How much is being able to hear worth to you? Serious thing.
One of the artful codgers I shoot with had been shooting for well over 40 years when he fired a ten shot string from a 308 wearing a muzzle break, he'd left his ear defenders in the car and didn't bother. Now deaf in one ear. Its not just cumulative.
Do you wish to avoid the 'NRA handshake"?
That's the one where you shake with right hand, cup the left hand to your ear, and shout "whatcha say yer name was?"
Here in Blighty 3M's Peltor are the default choice for the target shooting fraternity, all the shops at Bisley sell them. A lot of MSA's efficacy is in how well the cup seals to your noggin, here's where MSA Sordin Pro X stand out over their other models and other brands. Gel Cups: Done. End of.
In scandiwegian Viking Rifle Series matches for well over half the field MSA Sordin's seem to be the default setting. The shotgunning crowd run the whole gamut from; nothing, foam plugs, to cast in-ear plugs, I've got cast plugs myself and they are excellent at damping the sound but nothing beats a big pair of solid cans that make an almost perfect seal. For those of you sucking a lemon at the price I also have a building site pair of one of the cheaper MSA models they don't have the socket for the radio, the gel seals, or the microphone but they really really deaden sound.
Standing in the pissing rain I recently met a bird shooter wearing a pair of Sordin's so old they'd been slightly discoloured by the wind and the rain, [I was going to say the plastic looked bleached by the sun but that's just not plausible] his best guess as to their age was 'oh years' he reported them working exactly the same as they'd always done, but was on his second set of batteries. At a quoted 600 hours a set, that's a fair amount of use.
More kit-tart-ism and adventures afield to follow
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SBW