Hearing Protection Recommendations

Wish I could help, but I always double up. Surefire hearing defenders in ear and Peltor ComTacs over ears.

How well do the surefire work by themselves? The point of them is the ability to hear regular conversation but block the gunfire. Does it do this well?

I have the Caldwell shadows, they work at reducing loud noises and enhancing low level noises. Also Bluetooth so I use them to listen to podcast when mowing or on tractor.

I have the axil GS extreme 2.0s. I keep forgetting to try my duck call while wearing them, but so far I like them for target shooting/grass cutting. They come with some stick on “wind filters” that actually seem to do a pretty decent job of knocking down the wind noise. I don’t think I’m going to use them in the deer stand because I don’t really care for the way nature sounds through electronics. I’m hoping they work well in the duck blind though. I never could get used to walkers because they completely cut the sound out when I blew a call, but these seem to lower the volume rather than cut the sound completely. FWIW I picked them up for 50% off so $100 a while back. They’ve been sitting at 35% off and went to 40 for Labor Day, so they may discount them more later.

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How well do the surefire work by themselves? The point of them is the ability to hear regular conversation but block the gunfire. Does it do this well?

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If anyone has an opinion on this, I would like to know.

I find products like this really intriguing. Of course, that's coming from the perspective of an older hunter w/ chronic tinnitus (ringing in ears) and hearing damage from some ill-advised unprotected/inadequate protect gunfire hearing damage. I do everything I can now to protect the hearing I have left. I don't experiment w/ products. This is especially an issue for me as I hunt w/ long-barreled handguns that are typically much louder than rifles. When hunting, my standard is foam plugs covered by electronic muffs on max volume. At the range, it's foam plugs covered by non-electronic muffs. My concern w/ using the electronic ear buds is how well they suppress gunfire as opposed to general noise. For example, a few months ago my son went on a prairie dog hunt w/ me. He wore his Air Pods exclusively for hearing protection. I checked it out when I got home. Air Pods are good at reducing the level of sound (they have really a strong NRR of 34 IIRC). On the other hand, one technical article I found didn't recommend using them as hearing protection from gunfire because of the unique characteristics of gunfire (rapid spike). My google review on the AXIL was brief, but I couldn't find anything that directly mentions how well they handled gunfire, just that they had a max NRR of 29. One other caveat when using ear buds for gunfire hearing protection. There is a small amount of sound conducted through the bones surrounding the external ear. I don't remember the exact amount, but it's enough to potentially contribute to hearing damage. Muffs protect from this type of hearing damage while ear buds and plugs alone do not. I'd be interested to see if someone has the information I couldn't find.