.

I know we have a few MD's on this list, maybe they can help me understand. I'm sure some of you can relate:

If I go to the local shooting range, and go to the OUTDOOR rifle range, with no walls or roof and shoy my big bore rifle without ear protection, my ears will ring for an hour. Or, if I'm out hunting and my buddy takes a shot, and I have no ears on, I ring for an hour.

HOWEVER,

When I am the one hunting, I can shoot a buffalo or whatever with my .458 with no side effects what so ever. How is this possible? Does adrenaline somehow protect our ears against this?

For the record, I don't make a habit of this, but have noted the phenomena. Strange huh?

Just double or ditto or whatever it was that Alf said.
Same thing for me...huh?
The reason farts smell...it is for the hearing impaired!

Take it from an old artilleryman and a life long shooter,much of which occurred prior to the advent of modern hearing protection,never shoot without it! I suffer from a ringing in my ears so loud that I cannot hear the report of a 22lr.at 50 yards.I find it almost impossible to carry on a conversation in a restaurant with background chatter.It isn't much fun to go thru life saying HUH? WHAT?

Bravo

The few times I hunted (shotgun) without ear protection, the effects were just as bad as shooting the same few shots on a range without protection.

However, those who interview gunfight survivors say that some of them have the same ear ringing as from shooting at a range, others have a reduced version, and some experience no audio after-effects at all. And this does not seem to be related to how loud the actual shots were. So sometimes "audio exclusion" (like tunnel vision with your ears) seems to produce some protecion, sometimes not.

Certainly not something to count on!

Hearing protection is very important. Absolutely.

Mark, good question [observation]. The last time I used my .416 w/a muzzle brake (sorry to bring this into the mix...it came welded on the gun) it was on the elephant. I used plugs while sighting in, and when shooting the two tuskless, I never heard or felt a thing. But when I had to fire two shots in the air in an attempt to scare off the matriarch, it hurt like heck. Up until then including on two previous hunts, the shots were either with protection or at game when I never noticed the noise. Must have been the extra adrenalin, as I was "expecting" the sound each time. The brake is coming off, but I wonder, did the shots that I didn't hear/feel do damage also?.?.?.

N'gagi:

ALF is giving you good dope. PLEASE take it from someone who used to instruct on M1 firing ranges (where we had no muffs and used cotton cleaning swabs shoved in our ears)Losing your hearing is a sneaky process,believe me!

Yep, hearing aid or was that handgrenade? Beats me...BOOM!

After a semi-long life of rock concerts and shooting without protection my hearing is shot and I have tinnitus -every day, every second. I can�t triangulate sound and I can�t follow a conversation in a room with background noice.

The ear has a survival mechanism that goes something like this: When you know you�re going to experience a loud noice (gunshot or whatever) the muscles that regulate the small bones of the middle ear contract and sound isn�t conveyed to the inner ear in the normal fashion. This has a marginal effect, keeping your mouth open also reduces pressure in the middle ear and offers some protection. When your buddy shoots you�re caught off guard and you feel the blast. The range phenomena is harder to explain but adrenaline (fight or flight and so on) may play a role as do reflecting materials etc.

I try to save what hearing I have left and I use active hearing protection while hunting -works well but takes some getting used to. At the moment I�m using Finnish army issue Peltor Tacticals which are also available to civilians.

Ditto Jeff and everyone else who responded above.



It must be the distractions of the hunt that make you not notice the ringing (tinnitus) after a .458 blast fired on the chase, but it is in a wide open area and only one or few shots, so it is not the cumulative damage of a range session where nearby surfaces may reflect and intensify the sound waves, even a concrete floor pad or any smooth flat surfaces like the benches, walls, posts, etc. Nearby vegetation and irregular terrain (even grass) may muffle and absorb some of the decibels on the hunt too.



If you experience the tinnitus after a session, you just lost a bit of hearing, permanently. It will eventually take its cumulative toll.



One thing not mentioned so far is that there are indeed racial or genetic differences in resistance to noise exposure hearing loss. Caucasians, and especially the northern European/Scandinavian stock, seem to be more susceptible to noise damage of hearing.



Boyhood shotgunning without hearing protection, before I knew better, has given me a 30dB high frequency loss (4000 Hz) in the left ear. This is a sure sign of a right handed shooter of long guns.



The only good thing about it is that the shriller tones of nagging women and whining children are the first to go bye bye to the perceptions of the old shooter.



If it is as loud as a lawnmower (dB's in the 80's), then you ought to wear protection. Jet engines, Ted Nugent, and gunfire in close proximity are more like 120 to 150 dB, IIRC.

Adrenalin? Could it be the same reason you don't feel recoil from your big kicker while you are whacking that big buff?

Jeff

Cewe I can identify with the tinnitis. I sometimes tell my wife "Are you gonna answer that!" I have had it for over a year and ironically it is accident related not shooting.

As far as adrenaline protecting your ears. I doubt it. It may prevent you from feeling the pain from the immediate damage. But I am pretty certain that if ears are not protected the hearing damage happens regardless. Adrenaline only protects you from feeling it.

One cannot get use to sound damages. The damages are cumulative and could evolve at different speed varying from individual to individual. When the hair cells are broken, that�s physical and for ever.
The hearing isn�t ruled by the adrenaline (or acetylcholine. The hearing system counts no muscles, no adr fiber and no adr plexus. Consequently adrenalin seems to play no role.
The hearing sense has no command.
Though it is admitted that adrenaline is the defence�s hormone. Adrenaline enhances our capacities to react to an aggression. Adrenalin acts on sighting, smelling and salivation.
It is not known to act on the hearing sense.
When we are fully involved in the action, we don�t care about hearing�s damages, we are less perceiving the effective damage.
One comes to the recurrent PH Capstick�s question, is a mauling hurting? For some people it�s excruciating, for others sustainable.
Like sex, what�s the biggest sexual organ?......................... It�s the brain.
Mixed up in a scenario, we are apt to increase or attenuate a sensation.

One can adapt to most any handicap -tinnitus, loss of an arm etc. Certain individuals are less capable of adaption and that is a psychological not physiological. Adapting to tinnitus doesn�t make the whining disapperar you just don�t "listen" to it after a certain period of adaption.

On my last couple of hunts I have used the Earinc "hearing aid" type ear plugs, that shut down momentarily for loud noise like gunfire.

Battery life is good for a couple of days hunting. They are a bit uncomfortable after the first hour, but after a day or two they're fine. And i can set the volume as high or low as desired.

I have the analog version, a quick trial of the digital did not seem any better, just higher priced. YMMV!

Simple N'Gagi, sound from your muzzle is not directed back at you. When someone shoots at a range you are on-line and the blast from the person beside you is coming at you. Think of the sound as a shotgun blast; when a bullet exits the barrel the shock wave (sound) comes out and expands to the side and front. If someone has a muzzle brake it is even more loud for those on the side and the rear because the shockwave (sound) is directed to the side and back. Muzzle brakes are designed to reduce recoil by directing the shock wave (gases) back to act like reverse thrust on a jet engine to reduce recoil. Hope this helps.

When you shoot you should wear hearing protection, or you damage your ears. Then you can't hear game or other sounds.