Who here is going to admit that they use silencers primarily because they're 'cool'?

[Sharkbite]

Theo has forgotten more about Suppressors and their hosts then most of us know. Id ignore him at your peril on this subject.

I run a surppressed rifle as a primary weapon at work. I suppress my pistols cause its COOL!!

 

[Theohazard]

Thanks Sharkbite! Though I'm often reminded of how much I don't know every time I visit some of the silencer-specific forums. Some of those guys have been doing this a lot longer than I have and have tons more experience, and a few of them even work for some of the major manufacturers.

This specific subject of silencers being "hearing safe" is one that has interested me ever since I had a learning experience a few years ago. At the time I still bought into the misleading and medically incorrect assertion made throughout the industry that any silencer under 140 dB is hearing safe (this is based on a misinterpretation of OSHA rules for noise exposure). I had a customer who was interested in buying a pistol can, and I mentioned that the one he was looking at was hearing safe. He told me that none of the cans we sold were actually "hearing safe". It turned out that he was a medical doctor who had experience with noise-related hearing loss. After that, it didn't take too much research for me to determine that he was right.

Now, the one area where I'd like to learn more is in the specifics regarding the exposure required to cause measurable hearing loss; gunshots are staccato and brief, so they're different than the constant noise that many of the exposure guidelines are based on. At some point I want to contact a few audiologists and ask them, because I haven't been able to find that specfic information online.

 

[RCT]

Zukiphile, I agree. The level of hearing loss one can expect from a suppressed .22 is extremely low and would require a lot of shooting to be noticable. Much of what we do in our normal lives probably causes more danger to our hearing. However, I'm simply providing context to the claims of silencers being "hearing safe".

The quietest .22 silencers using a rifle with subsonic .22 LR ammo meter in the 115 dB range. That's in the same dB range as a jackhammer or a chainsaw, and that's in a range that can easily damage your hearing pretty quickly. However, the saving grace is that the sound of the shot is very quick, so it would take a lot of shots to add up to noticable hearing loss.

I have to disagree with the talk about 22s.

We have a shop demo bolt action .22 that we fire suppressed with subsonic ammo and you simply would be shocked as to how quiet it is. Clapping your hands, listing to a phone call on your mobile phone or operating your vacuum cleaner is much louder. A pellet rifle is louder than this setup.

I submit that just walking out doors in a city or driving your car with the windows down would cause more damage.

 

[Theohazard]

I have to disagree with the talk about 22s.

We have a shop demo bolt action .22 that we fire suppressed with subsonic ammo and you simply would be shocked as to how quiet it is. Clapping your hands, listing to a phone call on your mobile phone or operating your vacuum cleaner is much louder.

I wouldn't be shocked at all; I shoot suppressed .22 all the time. And when I use my Octane 9 on a .22 it's quieter than any .22 silencer I've ever heard. And no, clapping your hands, listening to a phone call, or running a vacuum cleaner isn't anywhere near as loud as a suppressed subsonic .22. There's no .22 silencer that can get the sound down below 110 dB, and most can't get it down below 115 dB. Those other sounds you mentioned don't even come close to 110 dB.

I'm always amazed at people who think that their ears are somehow a more precise and objective measuring tool than an actual decibel meter. But our ears are no match for actual scientific measurements of sounds.

And considering 110 - 120 dB is in the range that can easily damage your hearing fairly quickly from repeat exposure, it's pretty clear that even a silenced .22 isn't truly "hearing safe". Sure, it's probably not doing noticable damage during most shooting sessions, but it still produces dB levels that are above the threshold for permanent hearing loss from prolonged exposure.