Tried laying in the bath tub with your ears submerged? Try it with water as cold as you can take (not hot water, that's no good for ringing ears) Not a cold shower, cause that creates noise, a cold soak.
Your manhood may look like a scared turtle by the time you get out, but your ears should be better lol
National Firearms Association Member NFA, Canadian Coalition For Firearms Rights Member CCFR, Canadian Shooting Sports Association Member CSSA,
Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation Member SWF, Conservative Party of Canada Member CPC
Lol. We used to shoot without ear protection when we were young and dumb. The conversations in the car on the way home were pretty interesting. Then there was the band.
Don't end up like me. Wear the protection and you wont be saying 'what?' The rest of your life.
Cheers,
EZTRGT
Kyle
I play drums, shoot guns and I’m a heavy equipment tech. Everything I do is loud, I know I have accumulated hearing damage over the years and will pay for my actions. I’d be awfully surprised if your ringing ended up being permanent, if that was the case I would have been deaf years ago.
^this. I used to wear the big, industrial/over-the-ear jobs...but they make shouldering some guns impossible. I moved to decent in-ear plugs=not enough. I then bought a pair of the Howard Leight "Impact Sport" for about $75, they're pretty good. (Hickok45 uses them I think, that NUTNFANCY guy too) They're the electronic muffs, pretty low profile, pretty decent. I probably use these most now, on their own, when I'm hunting/shooting on my own. When I go to shooting ranges (rare) I wear plugs UNDER these Impact Sport muffs. Something about having an SVT-40 on either side of you, and a couple of knuckleheads shooting dirt piles just to see the mud fly. Even that's OK in small doses, but these guys had a case of ammo they wanted to burn through. The concussive force of those guns (muzzle brakes, roof overhead) sent me home with a headache that lasted more than 2 days. No hearing issues at all, either...just the relentless pounding of those stinky old Russian guns. lol
I've always tried to be respectful of noise levels, and I've always considered myself relatively prepared. There are shooting situations I just choose to not be in anymore. lol
That was the last time I went to that busy, Niagara-area range that allows walk-ons.
I fired one round of 22lr from a pistol in an indoor range. And I think that caused more damage than anything I have done so far.
Always plug and muff
Only get one set of ears. Best protect them
You’re not completely useless, you can always serve as a bad example.
I have been playing in bands for 20+ years and stupidly didn't wear hearing protection for a lot of it.. I have had a hearing test and do not have hearing loss, but do have slight tinnitus. I don't notice it often. When I go hunting I REALLY notice it. Kinda like the high pitched hum of a CRT monitor constantly..
It is true that exposure to a single round fired without hearing protection will result in hearing loss. However, such loss guideadda is not measurable, with the measurment techniques in use today.
I shot one slug from a 16" barrel 20 gauge without ear protection a year ago. Instant ringing went away a few days later. I couldn't hear as well as usual for the next week. Then my hearing returned to the previous levels. But i simply forgot at that moment. This mistake changed my view of short barrel shotguns for Bear defense while hunting, because you never have time to grab your ear muffs. Imagine the effect of a slug through a 8.5" barreled, 12 gauge from inside a tent for example. No thanks on that scenario. And yes there was a large grizzly seen in our area, if i sound paranoid.
I'm sure the 9mm the op experienced would have been much less intense than my slug. Let's put it another way. Cops and military folks regularly shoot 9mm pistols without hearing protection. So i think one shot in this case is not a big deal.
My advice... It was a relatively minor scale event happened one time for you. Don't worry after a week or less the ringing will go, the sensitivity will be back, and you'll have learned the lesson with a relative pipsqueak handgun cartridge.
Last edited by LarryG; 09-08-2019 at 04:06 AM.