Best Ear Plugs

Ear plugs are used for many thing, from simple things like blocking out your husbands snoring through to more important things like riding your Harley or working with heavy machinery and shooting guns. Even the best ear plugs are not as effective as ear muffs when trying to block out really loud noises such as chainsaws or jack hammers. But for normal day to day noise or as an additional layer of noise protection ear plugs are great.
Look At A Selection Of The Best Ear Plugs
Disposable Ear Plugs
You can buy throw away ear plugs very cheaply but by their very nature they are not going to be the highest quality items. The idea is that you can wear them in an emergency or for short periods of not too loud noise, they will offer some protection but are definitely not recommended for anyone who really values their hearing.

Best Ear Plugs

Reusable Ear Plugs
While ear plugs that you use again and again may seem expensive when compared to the disposable versions they are the best option for most people. As long as you do not lose them you should find that these ear plugs last you a long time as long as you keep them clean. If you do not care too much about looks then you can even get plugs that are connected to each other and you just wear them like headphones. Look after your ear plugs and they will serve you well for a long time

•  Clean your ear plugs regularly in warm water and clean any earwax by hand
• Allow them to dry thoroughly
• Never place wet or even damp earplugs in the ear as that can cause infections

Military Grade Ear Plugs
As you can imagine the military has a lot of experience in dealing with the noise that comes from firearms. Every person in the forces will spend at least some time shooting a variety of guns and that exposure can cause long term hearing damage if they do not take precautions. Military style ear plugs will be the best ear plugs you can buy, they won’t be the cheapest but they will be the best.  They are generally designed for all ear canal sizes and can be inserted quickly and easily.

The over ear models are becoming more and more popular as they will stay in place and you can remove the plug at the end so you can then hear normal conversations without removing the ear plugs completely. This is extremely useful when you are in situations where the noise is loud but intermittent.

Ear Plugs For Shooting
If you go to shooting ranges for leisure purposes you probably shoot a lot of rounds yourself and watch while others shoot even more. Each one of those shots has the chance to damage your hearing so it really does make sense to protect your hearing as much as you can. My opinion is that ear plugs are ok for musicians and even working around loud noises like chainsaws but if you are a serious shooter then you should consider using ear muffs. You can use both ear plugs and ear muffs together if you really want to protect your hearing.

If you only go to the range once in a while and only shoot off a few rounds then you will find that the best ear plugs will be good enough but if you are a hard core shooting enthusiast then you really should be looking at shooting ear muffs.

Conclusion
So what are the best ear plugs? Well the answer is that it depends on how you are going to be using them. Ear plugs are cheap enough that you could buy a couple of sets and test them out until you find the best ear plugs for you.

Shooting Ear Muffs Are Vital

Anyone who uses guns, whether hunting or on shooting ranges, on even a semi a regular basis use some kind of noise reduction mechanism and the best ones available are ear muffs. Some people will point out that using ear plugs with a set of ear muffs over them gives extra noise protection. This is true but they also become a bit cumbersome and can be very uncomfortable.

Reduce Noise Levels By How Much?
Using both ear plugs and muffs can add up to a noise reduction of around 36 NRR, this is pretty much the best level of  protection you can get unless you carry a industrial level portable hearing protection device around with you. The NRR rating of ear plugs is usually 6 while the best ear muff is usually 30 NRR, adding up to 36 NRR. The real question is whether the extra 6 NRR that you save by wearing the ear plugs is worth the extra level of discomfort.

Look At A Selection Of Shooting Ear Muffs

No one can ever argue that it is essential that everyone is wearing some sort of hearing protection while either shooting guns themselves or standing around watching others shoot. People often forget that just because you are not doing the firing yourself you still are around the increased noise.

How Loud Is Too Loud
I sometimes hear young people saying that “it isn’t that loud”, no one misses their hearing till it is gone and then it is too late of course. To give you some idea of how loud is too loud.

• Talking voices – 60db
• Chainsaw          -100db
• Guns                  -150db

To put that into some balance, anything over 85dbs can damage your hearing, so you should be wearing hearing protection while you use your chainsaws and probably when you mow the lawn. If you do a number of noisy things, e.g if you use a chainsaw in the day and go shooting at weekends then you should definitely be wearing shooting ear muffs.

Shooting Ear Muffs

Shooting Ear Muffs Or Ear Plugs
While I wholeheartedly thing that people are better with ear muffs when shooting rather than ear plugs I am sure you want to know about all your noise protection options so I shall share some info on ear plugs here

You can get the disposable poly urethane foam ear plugs, they are nice and soft but can be a bit tricky for first time users. PVC foam ear plugs are soft but not as soft and the urethane ones, they are a bit easier to put inside your ear. The one thing that people always mention is how cheap ear plugs are, this may seem like you are saving money. However if you go shooting even once a month you will end up spending more on foam ear plugs that you throw away all the time than you would spend more on them over time than you would on a decent pair of ear muffs designed for shooting.

The freebie ear plugs that are available at shooting ranges are not going to protect your hearing to any decree as they are going to be the cheapest bulk buy items that are available. Your hearing really is worth protecting.

The military will issue triple-flanged ear plugs made from a very soft rubber. These plugs come in different sizes and are color coded they are as effective as any ear plug can be but they are also a lot more costly than the pvc foam ear plugs.

Shopping For Shooting Ear Muffs

Before you go out and buy shooting ear muffs you should think about how you will be using them and ask yourself some questions.

• How often do you shoot
• Do you shoot alone
• Do you want over the head or behind the neck models
• How much do you think hearing aids will cost in the future if you buy the cheapest ear muffs now?

The more you shoot the more chance there is of damage to your hearing, you invest money in every other part of your hobby so do not be scared to spend money on a good pair of shooting ear muffs, they will last for years.
If you shoot alone then you may be happy to get a pair of ear muffs that just block out every sound but if you have other people around then you need to look at models that block out gun shots (and other loud noises) but allow normal volume of talk through. This is done by having some electronics in the headset and saves you having to constantly take your head set on and off.

If you shoot a lot you will be wearing your headset a lot, so it needs to be comfortable. If you find anything touching the top of your head to be annoying then you will need to get a set that are held together with a neckband. They may cost a little more but the extra money will be worth it in the reduced annoyance level.

Invest In Shooting Ear Muffs
Do not look on it as spending money, you are investing in your hearing when you buy shooting ear muffs

Noise Protection

Hearing is one of the things that you never miss until it is gone, everyone can tell a story about their parents telling them to turn the music down, now that everyone is putting ear buds as deep into their ears as they can and turning the music up as loud as it will go we can expect a whole generation with hearing problems. There are various noise protection or noise reduction ideas that I will share with you here. Do not look to buy the cheapest items you can find, once your hearing is damaged there really is nothing you can do to get it back.

Look At The Latest in Noise Protection

Electronic Hearing Protection
If you are looking for some type of hearing protection for a specific purpose e.g shooting guns or working in a factory or other loud environment you will find that electronic ear muffs could well be just what you need. As computer technology has improved so has noise protection, the speed with which electronic ear muffs can shut out loud noises then let in people speaking is simply amazing.

Peltor Ear Muffs

Ear Plugs
When you mention ear plugs to most people they think about the old waxy ones that you wear to bed to block out your husbands snoring. Shooting ear plugs are very sophisticated and while you can get throw away ones still many people have custom ear plugs made. While custom ear plugs may seem to be an expensive purchase just think about the value of your hearing. There is a good reason why the better shooting ranges give you special shooting ear muffs, the constant noise from a gun will damage your hearing forever.

Hearing Protection Ear Muffs
When I worked with a jack hammer in construction many years ago I was given a set of heavy ear muffs that would block out most of the noise. They made my head sweaty and were so uncomfortable that I would remove them when I thought no one was around. This of course was silly as I was wearing the headset so I could protect my hearing. Today’s hearing protection ear muffs are a different creature altogether, they probably have as much computer power in them as the earliest space ships and that manages the sound that is allowed through. By closing off loud noises but letting in voices the latest ear muffs have become a must have item for anyone who works on a factory floor or goes shooting.

The worst damage is done to young ears and ear muffs are generally not the best looking things, it is for this reason that you can now get ear muffs in all sorts of colors, including camoflague, which may be a bit more palatable for younger shooters or workers.

Noise Protection
While it may seem obvious to protect your hearing from things like shotguns and factory machinery what about the items that we may encounter every day which will damage our hearing but we ignore
-lawn mowers
-woodworking tools – saws, drills, nail guns
-liquidizers

You may laugh as we never think about noise protection for our ears when we are mowing the lawn but the reality is that a lawn mower can be very loud. When you see the local kid mowing his 5th lawn of the day during his summer holidays without any kind of noise protection you can be sure that he is damaging his hearing. If you spend a lot of time working on your car, or building things in the woodshop you must be wearing something to protect your hearing every time you go and build something.

Noise protection is a serious consideration and taking it into account now will save you lots of expense and pain later in life.