357 Mag will no longer be by my bed

B

bu-bye

New member
Today I got my first taste of what my 357 sounds like indoors. I was on my parents land in a shed sighting my pellet gun's new scope. Every time I would think I had the cross hairs just right I would take aim at the coke can at 25 yards away, fire, and would hit in a totally different area. GRRRRR. No matter what I did I could not get the gun sighted in. After a while of still not putting one hole in the can I became frustrated and was laughing at myself. I jumped up out of the chair I was sitting in and like a flash un-holstered my Taurus Tracker. I took aim and fired from inside the shed. Big mistake!!! My ears rang bad for 5 minutes after and my head was pounding from the second the hammer hit the primer. I am typing this almost 12 hours later and my head still hurts. My left ear hurts a little but the ringing is no longer there. That really openned my ears to what it would be like if I shot at a BG in my home. My ears would be damaged aswell as my family members. I have a 9 month old baby who sleeps in the room with my wife and me. The thought of a 357 going off next to my duaghter just brakes my heart. I would hate to damage her ears at such a young age. I have shot my Glock 17 indoors and my ears and head felt fine. I think I'm going keep the 357 in the big safe and keep my glock in the mini-vault by my bed. I can get off 4 well placed shots with the glock in the same time it takes to get two out of the Tracker.

Who here has shot a weapon indoors? What is your limit? For the first time I am thinking with my ears and not only the stopping power of a weapon.
 
Well in the heat of the moment I would be willing to bet that you wouldn't be worried about the bang.

Also, auditory exclusion is something that alot of people in gun fights say they experience.
 
Oh yeah If I had to shoot with my 357 or 12g 870 I would but if I can pick the gun to fire before hand it would be my 9mm. I have also heard about people saying they don't remember hearing shots. I wonder why that is. I wish suppressors were legal in my state. Not that it would do any good with a revolver but still.
 
When I shoot deer, I often do not hear the gun or if I do, it sounds as if it were far far away. With target practice it is not the same, and I wear ear plugs then. Guess it has something to do with intense concentration/adrenalin.
Once fired just the cap on a black powder pistol inside house about 3 ft from smooth panel wall. My left ear was ringing afterwards. Yet shooting the same gun with powder and all outside is no problem.
If you have drapes, carpet, furniture, etc. iin a room it will soften the impact of reflected sound when compared to painted bare and shiny walls, floor, and ceiling that will simply reflect the sound back to you.
I work for government inspecting new construction and there is a very definite difference in room with carpeted floor and lay-in acoustic ceiling when compared to room with gyp. board ceiling and concrete or tile floor.
 
Even a little .22 pistol shot outdoors makes my ears ring if I'm not wearing hearing protection. Some advice I've seen that makes sense is to keep a set of electronic muffs by the bed in case of nocturnal encounters. You can slip on the muffs, still have your sense of hearing and have hearing protection in place. Don't think that will work for your 9 month old, though...

I personally have not tried the electronic muffs as yet, but mean to. Does anyone have any comments as to possible flaws with them or their use?
 
As I understand it, auditory exclusion is simply your brain ignoring the sound input from your ears, NOT the absence of the sound actually hitting your ears. All the damage from the noise should still take place, as it is the battering of the nerve endings, ear drums, etc. that causes damage.

Auditory exclusion may help you focus in the fight, but don't count on it to protect your hearing. I could be wrong about this, but better safe than sorry until we hear from someone who knows.
 
Have you been to a doctor for an exam? You may have permanently damaged youjr hearing, and I've heard that you can be treated to minimize the damage, even after the occurence.
 
This thread show why it's a good Idea to have a shotgun or pistol caliber rifle for home defense. A light 357 load will come out of a rifle at the sped of a hot 357 from a hangun, but with much less sound and damage. A shotgun gives a lot more power than a handgun with less flash & bang. Long guns also give you better hits at low light. as you can aim 'over the barrel', which is good enough at in the house ranges.

After firing a shot and having your ears ringing, you can actually help some healing to occur by then having silence, e.g wearing plugs for some time afterwards. But as I said, some healing, not all healing.

Rudolf.
 
Don G has a valid point. Just because your brain doesn't process "big bang" doesn't mean you aren't doing damage to your hearing. Even smaller calibers can do damage when fired indoors.

A good solution to this problem --- a set of Pro Ears on the nightstand.

Sub
 
Well, my wife thinks I'm already deaf. Her father says high range hearing loss is God's gift to husbands!!!
Bob
 
I fired my colt .357 indoors and at night...(shooting out my window at a target setup in the back 40)...I fired three shots...Not only did the bang leave my ears ringing, but the flash shooting out the right side of the cylinder rendered me incapable of even seeing the white target on the two hay bales thirty feet away from me.....my night vision (?) came back quicker than the ringing in my ears stopped....
 
bu-bye,

Switching to the pellet gun - you should set up a paper plate about 5 yards out and get your shots on paper first. Then once you get it adjusted, move out to 25 yards.

eagle10:cool:
 
JMHO . . .

. . . but I don't worry about a gun's noise when thinking if it's proper for the home defense role. If I ever have to fire a gun indoors, it's to protect someone's life. "Possible hearing damage" isn't even on the top ten list of my worries at that point. (Without even getting to the issue that I know of no reputable study that shows that .357 mag-level noise is somehow more injurious to human hearing than other calibers' noise.) But, hey, whatever works for you. :)

KSFreeman, I can understand your concerns along these lines, tho I nevertheless remain intrigued by the claims I've read that low-grain .223 bullets are much less of a threat than pistol caliber bullets after passing through the first layers of drywall. See, e.g., http://groups.msn.com/TheMarylandAR15ShootersSite/advantagesof556references.msnw and http://groups.msn.com/TheMarylandAR15ShootersSite/223penetrationtest.msnw Overpenetration (especially for those of us whose homes are not located away from others) seems like a more important issue than noise to me - sort of a corollary to Rule 2. However, despite my academic interest in the .223's rapid shedding of velocity, we generally use a .38 spl 4" for around the house - it's more Gina-friendly than some weird black pistol or rifle. :cool
 
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This is something I have always been concerned with since I record music. I hate being close to people shooting those things at the range. I put plugs inside my muffs and that works well. The electronic muffs are a great idea. What's the best place to get them online?

Flex :D
 
Switching to the pellet gun - you should set up a paper plate about 5 yards out and get your shots on paper first. Then once you get it adjusted, move out to 25 yards.QUOTE]

Oh I know how to sight in a gun. Its not the shooter its the crappy rings I bought. Its one of those giant spring, one shot, 1000fps guns. The recoil is very high for a pellet gun almost in the .223 area. The recoil just keeps f-ing up my rings. What I need to do is buy better rings then those Big-5 discount POS's:mad: . Live and learn.
Click to expand...
 
I have had the distinct privalge of firing my Ruger Red Hawk 357 in my own living room .
158 grain full power loads .
my ears did not hurt , they did not ring .. the only thing i had to deal with was the devistating over penataration that blew compleatly through the 1/2"
sheetrock , 2x4 , and exterior siding only to continue outside and penatrat the window of my truck .

in a true life and deth situation your body takes over and things like sound are obscured .

Forsaken
 
Loud noise damages your hearing, period. In my experience, however, it seems the effect is different on different people. For instance, I've been in a small bedroom when a .30-'06 was inadvertently capped off. I was fine; talking in a normal tone of voice and no ringing of the ears after a couple of minutes. The other person in the room had ringing ears for quite some time afterwards and was TALKING LIKE THIS for the next couple of hours. We were right next to each other when the weapon was discharged, too.

:confused:
 
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