Ear defenders

Don’t risk it!

Shooting may damage your hearing

and the eff ect is cumulative, but which

ear defenders are best — plugs or muff s?

Perhaps both, advises Matt Cross

noise can make the experience

of being in noisy environments less

unpleasant, but the human ear can

neither toughen up to resist damage

nor regrow the tiny and sensitive cells

that are being harmed. It is a serious

issue for anyone who shoots.

Long-term exposure

The science of sound is quite

complicated; how loud the sound is,

how long it lasts, how near it is, how

much it is contained and how often

it is repeated are all considerations.

It is certainly not as simple as saying

that fi ring a .22 round produces 134

decibels (dB), any long-term exposure

to sound over 85dB risks hearing

damage, so fi ring a .22 risks damaging

your hearing.

To summarise, shooting shotguns

and centrefi re rifl es without measures

to control noise will damage your

hearing. It’s only a question of how

much shooting and how much

damage. In a few cases it will be the

sudden, complete loss of hearing

that big game hunter Jim Corbett

M

y fi rst serious taste of

noise-induced hearing

loss was delivered by

Dean from DHL. Dean

has been part of the team working on

the house I’m building, bringing pipe

bends, gutter clips, fl ooring samples,

plasterboard screws and other things.

Dean has no inclination to DIY

so when a relative gave him a power

planer and a sander he passed them

on to me. The sander was great but the

fi rst time it touched a board it emitted

a screech fi t to horrify a banshee. I

battered on, planing down board

after board. Twenty minutes later

when I switched it off I went to turn on

my radio and realised it was already

playing, but the sound was deadened

and drowned out by the intense

ringing in my ears. This was NIHL,

noise-induced hearing loss. Luckily,

it was the temporary form and my

hearing was soon restored.

Hearing loss can be temporary

or permanent, it can build up slowly

over years or be caused by a single

M. BEEDIE / D. MOORE / P. QUAGLIANA / SYKES MEDIA / GETTY IMAGESincident. Constant exposure to loud

24 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Whenit comestoeardefenders,

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41% In ear 42% Over ear

17% Sorry, say that again...

experienced when a rifl e was fi red

right next to his ear.

But for most it will be an insidious

creep, damage that goes unnoticed

until a partner points out they have

to shout for you to hear them or the

constant whine of tinnitus prevents

you from sleeping.

It is well documented that people

who take part in recreational shooting

have higher levels of hearing loss

than those who do not. This tends

to take the form of a permanent loss

of the ability to detect high-pitched

sounds, which makes it hard to hear

the sounds ‘s’ ‘th’ and ‘v’. Perhaps

unexpectedly, right-handed shooters

tend to get the most damage in their

left ear and vice versa.

The answer to my deafening

construction dilemma was simple:

a cheap but very eff ective pair of ear

You can choose between custom-made

plugs or muffs the size of a spaniel’s head

Duck and goose shooters

need to be closely tuned to

their environment