re: Ear plugs only or plugs plus muffs for dove hunting?

Definitely wear hearing protection. Ear plugs alone with a NRR rating of 33 properly inserted is sufficient. No need to double up but, not going to hurt either.

Whatever you are comfortable with.

Somebody brought a dude to one of our hunts a couple years ago. Decked out in all brand new camo from head to toe, boots the whole nine yards. It was hot as balls. Everybody else had on shorts and a tee shirt. We set the dude up in one of the better spots in the field. He sets up this chair/slash blind thing, strapped on his ear muffs and got shite on the whole day. Everybody is yelling; Bird! Over your head! Behind You! And so on. He never hears a word. I think he killed 3. Everybody else limited out. Good times.

I want to try the Caldwell ear buds they are like 26db reduction and you can still hear reg sounds but it cuts out the gunshot like the over ear electronic muffs.
I’m 46 and have shot most my life without ear pro and have paid for it, all these cats acting like it doesn’t damage hearing, it’s hard for me to tell if they trolling or being serious.
I shoot left handed and my right ear is noticeably worse than my left and when I asked the audiologist about it he asked me what hand I shoot and said yeah all the hunters I test have a bad ear opo their shooting preference due to tucking that ear into the stock of the gun.
I have audigram going back for over 20yrs now due to work and I’m prepared to get hearing aids by the time I’m 60.
Buy some good hearing protection your likely to wear or buy hearing aids later!!

You guys can laugh all you want. Like I said, I do not care what you do. Your ears belong to you. It is stupid though and people on here ridiculing others for wanting to wear ear pro is quite literally smoothbrain behavior.

Back in my younger days, I thought I was invincible and hearing protection was for the weak. I now have hearing loss and wear ear plugs doing any kind of noisy hobbies to preserve what I have left.

First off, I wear hearing protection pretty religiously when it's warranted. In a dove field it's not. I assume you're the type of person who didn't grow up around hunting, started buying tacticool shite and going to gun ranges when you got of age, studied ballistics, gun safety and threw money at all of it in order to try to catch up to people who did grow up around it. Now you consider yourself some sort of an expert, when in reality your just some stupid frick with a bunch of guns. You don't know the details, the history, the social aspects or how it (hunting) really works. I can tell all of that from your gross overestimating of how loud a dove field is and talk of DOUBLE hearing protection. You don't realize that hunters are spaced ~150 yards apart. You don't realize that a light dove load fired from your own 12 gauge (20 in my case) does not cause some brain splitting explosion. You just know what you read about.

In about a week I'll be in a dove field with my family. My dad and his brothers, who range in age from 65-78, who have dove hunted without hearing protection for all of these years, and all have normal hearing, will be out there with me. We'll cook, drink a few beers, blast doves, yell at each other and have a grand old time. You won't even be in a field because you don't dove hunt. You just like talking about it. So frick off you clueless dork.

It’s funny how upset people get about this.

I grew up hunting and shooting without ear pro. I’m in my mid 40’s and have some hearing loss. I want to keep what I have. I’ll be in the field with some orange ear plugs this year as I have been in the past. As will about 1/2 of the people I hunt with. No one I hunt with mocks or makes fun of those who wear ear pro. Frankly, it has caught on in recent years as more people have figured out that they would like to hang on to the hearing they have, and want to protect their children’s hearing.

But to each his own.

Man you said dove hunting without hearing protection will cause "irreparable damage" to your ears. You stated that you "double up" on hearing protection when you dove hunt (which you apparently don't even do). You called people dumb, stupid, smooth brained for disagreeing with you. All the while you don't dove hunt, much less know people who have dove hunted for decades who are living proof that what your saying is bullshite. But If you want to live your life by OSHA standards that's fine by me. Just so long as you know that you're "that guy". Good day.

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LSUballs

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I never said you will go deaf. You are undeniably damaging your hearing though. I never thought it would be so difficult for people to accept factual information. It's not that hard to understand. Repeated exposure to the blast from a firearm without hearing protection will damage your hearing and the damage is irreparable. If you want to do that, that is fine. Advocating that others follow in your neglect is dumb though. I don't care if you do it. I really don't. It's your decision. I just choose to use ear pro and advocate that others do.