It’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to test shooting muffs first-hand. I did that many years ago, when I had contacts in the industry who sent me a ton of muffs to test and do reviews on. But once I settled on the ProEars muffs, I kind of quit testing all the others.
I figured those muffs would last me the rest of my life. But life had other plans. Those plans included my first golden retriever, Cricket. She was a wonderful dog, but one of the few indiscretions she had over the years was a chewing spree she went on. Among the things she chewed up were those ProEars muffs.
I needed some muffs quickly, and nobody in town sold ProEars at the time, so I just picked up some Howard Leight muffs at a local store. I intended to replace them with some new ProEars eventually, but I never did.
Now it’s time to get some good ones again. Don’t get me wrong – the Howard Leights have been decent. And they were only about $80. But they don’t have good directional sound for the noises they amplify, and they don’t have as much sound dampening for the loud noises as my ProEars did.
So I’ve been looking at reviews of all the new ear protection out there, and it looks like the best ones are the Peltor ComTac V, but at $520, they’re more than twice the price of the ProEars Predator Gold, which are $250. Interestingly, though, the Peltors are rated at 23 decibels of noise reduction, while the ProEars are rated at 26 decibels. Both are earmuffs, though, and they sometimes get in the way of your gun stock. If you want a good set of in-ear protection, the AXIL XCOR set is rated at 29 decibels, and they’re around $200.
The bottom line is that there are lots of folks out there testing ear protection. See what they have to say before you spend your hard-earned money.
