night, I'm wearing he Walkers. Gun shots during the day are common out in the country.

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For a couple shots a year, like what most hunters take on big game, getting below 140db is adequate to prevent hearing damage. You still need ear pro while practicing, but not for a couple shots in the field. Hearing damage is a function of time and intensity. While hearing damage can occur relatively low intensities, it takes hours for it to happen. The few millisecond long impulse of a suppressed gun shot won't cause hearing damage unless you're exposed to it repeatedly.

The same thing applies in a self defense scenario, and the flash reduction helps preserve low light vision.

For night hunting signature reduction is beneficial both to keep the flash from blinding the shooter and to keep animals from identifying the shooter's location. The same is true for any scenario where you don't want to spook whatever you're hunting like varmints, but visual signature is much less important.

Hearing protection does not prevent hearing loss. Concussion from shooting is conducted through the bones in your head and causes hearing damage. The only way to avoid that is to stop it at the source.

High volume shooting, especially with a brake off of props that reflect concussion towards you (like a lot of PRS matches) will leave you feeling like you've been punched in the face after a couple hours. Even "bad" suppressor like a 419 Maverick prevents that.

At the range I use ear pro no matter what I'm shooting. I have a NIOSH sound level app on my phone. I used it when I was shooting .308 subs with a Nomad 30 the other day. It's not a legit piece of test equipment but it's not crap either. This is one of two shots. The other one looked similar, but max was 112.6 dB and a few other parameters were a little higher.

LAeq: 90.5 dB
Max Level 113.5 dB
LCPeak: 131.6 dB
TWA: 62.3 dB <--
Dose: 0.5%

Like I said, I was wearing ear pro. I've read that sound can enter through your mouth or nose. :/ Eh... it was on the internet so take that for what it's worth.

Phones won't track gun shots correctly at all....you can re t the proper test equipment if you want real numbers