A single unprotected shot can permanently damage your hearing. As Manitoba's fall seasons open, here's how muzzle blast compares to every other noise in your life, and how to protect your ears without losing the sounds you hunt by.
Fall is arriving in Manitoba, and with it the seasons hunters wait all year for, waterfowl openers typically land at the start of September, with archery deer underway around the same time and rifle seasons following later in the fall (check the current Manitoba Hunting Guide for exact dates in your area). Before you head out, spend five minutes on the one piece of gear that's still missing from most blinds and tree stands: hearing protection.
Here's the uncomfortable truth. Ask a room full of longtime hunters to raise a hand if their ears ring, and you'll see a lot of hands. Hunting is one of the few activities where a single unprotected exposure, one shot, can cause permanent hearing damage. The good news is that today's protection lets you keep the sounds you hunt by, and in some cases hear them better. Let's walk through the numbers and the options.
NIOSH, the U.S. occupational health institute, has measured firearm noise extensively. Peak sound levels from firearms range from about 140 dB for a .22 rifle to more than 175 dB for large-calibre rifles with muzzle brakes, with most common hunting rifles and shotguns producing roughly 150–165 dB at the shooter's ear.
For context, occupational health guidelines say impulse noise should never exceed 140 dB peak, even once. A single shot at that level uses up an entire day's allowable noise exposure in a couple of milliseconds.
Unlike a loud workday, where damage builds up over hours, a muzzle blast is an impulse, a pressure spike so fast and intense it can physically damage the microscopic hair cells of the inner ear instantly. There is no safe number of unprotected shots.
The inner ear contains thousands of tiny sensory hair cells that convert sound into nerve signals. Loud noise, especially impulse noise, bends and breaks them, and in humans they do not regenerate. Once they're gone, that part of your hearing is gone.
Sometimes after shooting you'll notice muffled hearing or ringing that fades over hours or days. That's called a temporary threshold shift, and it feels reassuring, but your ears didn't fully bounce back. Research on noise damage shows repeated temporary shifts leave lasting harm behind, and each one is a warning that your ears took a hit. We cover how noise damage accumulates in our guide to noise-induced hearing loss prevention.
Hunters also tend to show a recognizable pattern audiologists and hearing professionals call "shooter's ear": high-frequency hearing loss that's often worse in the ear opposite the trigger hand, for a right-handed shooter, the left ear, which faces the muzzle while the right ear is partly shielded by the shoulder and stock. High-frequency loss is why voices start sounding mumbled long before anything seems "quiet."
The statistics back up what you see at hunting camp. In a large U.S. population study, 95% of hunters reported never wearing hearing protection while shooting in the past year, and the odds of significant high-frequency hearing loss rose about 7% for every five years a person had hunted.
Of everything shooters report to hearing clinics, ringing in the ears, tinnitus, comes up most often. It can arrive after a single unprotected shot, and for some people it never leaves. Permanent tinnitus ranges from a faint hiss you only notice at night to an intrusive ring that interferes with sleep and concentration.
There is currently no cure for tinnitus. It can often be managed, hearing aids, sound therapy and counselling genuinely help many people, but the only reliable strategy is not acquiring it in the first place. If your ears already ring after range days, treat that as your last warning, not background noise.
Hunters have two broad options, and the right answer depends on the hunt.
Standard foam plugs and earmuffs simply block sound. Done right, they're effective and cheap, a properly inserted foam plug or a quality muff meaningfully cuts the blast reaching your inner ear. Two catches:
Passive protection shines where you already expect every shot: the range, sighting-in, and high-volume days. For those, plugs and muffs together are the gold standard.
Electronic muffs and earplugs use microphones and fast circuitry to pass through, or even amplify, quiet sounds, then instantly suppress the muzzle blast when you fire. In practice, that means you can hear wind, wings and whispers at normal or better-than-normal levels, and your ears are still covered the moment the shot breaks.
For hunting, this is the category that solves the real problem: it removes the trade-off between protection and awareness.
Off-the-shelf gear has a fit problem: everyone's ear canals are shaped differently, and protection only works when it seals. At Prairie Hearing Centre we take precise impressions of your ears and craft custom hearing protection that seals properly every time, stays comfortable through a full day in the blind, and won't work loose when you shoulder your firearm.
For shooters, custom options include filtered designs that cut impulse noise while letting normal sound through, and custom sleeves that pair with electronic systems. Because they're moulded to you, they're the version of hearing protection you'll actually still be wearing at last light, and they last for years.
The most common objection we hear from hunters is also the most legitimate one: "I need my ears out there." Awareness is safety, for you, your party and everyone else in the field. So here's the practical way to think about it:
One more honest note: no earplug or muff makes gunfire "safe", it reduces the dose reaching your inner ear. Very loud rifles with muzzle brakes can exceed what a single layer can handle, another argument for doubling up whenever you're shooting a lot.
Most hunters have never had a baseline hearing test. That's worth fixing, high-frequency damage shows up on a hearing test years before you'd describe yourself as hard of hearing, and knowing your baseline lets you catch changes early. If you've noticed ringing after shooting, trouble following conversation in noisy rooms, or the TV creeping louder, those are classic early signs, our post on the signs you need a hearing test walks through the rest.
Yes. Most hunting firearms produce peak levels of roughly 150–165 dB, well above the 140 dB threshold that occupational guidelines treat as the never-exceed line for impulse noise. Plenty of people trace permanent tinnitus to a single shot taken without protection.
Passive plugs and muffs will muffle everything, yes. Electronic protection works the other way: it passes through or amplifies quiet ambient sound and suppresses only the blast. Many hunters find they hear better with quality electronic protection than with bare ears, especially hunters who already have some high-frequency loss.
The Noise Reduction Rating is a lab-measured estimate of how many decibels a device blocks. Real-world protection is usually lower than the printed number because of imperfect fit, which is the main argument for custom-moulded protection, and for doubling plugs with muffs during long range sessions.
No, that ringing is a sign your inner ear was overloaded. The ringing and muffled feeling may fade, but research shows repeated episodes leave permanent damage behind, and one day the ringing stays. Treat recurring post-shooting tinnitus as the signal to get serious about protection and to book a baseline hearing test.
Before the seasons get busy, find out exactly where your hearing stands. Prairie Hearing Centre offers free comprehensive hearing assessments, no referral needed, and we can take impressions for custom hunter's protection at the same visit. We're an independent, family-owned clinic, and to us you're not just a neighbour, you're family. Call (204) 306-9144 or book your free assessment. You'll find us at Unit 4-2090 Corydon Avenue, Winnipeg, open Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 4:30 (closed 12–1).