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Ear protection for fowling


Denboy
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10 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

None!.......a couple of shots if you lucky, on the marsh, ain't gonna do much harm....in comparison to the number of shots a driven day or a days clay bustin will provide!

I quite often have 20 shots or more in a flight. I personally wouldn't want to be without ear defenders.

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It's there in black & white in an earlier posting .... do you advocate hearing protection on the marsh or not?

It's down to personal choice, but I found you advice alarming.

1 minute ago, motty said:

I quite often have 20 shots or more in a flight. I personally wouldn't want to be without ear defenders.

Especially with homeloads:lol:

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1 minute ago, Smokersmith said:

It's there in black & white in an earlier posting .... do you advocate hearing protection on the marsh or not?

It's down to personal choice, but I found you advice alarming.

Especially with homeloads:lol:

Your determined to pick a fight ain't you? I did not offer advice! I posted my personal choice that I do not wear ear protection on the marsh. I also drew a comparison between shooting a couple of shots on the marsh whilst not wearing ear protection and felt it was not as likely to damage your hearing as shooting many shots at driven game or clay pigeon shooting!

 I do not advocate anything!.......wearing ear protection in any given situation, is a matter of personal choice!

18 minutes ago, motty said:

I quite often have 20 shots or more in a flight. I personally wouldn't want to be without ear defenders.

Lucky you! And I respect your personal right to choose!

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Shame they don't do ear defenders for dogs. My 12 year old springer seems to be deaf now (hard to tell, perhaps he's just fed up doing what he's told!), and a friend who shoots more than me has had two dogs go deaf at an earlier age, as has he in one ear. I've not always worn ear defenders on the marsh as I never seem to get many shots (compared to others perhaps), even so have got near constant tinnitus in my left ear, not a good sign I guess. Could be coincidence, or just old age for dog and owner, anyone else had experience of dogs going deaf?

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I haven’t fired many shots and my hearing took a pounding! Tinnitus in the left ear for good now, a constant high pitch And some of you will know what that’s like. I’d say other guns were too close to me possibly. My opinion is working without ear protection for years had probably taken my ears to the edge of damage and tinnitus and a few shots did the irreparable damage. Some people I believe are lucky with their ears like any body part and get off with it and I didn’t.  I bought a set of Howard Leight over ear type from the local gun shop here and still go shooting.  I notice more youngsters wearing them now which is great. 

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1 hour ago, Diabolo said:

Shame they don't do ear defenders for dogs. My 12 year old springer seems to be deaf now (hard to tell, perhaps he's just fed up doing what he's told!), and a friend who shoots more than me has had two dogs go deaf at an earlier age, as has he in one ear. I've not always worn ear defenders on the marsh as I never seem to get many shots (compared to others perhaps), even so have got near constant tinnitus in my left ear, not a good sign I guess. Could be coincidence, or just old age for dog and owner, anyone else had experience of dogs going deaf?

Shooting in close proximity to dogs will obviously do them no favours, but I don't know how much damage is done. I have a couple of 13 year old labs, one which has been to exposed to many thousands of loud bangs, and one which has barely been out shooting at all. They both seem as deaf as each other!

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Like Panoma 1, this is the second time I`ve agreed with him, I don`t wear any hearing protection when fowling.

Much of the alleged damage done to hearing by shotgun shooting is done by the "other persons" gun. Often, when shooting  on my own , especially in a strong wind,  I barely hear my own gun go off.

I don`t doubt that clay, game or other high volume (quantity) shooters would benefit from hearing protection due to the volume and proximity of the shots but I personally see no place for hearing protection when fowling.

Have you noticed that all the horror stories about hearing loss emanate from people who sell hearing protection?

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On 05/12/2018 at 11:39, panoma1 said:

Did the MOD not provide hearing protection? If they didn't, I would think you have a claim under health and safety legislation as they could be guilty of failure in their duty of care to you?

They do today. But when I joined they did not. Some guys used a piece of 4x2 stuffed in their ears when on the range & I have seen the odd comedian walking around with two 9mm live rounds, stuffed one in each ear. I have severe loss in one ear plus tinitus. When I left in 84 the only way you could get any compensation was to pursue the MoD through legal channels with perhaps help from British Legion. Unless you were totally deaf that is. As any compensation was based on a % loss, most people had to look carefully at what it was going to cost to pursue a big ministry department who were going to fight tooth & nail to avoid admitting liabilty, as to what they might gain. My medical on discharge said something vague about `slight` high end loss commensurate with age, I did ask the MO if he had experienced a 120mm HP main armament going off 2 feet from his head and just got a wry smile. As for health & safety in the 60s & 70s, it was just a buzz word.

Edited by JJsDad
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Not that I would recommend it but I have never used ear defenders in my life , being in the building trade we used a lot of road drills to break up concrete and kangos inside buildings , I then went in gunnery in the Royal Navy and came out after four years with sensitive hearing , this didn't teach me a lesson as in those days I was getting in the peak of my pigeon shooting and getting through 4 / 5000 shells a year , this carried on right up until the present time , in all that time I was hooked on fowling with doing well over 100 flights a season plus walked up and the odd day on the peg game shooting , I now consider myself very lucky or foolish to shoot on that scale for well over 50 years without any ear protection , now I can still hear the whistle of Widgeon from a distance and the sound of geese as the light is failing well before I can see them.

I am not saying my hearing is perfect because it is not , far from it but I will carry on as I am until I hang my guns and wellies up .

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On 07/12/2018 at 08:38, Diabolo said:

Shame they don't do ear defenders for dogs. My 12 year old springer seems to be deaf now (hard to tell, perhaps he's just fed up doing what he's told!), and a friend who shoots more than me has had two dogs go deaf at an earlier age, as has he in one ear. I've not always worn ear defenders on the marsh as I never seem to get many shots (compared to others perhaps), even so have got near constant tinnitus in my left ear, not a good sign I guess. Could be coincidence, or just old age for dog and owner, anyone else had experience of dogs going deaf?

You can get ear protector for dogs. We use them at work all the time

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18 hours ago, mudpatten said:

Like Panoma 1, this is the second time I`ve agreed with him, I don`t wear any hearing protection when fowling.

Much of the alleged damage done to hearing by shotgun shooting is done by the "other persons" gun. Often, when shooting  on my own , especially in a strong wind,  I barely hear my own gun go off.

I don`t doubt that clay, game or other high volume (quantity) shooters would benefit from hearing protection due to the volume and proximity of the shots but I personally see no place for hearing protection when fowling.

Have you noticed that all the horror stories about hearing loss emanate from people who sell hearing protection?

Strongly disagree with this.

My place of employment always tested our hearing with regular intervals. They always knew who was using firearms/ shotguns. If you are a right hand shooter, your left side hearing deteriorates and vice versa. Without going into the finer points of hearing loss, they were adamant that when you prolong your exposure to anything above 83db, you are damaging your hearing. 

If you don’t want impaired hearing, wear protection, if you do, crack on.

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To qualify my comments. I`m old enough that many of my now deceased fowling tutors started shooting fowl when there was no such thing as clay shooting in the form we see now, and game shooting was still for the landed gentry.

Their exposure to gunfire was only by way of the shots they themselves fired at wildfow, and that included the noise from punt guns. None of them suffered any deterioration in their hearing save for one whose hearing was irreparably damaged by industrial machinery.

Equally, I now know high volume clay and game shooters who`s hearing has been ruined by the lack of some form of protection. But the original question was about the use of hearing protection for use when wildfowling and not for shooting in general.

 

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1 hour ago, Gerry78 said:

Have to admit i only use ear defenders when on the clay range i know i should use them wildfowling but id miss the Magic of hearing the lough or marsh waking up But forum right we should protect our ears

You still get to hear all that with electronic ear defenders. In fact, most of them amplify the sound, so you can hear wing beats etc much better.

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I don't wear any, I have a set of Howard Leighton but it's windy so can't hear anything but wind noise. Tried plugs and my passive cens.

Don't know if it's the strong wind we get on the north east coastal marshes but shots don't sound as loud as when clay or game shooting.

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