Suppressor hunting??

One of the firearm privileges that was just made legal here in the state of Georgia along with now being able to carry a handgun more places.

I didn't want a silencer until now. I can legally shoot any legal firearm in my yard. Neighbors might not like the noise but the police don't care. For just plinking, I will put on my hearing protection. But now that I can legally hunt with a suppressor, I kind of want one for a .22, I think I could do a number on some of the local squirrel population with some subsonic hollow-points and a suppressor and do it quietly.
 
I'm not going to go into too many details as there are lots of other threads, but...

Shooting almost any gun with a suppressor still creates a db greater than OSHA permits. It helps a lot, but it isn't entirely safe. Shooting one or two shots a day hunting is a lot different than spending three hours shooting at the range also.
 
johnwilliamson062 said:
Shooting almost any gun with a suppressor still creates a db greater than OSHA permits.
Click to expand...
That's not entirely accurate. OSHA states, "Exposure to impulsive or impact noise should not exceed 140 dB peak sound pressure level." But every modern pistol silencer and most modern rifle silencers are under 140 dBs. This 140 dB limit leads many silencer companies to claim their silencers are "hearing safe".

So by OSHA standards, a few shots from any good modern silencer is "hearing safe" because it's less than 140 dBs and it's not continuous. But medically speaking, any sound over 85 - 95 dB can cause permanent hearing loss, and the more someone is exposed to those sounds the worse the hearing loss will be. So unless you're only shooting a few shots out of your suppressor, it's a good idea to use hearing protection.
 
Last fall I got my deer with a suppressed 45-70. The load was subsonic 500 grain bullet. It penetrated like crazy. The range was fairly close (less than 100 yards) The deer was a small mule deer buck. It worked very well. I have since found 550 grain bullets and started reloading them.
 
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