Firearms Hunting Silencers 101
The Silence of the Hunters – A Hearing Protection Perspective
This post comes from renowned firearms and hunting writer Bryce M. Towsley.
“For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, It might have been,” John Greenleaf Whittier
I am looking at the results of my most recent hearing test and the lines on the graph drop off faster than one step too far at the Grand Canyon.
It didn’t have to be that way
There are several factors that caused my hearing loss, but shooting is a big one. Guns and hunting have been my passion and my profession for a very long time and that steep line on the chart is the price extracted.
Trust me, you do not want that to happen to you.
I now wear extremely expensive hearing aids and still have the TV too loud for anyone else to sit in the room. I can’t understand conversation in a noisy restaurant, and it’s been a long time since I have heard a deer grunt or a turkey drum.
I have learned by default to read lips, so that whole “mask up to stop the spread” thing was a nightmare. With the background noise in places like the SHOT show, I look like a fool, just grinning and nodding, because I can’t understand a word anyone is saying to me. Even at home, my wife must be facing me when we talk, otherwise she mumbles.
Using silencers on my guns would have helped prevent this outcome; except they were not legal to own in my home state of Vermont until just recently. If I had been allowed to use them decades ago, then maybe I would not bicker with my wife about that mumbling thing so much. Maybe too I could still go the movies and not keep repeating, “What did he say”?
For the record, the answer seems to be, “He said to shut the hell up and watch the damn movie!”
If your ears are ringing after a loud shot, or several loud shots, there will be consequences. Even if your hearing seems to be ok once the ringing goes away, it is not. Permanent hearing damage accumulates and each time a little more is added to the damage of the past. It’s like dropping a dime in a piggy bank. It takes a while to fill the piggy bank, just like it takes a while to become profoundly hard of hearing. You are not even aware of it until people start mumbling and the audio system on your TV begins losing its sound quality.
It will not heal or get better; it’s with you forever. Once you lose any of your hearing there is no way to get it back. Sure hearing aids help, but they are a very long way from bringing it back to what it was. Frankly, they are a pain in the a . . . ah . . . neck. Not just because using them is frustrating, but for other reasons too. Like when I lost one in a huge bog while hunting woodcock. I could have paid off what I owed on my truck for what the replacement cost. The price of my last pair would have paid for most of a Cape buffalo hunt. A lot of money for something you learn to hate.
Silencers do not silence. In the movies a silenced firearm makes a sound like a farting chipmunk. But that’s just Hollywood hokum. In real life, they mute the peak impulse of a rifle shot by 20 to 35 dB. Wearing earmuffs or ear plugs when you shoot mutes the peak sound level by 20 to 35 dB. In other words, a silencer on your rifle is going to be almost exactly like shooting it unsilenced while wearing high quality earmuffs. There is still plenty of noise, but it should be low enough to prevent damage to your hearing.
The main reason they don’t do that chipmunk fart thing is because while the sound of the shot is muted considerably, the sound of the sonic boom from the bullet is not. That sonic boom will grow louder with the powerful cartridges we use for big game hunting and is relative to the velocity and size of the projectile. For example, the longer, heavy for caliber bullets that are in vogue right now can increase the level of the sonic induced sound. The bottom line is simple enough; the bigger and longer the bullet and/or the higher the velocity, the louder the sonic crack.
The speed of sound is defined as 1,125 fps. It can vary slightly with environmental factors. I believe the industry standard for sub-sonic ammo is 1,050 fps. Shooting ammo that is slower than the speed of sound through a suppressed rifle shows a remarkable reduction in sound. The trouble is that sub-sonic ammo usually is not practical for hunting as the lower velocity reduces the power of the ammo and the performance of the bullet substantially. So, when hunting, that sonic boom is mostly what you hear with a suppressed rifle, and it’s got to be there.
The threshold for an impulse noise to cause permanent hearing damage is 140 dB. Most hunting rifles are louder than that. The danger to your hearing grows exponentially as the sound gets louder. Some hunting rifles can reach 185 dB or higher, particularly if they are fitted with a muzzle brake. A silencer controls the sound to keep it (usually) below the 140 dB threshold for hearing damage. That’s why they are important on a hunting rifle.
Sure, I always tried to wear hearing protection, but that is just not practical for a lot of hunting. So, we kid ourselves into thinking that it’s just one shot, or maybe two and it’s fine.
I remember long ago when I was a kid at a cub scout meeting and for some reason we were talking about the mileage on a car and how it adds up. One of the moms said, “Well it just measures long trips, things like going to the store don’t count.” Of course they do and every mile that car rolls is reflected on the odometer. It’s the same with hearing, we think, “well it’s just one shot, it won’t matter.” The hard truth is that every shot is captured in your hearing loss. Just like a trip to the store, it may not be very noticeable at the time, but like that trip, every single one is banked and sooner or later it adds up.
I joke when talking about my current general condition saying that I had a hell of a good time getting this way. The condition being the aches and pains and trials and tribulations of getting older. It’s all payment for a lifetime of activities which take a toll. I am asked if I would change anything and for the most part the answer is no. I understood that some of those things would come with a price due later in life. Things like hang gliders, motorcycles, martial arts and even drinking whiskey. Walking miles with heavy packs, frostbiting my feet while trapping beavers, freezing my hands rabbit hunting in arctic cold, or miles riding horseback into the backcountry. The result has been broken bones and worn-out body parts. Much of it I suppose could have been avoided with a different lifestyle, but those things are what made life worth living, so I’ll pay the price because I don’t want to whisper “It could have been” on my deathbed.
When it comes to my hearing loss? It turns out that I could have still enjoyed all those years of shooting and hunting, but maybe without this price I am paying now.
I feel cheated
My generation is winding down and what’s done is done. But the rest of you have a choice. The government prevented us from using the available technology. Things have changed, and now you now have access to the tools needed to prevent, or at least mitigate, any future hearing loss from hunting and shooting.
Some regrets are preventable. This one is your choice.
About the author -
Bryce M. Towsley is an award-winning writer and photographer whose work covers a wide diversity of subjects, but none more than the field of hunting and the firearms used for that sport.
Towsley published his first article in 1980 and in the past four and a half decades he published thousands of articles and photos in most of the major outdoor and gun magazines. He has also published five books on guns, gunsmithing and hunting and contributed to several other books, including several on handloading.
Towsley is a field editor for NRA’s American Rifleman and American Hunter and Shooting Illustrated magazines as well as a columnist for Gun Digest Magazine and his work can be found in many other hunting and shooting outlets. He appears regularly on The American Rifleman Television show. He has authored several of the all-time best-selling books on firearms and hunting.
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