Advice on noise cancelling earbuds for gunshots

[Wapiti]

8m just trying to get this right, they have a few sets of the insert bits to suit different size earholes, and along silicone thingys to fit into the strange swirly bits of your ears. I tried a few combos and found one that fits well, and no they don't ever feel like falling out. They sit under flush, I guess is the best way to explain it, no hat chinstrap or anything has ever found a way to catch on them.
I probably wear them a few times a week. I put them back I to the case for charging each night, no idea how long the batteries last for. They haven't gone flat after the 2-3 hours I use them.
My wife has said, why are you still wearing those things? I just forget they're in.

[mickb]

Me? I will talk to my audiologist for advice and go from there. Hearing is very precious for us all.

A lot are not across the finer points of gun impulse noise and mitigating it.

[Tinker]

This has been a really interesting thread.
Electronic hearing protection has been a real gamechanger for me, with downsides: the electronic muffs are noticeably heavier and much more expensive, and the earbuds are prone to falling out or running flat etc. I use them for trainees when I'm running firearms safety courses so that I can run the course at the range next to the firing line while folks are shooting.
A bit off topic, but I've found most earmuffs are too small and squish the top of my ears. Peltor/3M are the only ones that seem to fit my lugs. Earbuds negate that problem.
The other type of earbuds are the percussive ones like Decibullz, which rely on a small diaphragm which is supposed to close off with percussive noise. I found these fiddly to mould to my ears, and the thermoplastic became brittle & broke after a year. At least they never go flat.

[Fester]

Last time I bought a new set of WiFi muffs for late nigth TV and bed time iPad use, they were so small that a babbies ears would likely not fit in.

So uncomfortable, and typical Chinese crap.
Ching Chio makes his run that can be sold for about $40 in K-Mart.
Chio Chow, down the road, makes them half-size to sell easily for $25.

The one downside of that brand Wapiti bought is searching Amazon, that other brand AXIL, or whatever makes a dead ringer copy.
I had 2 sets of their first type of electronic buds fail, and got my money back.
Reviews are still poor, showing the same failures.
Again, Ching Wo down the road likely made them cheaper.

Much the same as Vevor machines that I buy because a top-quality brand would cost near a grand.
The Vevor machine may cost $300, they have a local warehouse where a failed machine can be swapped while under warranty.
My machines are all still running years later, but when I asked a bloke how his black Ali Baba bought PCP compressor went, he said it lasted about 8 months, and high chance of doing warranty through them.

It could be a good thing that this brand is not sold through Amazon, and a bit dearer.

[Wapiti]

All I can do, is give a users' experience the best I can, after being asked.
If I can't give a lifetime guarantee that they will not crap out, get 5 stars from some mall audiologist who probably has his own stuff to sell, work interchangeably with someone's hearing aids or convince people they are money well spent, that's not my problem.

Earmuffs gave me the sh*ts, I took the plunge and tried these, and so far I wished I'd had them years ago. You blokes can go your own way, won't bother me.

Fester, you work in industry don't you? These things would be a bona-fide tax deduction.

[mickb]

Short barrels and brakes put a lot of pressure on hearing reduction systems as well.

If you look at sound calculations, 18-20" 308, 165-170db. Earplugs reduce 30-35( theoretically, again experts cant agree if protection ratings work properly for gun impulse as concussion gets through to the inner ear by bone conduction of the skull).

You are still left with 135db+ hitting the inner ear even wearing plugs. Thats like using a 22Lr without hearing protection. No its not going to send you deaf in a year, but its still apparenty not ideal.

its why I limit my exposure at ranges these days. You can hear more gunshots in a day at the range , including the blokes either side of you cranking their 300 win mags, than a life time of hunting shots in the field.

Another one too is kids are much more susceptible to the bone conduction of big blasters as their skulls are smaller and thinner. My own rule was no high powered guns for youngsters untiil they are adult and can decide whether they want to lose hearing themself. 22Lr, 22mag,410 ga, lever action subsonics only until then.

Not meant to criticize others methods. Some people let their kids use ATV or do motorcross or boxing, everything has risks and each man and family to his own

I think what protected the oild timers to a degree, even before hearing protection. Was they had longer barrels on rifles, 24" was normal, even for lever actions. Also very few had the money to blast ammo away at a range for fun each week, at least not high powered stuff.

[perentie]

Yes you can sit them in the box to charge them, and store them securely.
Here they are clean in the charging case without the silicone ear inserts on them, they fit in there with your own personal size choice of those fitted.

UltrX.jpg

I reckon, easiest way to keep them clean is to use those alco-wipes. That's what I do anyway.
I am also a fanatical personal-hygiene nut, so always keep my ears clean and free of those man-hairs that start growing in strange places as we get older.
The plugs do not get dirty visibly, but good practice is to clean them straight away before casing them. The disposable wipes make sure any germs from your hands from handling animals or any outdoor stuff, dust whatever is not going to be transferred to your ears and cause infections.

Would these act like a hearing aid as well. I had a set of the free govt supplied ones but they amplified external noise but I still couldnt understand the weather girls on TV or conversations at the range. Looks like new hearing aids and these as I am getting deafer every day. The aids went missing when I was in hospital a few weeks back and I was thinking of forking out for better ones.
Keith

[Fester]

Short barrels and brakes put a lot of pressure on hearing reduction systems as well.

If you look at sound calculations, 18-20" 308, 165-170db. Earplugs reduce 30-35( theoretically, again experts cant agree if protection ratings work properly for gun impulse as concussion gets through to the inner ear by bone conduction of the skull).

You are still left with 135db+ hitting the inner ear even wearing plugs. Thats like using a 22Lr without hearing protection. No its not going to send you deaf in a year, but its still apparenty not ideal.

its why I limit my exposure at ranges these days. You can hear more gunshots in a day at the range , including the blokes either side of you cranking their 300 win mags, than a life time of hunting shots in the field.

Another one too is kids are much more susceptible to the bone conduction of big blasters as their skulls are smaller and thinner. My own rule was no high powered guns for youngsters untiil they are adult and can decide whether they want to lose hearing themself. 22Lr, 22mag,410 ga, lever action subsonics only until then.


Yeah, dead right about short barrels; often I will glance over to see what muzzle break is so offensively loud and it will be a short barrel.

One of the worst days was a couple of old coots with shortened, sporterised .303s fitted with breaks.
Admittedly, one was right beside me, which is never going to be safe.
Short barrel and right next to your head.

Not meant to criticize others methods. Some people let their kids use ATV or do motorcross or boxing, everything has risks and each man and family to his own

I think what protected the oild timers to a degree, even before hearing protection. Was they had longer barrels on rifles, 24" was normal, even for lever actions. Also very few had the money to blast ammo away at a range for fun each week, at least not high powered stuff.

[Wapiti]

Yes you can sit them in the box to charge them, and store them securely.
Here they are clean in the charging case without the silicone ear inserts on them, they fit in there with your own personal size choice of those fitted.

UltrX.jpg

I reckon, easiest way to keep them clean is to use those alco-wipes. That's what I do anyway.
I am also a fanatical personal-hygiene nut, so always keep my ears clean and free of those man-hairs that start growing in strange places as we get older.
The plugs do not get dirty visibly, but good practice is to clean them straight away before casing them. The disposable wipes make sure any germs from your hands from handling animals or any outdoor stuff, dust whatever is not going to be transferred to your ears and cause infections.

Would these act like a hearing aid as well. I had a set of the free govt supplied ones but they amplified external noise but I still couldnt understand the weather girls on TV or conversations at the range. Looks like new hearing aids and these as I am getting deafer every day. The aids went missing when I was in hospital a few weeks back and I was thinking of forking out for better ones.
Keith

Mate I'm not sure.
They will amplify normal sounds, same as my old electronic muffs did. Pretty much the same.
When walking, I drove myself nuts hearing the sticks cracking and the crunching of gravel under my soft soled boots (just Mongrel workboots), because I know that the animals I'm stalking have way better hearing than me.
But at the shot, it's just a dull thud.

On my personal hearing issues - I have quite bad hearing loss, even after being in the heavy engineering game my whole life full time up until 50. Even though hearing protection was mandatory everywhere, and I wore it. The worst part was being in supervision, going in/out of offices into workshops and getting caught out - anyone here worked on building large pressure vessels and tanks? The noise when dogging plates into alignment is the loudest noises I've ever heard.
So I'm at the point where I need to consider hearing aids, I just haven't yet, so I have no idea how these compare. What I do know is, hearing aids don't electronically slam shut when a rifle shot goes off, as far as I know.
I said to my wife, I could use these things, and she gave me a tongue-lashing, saying no they are NOT as fine as hearing aids, and are not suited to my particular needs as far as where and to what level my hearing loss actually is.
She reckons that these shooting earbuds may even accelerate my hearing loss in other, normal scenarios if I have them turned up too much.

But for shooting, or walking along in the bush quietly, they help me enormously and I just don't get the blast-flinch when I'm shooting a 24 or 26" barrel .300.

People can fall into the trap about shorter barrels, brakes, big cartridges and the exposure they have to them around others at ranges - been there done that and we just have to realise we are all different in how we like our gear, and stick together. The worst thing that's happened to rifle ranges IMHO are whingers going to committees about other shooters with different guns that they don't have, and these people's firearms being banned. Sorry, but to me we are at a bloody rifle range, suck it up, wear hearing protection and don't be little bitches whining about other gun owners choices.
Instead, lobby the club to install blast barriers in between benches when redesigning shooting points - remember the hierarchy of controls?
If you can't remove the hazard, engineer mitigation controls - they ARE there.
Instead of complaining - because then others choices get banned, and people are put on different levels against one another.

[Fester]

I just did a quick AI search about if ULTRX and AXIL could be the same generic product, and it gave a reasonable answer.
It thinks not, but now I have to look up the model numbers so it can further investigate.

I won't buy any Axil product, despite them claiming to have improved.
Reviews show the same failings, ie, one side not working, one side failed after a couple of uses.
I experienced it all.

The ULTRX product is a bit dearer unless they all went up, and could be OK.
The proof is in the pudding: if they work without fault and keep working for a few years or more, you are on a winner.

I would love to know how well top end hearing protection works with amps and crap but not spending a grand to find they are not much better.

As a older shooter, and working in heavy industry until forced into early retirement, I must be one of the lucky ones to not suffer much hearing loss, but not willing to lose it now just because most old shooters are near deaf and can't see the danger in blasting each other.
I don't make complaints to committees and stuff like that, but how hard is it to say breaks to that end, rimfires to the other, with some leeway of course.
I have cut down my range shooting and won't use the ranges that put RO ease before safety.

The big good range has no blast boards, but they don't really work, as they don't extend past the end of the barrel.
They started using tape instead of staples when the target boards were getting shot out; I could understand that the RO worker did not have extra time to replace so many target backings.
It seems they have now done the work, but still want to use tape.
To me it seems less than rocket science, but surely the bullet hole is more of an issue than staples. I just give up, and will use their tape next time.

[Wapiti]

Years ago before Belmont did the revamp of the benches (25 years ago??), I was surprised to see they deleted all the partitions between the benches. Back then, heaps of shooters has semi auto centrelines and these partitions stopped a lot of the bitching about cases ejecting into the people to the right. Blokes like me, who shot IPSC Rifle needed to zero and test out loads just like the target shooters - after all that's what IPSC was then too.
But, people will always find a reason to complain, I found myself being the butt of complaints about that then, and when the semis were banned, the whiners needed something else so it was flash hiders, muzzle brakes, the colour of your socks, the cartridge you chose. Tha fact that you didn't want to be harassed by the range pests, the empty brass stealers, whatever made them dob. God help you if you had an expensive factory rifle.

Why they didn't replace the partitions is a shame - I heard it was because of penny pinching, but the reason given was - the RO's always got the blame if they missed people loading magazines, leaving cartridges in guns during ceasefire, actions not open, and having an open area made it easier to watch suspect people. They are always present somewhere.

So now, people have to be reminded that they are at a rifle range, guns are really loud, and some people just realise this. Others should reconsider their attendance.

[Wapiti]

Fester maybe these things aren't for you. You can never tell how anything electronic is going to last, or if the company backs up a problem, until you have one.
Maybe the foam plugs with passive earmuffs are more a sure thing, mate.