Comments on: Reviews from the Armchair: Radians Cease Fire Earplugs

By: Raph84

Raph84 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:30:07 +0000

Surefire earpro ep4′s might work where the radians fail (for heavy noise they have a little insert that blocks the baffle chanel Only 19nrr total though so still may not be enough).

I actually ended up here after looking for reviews of them and found your reveiw for radians

By: armchairoutfitter

armchairoutfitter — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:47:15 +0000

I will add as an update that the tested ear plugs were not sufficient at the firing range under a metal awning at the bench next to shooters firing high-powered rifles. I took them out after about two rounds and went back to the cheap foamies. I’d love to try a pair like you described.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:03:06 +0000

If one has trouble with tender ear canals like I do, cheap ear plugs dont cut er. I had a pair moulded, with a 65 minus decible rating, but magnifying slight sounds, much the same as Walkers Game Ear. $125 Cdn, and worth every penny. Treat em rite and they’ll last a life time.

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:26:31 +0000

That makes perfect sense now that I had it pointed out. My own limited experience is with small firearms, so I had not thought about how the head would be positioned, only that a rifle would be on one side of the body.

Regardless, if one is dead set against total hearing protection, protecting the ear that receives the most abuse is preferable to no protection at all.

By: armchairoutfitter

armchairoutfitter — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:10:50 +0000

Greg,

I’ve actually observed that if leaving one ear unplugged, the ear on the gun side is preferable. This is because if the cheek is firmly on the stock, as it should be, the audio “shadow” of the head blocks some of the sound. The off-side ear will be the one that takes a beating if it’s not plugged. I have left the gun-side (starboard for me) unplugged and then put the plug in right before the shot, but that’s too much finagling when the birds get up for my taste.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:22:04 +0000

Hey, I actually have something useful to add this time.

The decibel scale is exponential. Roughly, every three decibels in noise level reduction is equivalent to one half of the amount of sound power. Therefore a 6dB reduction should cut the sound power to one quarter of its original value. If the sound power level is low, for instance walking around one’s home, a relatively small dB reduction will be far less noticeable than it will in a loud environment, such as a shooting range.

If the issue is not being able to hear subtle sounds of movement, might I suggest at least plugging the ear nearest the firearm? Sound diminishes by about 3 dB when you double the distance from the source, plus the ear canal is facing the opposite direction.