What self defense caliber to safe guard your hearing?

F

FUD

Moderator
A gun fired indoors without proper hearing protection can have long lasting negative effects on your hearing. If someone breaks into your home, chances are you will only have time to grab your firearm and not have time to grab some ear protection. What caliber would be the best choice as a good stopper for self defense (thus, excluding the smaller calibers like .22's, .25's, .32's, etc.) but still minumize the noise level (I'm aware that in a tense life & death situation, people clain that they don't even hear the noise from the gunshot but the damage to hearing can still be there).
Share what you know, learn what you don't -- FUD
fud-nra.gif
 
I currenly use hot 38 specials or mild 357 magnums indoors, but I think a 45ACP or mild 45 Colt would be ideal. Big bullets loaded with a mild load. Punch a big hole without busting your eardrums.
 
I've shot a majority of the major calibers (.38, 9mm, .40, .45) but with earmuffs on, I really can't tell the difference in noise level from one round to the next. Does anyone know where to find this type of info?
 
Sir,
I think that all the common self defense calibres exceed the threshold necessary for permanent hearing damage. With that in mind, I would suggest that your primary concern be choosing a calibre that provides for maximum incapacitation of your attacker. You have to be alive to be fitted with hearing aids.

------------------
"Pathfinders Light the Way!"
 
Unless I am shooting 44 Magnum or larger from a handgun, or a 223 or larger semi-auto rifle, I never wear ear protection. Although I don't shoot indoors, I would say that your most quiet full-bore is a 38 Special or 9mm. You may even want to try some 9mm subsonic rounds.
 
Mornin Fud......I think that situation is kinda like the presidential election, lesser of two very great evils.

Any projectile powered by expanding gasses will not go silently down the range. If there is enough energy to be effective, the noise energy will be sufficient to cause permanent damage. From, .22 included, the smallest through the largest; all will cause damage when fired in an enclosed, reflective surface, space.

Porting makes it worse generally but I haven't seen any info on shooting ported guns in an enclosed space.

My take.....Stop the goblin and consider the tinnitus and hearing loss to be part of the damage the intruder did. Use what works for you, easy good hits and bullet efficiency.

You have already had more shoot/no shoot situations and have shot more at a living threat than most LEOs or Military.

May you be always prepared and may you never have to shoot for real again.

Sam......old, deaf and alive.
 
Allen, Louder noise = more damage.

Good morning to you Sam. Nice to see you here, sir.

[This message has been edited by FUD (edited July 30, 2000).]
 
Ed Sanow did an excellent article on just this topic in the May, 1994 issue of Handguns magazine. His testing bears out exactly what PreserveFreedom says: a 9mm or .38spl+P (fired from a four-inch barrel) is the maximum blast that your ears can stand without "significant" damage. He qualifies this to say that, if you are in a very small room or narrow hallway, then all bets are off. You WILL have permanent hearing loss. His benchmark for acceptable ammo was that which produced less than 120db of blast. By the way, diyj98, only one .45acp came close, the Federal 185-grain JHP at 121db (close enough if you want to use a .45acp!). :)
 
Most people during times of intense crisis have "auditory exclusion"

Many people who have been involved in gun fight dont even remember hearing the gun go off, nor do they have hearing damage afterwards.

This is the same premise that when trying to give directions to persons in danger....makes you have to repeat things several times to them for them to overcome the exclusion.

My only concern would be that a well trained shooter (practical / Tactical) may not panic enough to engage auditory exclusion to his/her advantage.

SDnR ;)
 
Stopdropnroll:

Your are absolutely incorrect! I shoot with three medical doctors, two of whom are ear specialists. They have given informal lectures to our shooting club on the damage done from muzzle blast. Yes, its true that you won't "hear" the blast, but it WILL damage your ears. Period. There is no magical way of stopping the physics of muzzle blast. Our range XO is a 30-year veteran of our local PD and he has been involved in seven gunfights. He confirmed that he never heard any of the guns going off, just saw muzzle flashes. He also confirmed that his hearing specialist has been able to chart the decline in his hearing over the years and the drops were all consistent with his gunbattles. The "auditory exclusion" has to do with the way the mind focuses during crisis but does not refer to an actual shutdown of the physical hearing process. Wear hearing protection or use the recommended calibers (or suffer the consequences).

[This message has been edited by Prof (edited July 30, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Prof (edited July 30, 2000).]
 
Prof, that's sort of what I said ... <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by FUD: ... I'm aware that in a tense life & death situation, people clain that they don't even hear the noise from the gunshot but the damage to hearing can still be there...[/quote]... Thanks for confirming it. FUD
 
It bothers me that silencers are illegal. They would take care of this problem. I shot a .45 cal. model 1911 in the Army once without hearing protection. That was a mistake! My ears rang for 3 days. Today, I'm careful to wear protection to preserve what hearing I have left.

------------------
Alexander Solzhenitzyn:
"Freedom is given to the human conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility."
 
If preventing hearing damage was a concern, I'd go for a long-barreled unported .45 or .38spl with heavier, slower bullets. If not restricted to pistols, a 20ga with birdshot would likely be the best bet (I had one fired in the same room with me and the report was surprisingly mild).
 
Busted eardrum does not directly relate to permanent ear damage. Destruction of the individual cochlear hairs is permanent and the eardrum heals rather rapidly, often with little or no loss of hearing.

Sound pressure measuring equipment usualy measures the gross output of the source without consideration of the various frequencies within that sound. One could have a gross sound level that was acceptable for short period exposure; but within that sound there could be a particular frequency that was substantially above the risk threashold.

If you are an audiophile you are screwed. If you just want to be able to understand the human voice you can afford to lose a lot of different frequencies and still get by.

Let us not forget that the 120db limit is arbitrary and based on one time instantanous exposure. The longer the time of exposure and the more times exposed both contribute to the extant of damage. If you dump a magazine from the hallway it will take a far lesser amount of sound pressure to wipe out certain frequencies and derrogate your hearing at some other frequencies.

The ear is a rather high resolution instrument, one can have total loss at 3,040 hertz and yet hear adequately at 3,000 hertz. Too bad First Alert makes some of their alarms to emit at 3,040, I can hold one in my hand and only tell it is activated by the vibration in my hand.

My point, at last.......There may be a load, heavy or small, that will affect the speech recognition less at the sacrifice of other frequencies.

There are few audiologistss who can even test for hearing loss at other than standard test frequencies. 500, 1000, 1500, 2000,3000,4000 etc hertz. It is possible for a functionaly deaf person to take the test and pass it well. His disability only shows when doing word discrimination testing and that can be done in a bar with no equipment.

Some excellent work along this line has been done by the House Brothers clinic in L.A. and by the Naval Aviation School of Medicine in Pensacola.

Sam.........say wha?
 
Many years ago I use to be the fetch-it boy for an auditory research group. I would suggest that in an enclosed area, any handgun report would damage the hearing. The high frequency is most likely to be damaged at low pressures. Now, I suspect that many of you are males over forty who have already lost much of your high frequency response. Arguements have been made that this would not happen if women would not nag and scream at us indoors when we sneak around and purchase guns that we do not need. This is probably a greater threat to your hearing than an indoor shooting that will never happen. Bottom line, wear ear protection, or do damage with any caliber. What are the stats for indoor shootings and LEO?
 
Opinion based on personal experience: A one-time event, such as a few shots fired indoors, will not significantly degrade one's hearing.

Look. Before I even knew about hearing-protection, I had fired a few hundred rounds from a .30-06--and then I went into the Army. During that time, I was exposed to normal Basic Training with the Garand. In Korea, it was training with a Quad-.50. On a Navy ship, during ack-ack training, I was way too close to a 5" gun. (Once!)

After I got out, and was in college, I had my ears tested at an Engineering Fair. I could still hear up to around 17,000 or 18,000 cps. I did have notable degradation in the middle of the human speech frequencies.

If I feel my life is threatened, I'm less worried about protecting my ears against the noise than I am about using my hearing to help locate any Bad Guy.

I can tell you from personal experience from two ADs that a .357 Maggie is very loud when in a closet. A .45ACP from a Commander is rather loud in a typical living room. Neither seems to provide further notable degradation of my hearing...

You just gotta figure your priorities: Whether 'tis nobler to find the Bad Guy first, or have him find you.

Regards, Art
 
Art:

Many good points in your post. Protect yourself first and grab the muffs at the range.

With regards to the general topic:
First, deaf and loss of hearing are two different discussions. Loss of hearing occurs without recognition, unless it is profound. It usually occurs at selected frequencies and not over the full range of hearing. It goes without diagnosis until you say "huh". Loss of hearing comes about with aging. It is more prevalent with males. This is because we are the superior sex. Women just aren't tuff enough to undergo loss of hearing and not give a damn. It is accelerated by loud noises, especially in the higher frequencies, but at a threshold much lower than those discussed above. I'm talking loud, but not even gunshot loud. It is accumulative and it occurs at the level of individual cell death. We are not talking ear drum. Now, the high frequencies are very important for localization of sound and discrimination of speech. That is why moderate loss in a small frequency range can cause us to "huh" more than we would like. So, best not to shoot without protection. When you are in the military and without your lawyer..that is a different story. When you get up at night to find a bad guy dissing your dog, well that is a different story :)
 
Everyone should have a belt bag readily available that contains your home defense firearm, extra magazines, extra ammo, active hearing protection, cell phone, flashlight...etc...

You would simply grab the belt bag in an emergency and have everything you need at your disposal. Including hearing protection!

When firearms are discharged inside and enclosed space, the muzzle blast is amplified due to reverberation from the building structure. (especially concrete!)

So I seriously doubt that one caliber is going to damage your hearing less than another when fired indoors. Everything is going to be above 130db which results in instant hearing damage.

If I had to shoot indoors without hearing protection, I'd seriously opt for low pressure calibers such as +P .38 Special or .45ACP... still, hearing damage is going to be inevitable.
 
Hearing protection is a somewhat mute point when you consider the necessity of hearing whats going on around you in a truly bad situation. Perfect hearing is of no use to a dead man.
I have put 2 mags of .45acp through an officers 1911 with no hearing protection, just to be aware of what its like, I won't be repeating the experience unless necessary. It took about a day for the ringing to stop. Its been said that the noise of the gun doesnt seem to affect most people under the stress of self defense scenarios, something about adrenaline induced auditory bypass or some such.
fwiw.
 
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