Custom ear protection

As I get older, the more I value things like my hearing. I do a pretty healthy amount of upland hunting and I currently don’t wear ear plugs when I hunt. I do wear them if I’m shooting trap, sighting in a rifle or in the duck blind.

One of the reasons I don’t wear ear plugs when hunting is I have never found a pair that’s very comfortable, stays in my ears without frequent adjustments, and allows me to hear my surroundings when I’m not shooting. A friend of mine has some custom made ear plugs that only block the sound when it gets to a certain decibel level, so you’re able to still hear normal things when you have them in and you aren’t shooting. I’ve been kicking the tires of getting something like that for a long time but there are way too many options out there for me to decide. I could schedule an appt with a ENT doctor and get them that way, but to put it blatantly, I don’t trust healthcare to not completely bend me over backwards and overcharge for them. I have over $10k in my HSA, so I will be paying for these through my HSA, but I still don’t want to get taken advantage of by the healthcare systems.

Looking online there’s hundreds and hundreds of options out there coming in at a very wide range of price points. Without knowing too much about the topic, its pretty hard to feel comfortable enough in any one of them to purchase site unseen.

Does anyone here have any custom hearing protection they recommend? Where’d you get them (thru a doctors office or online)? Really my only requirements are 1) they can be custom fit/molded to my ear, 2) they are comfortable and 3) they only block out sound when shots go off and don’t make me completely deaf when I have them in. Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

I am in a similar boat. I don’t wear hearing protection when I hunt because I need to hear specific noises like a deer walking, a turkey gobble, or a pheasant flush, etc. My left ear is permanently damaged from shooting over the years because I shoot right handed and my right ear is covered up when I shoot, but my left ear is exposed. Audiology tests have confirmed that my left ear does not pick up high frequency sounds anymore and I wear a hearing aide in that ear now. I always wear muffs at the range, obviously.

I have been told and heard that the walker game ear is pretty good. It works like a hearing aide, but it blocks out loud noises like gun fire. Maybe someone else can offer their advice on it that has used it.

I have tried both electronic earplugs (non-custom) and muffs while hunting and the problem I have with “active” protection for hunting is the same.

In order for these devices to block loud noises, they have to work essentially like hearing aids, where they have a microphone that picks up sound and then “cuts out” when a sound is too loud.

The problem that I (and many others) have is that this approach messes with my ability to detect the direction that sounds are coming from. Which in hunting, is fairly critical.

I just can’t tell where, specifically, a sound is coming from when wearing these devices. And in some situations like deer hunting and bird hunting, that ability to be able to know where the sound came from is pretty critical.

If anyone knows of a company that has solved this issue, I’d love to know about it.

Exactly what Grouse said. Ill hunt unimpeded until my hearing is shot or I quit hunting.

Check out these: https://soundgear.com/collections/custom-fit
Pricey but well worth the money. Look around and you can find a discount code.

Without my hearing aids I am very close to deaf. They have loud noise suppression which works great for a shot in the deer woods. When I am at the range I do not even wear the hearing aids and try to get there early before anyone else is there because I am not there to chit chat and don’t need them in while shooting but I do wear good muffs when the trigger is being pulled. Safety glasses too.

When I am ready to drive away from the range I put the aids back in.

At home I don’t run a mower, tractor, blower, weedeater, power saw, snow blower, anything that makes noise, while wearing the aids either and of course I am muffed up while using these implements.

Coming from a guy that has recently developed tinnitus –

For everyone here – do yourselves a favor and make a reasonable effort to protect your hearing. Once the ringing starts – it does not stop. It sucks. Trust me on that.

Timmy wrote:

Coming from a guy that has recently developed tinnitus –

For everyone here – do yourselves a favor and make a reasonable effort to protect your hearing. Once the ringing starts – it does not stop. It sucks. Trust me on that.

tinnitus sounds terrible. I know a person who just started having issues with it and it sounds like torture. That is part of what is driving me to get some better hearing protection that I’ll wear more regularly.

My thought was I’d try and upland hunt with one plug in my ear (left ear) and my right ear left open. The thought being the right ear is somewhat protected when you shoot just from the positioning of how a gun is shouldered. That’d still give me 1 ear to help with directional sound detection and all that.

I just made an appointment with an ENT doctor this morning and am going to talk over some options with him. A good friend of mine works at the ENT office and got a pretty good pair for a reasonable price. I’m at least going to go and get educated by the doc and see what options are out there. I might just end up buying something online like the link John posted above.

I have the non-custom soundgear plugs. If I could do it again I’d get tbe custom fit ones. Didn’t realize I could use HSA on it so might go that route this year actually. The problem with the customs is you need to remove the batteries (at least the 4 yr old version I have) to turn them off which is more annoying than you think. Imagine frozen hands from a -10° hunt trying to dink with those things. The customs have an on/off switch. I don’t have any problem telling what direction sound is coming from on mine, but I only use them upland hunting so I’m not pin pointing a deer footstep or something so I can’t confirm or deny accuracy.

I started using walker silencer Bluetooth 2.0 earbuds this year. The sound quality is great and I can tell direction just fine. My only gripe is the sound settings are touch or swipe operated so a damp hoodie or head net can mess with them.