12-10-2017, 02:45 PM
olde sarge - am a joint sufferer of significant hearing loss and non-stop tinnitus ( mostly from unprotected gunfire as a much younger person ). I have Grendels with more conventional muzzle devices and one with a "linear compensator". There is some difference with the sound levels back to me ( or other shooters ) but not a lot. There was an interesting discussion on this forum ( I think ) about the mechanics of ear / hearing damage and the use of hearing protection vs weapon-mounted sound suppression. One of the major points was that even the best "over or in the ear" protection was not sufficient as there is substantial transmission of sound impulse thru the structure of the weapon device which is then conducted thru the bone structure to our hearing mechanics. I am an engineer and spent many years developing sound systems for capture and modificaiton of human speech and one of the real issues was how well bone conduction works.
I said all that to say that if sound impule mitigation is a serious concern ( and it should be ) then the process of trying to re-direct sound for that purpose is only marginally successful. The real challange would be to reduce the conduction of the sound impulse from the weapon system to the skeletal system.
Perhaps this could be a challange to some of the other members within this forum to consider / propose ways to do that. There are a lot of really talanted folks across this group - any ideas?
I said all that to say that if sound impule mitigation is a serious concern ( and it should be ) then the process of trying to re-direct sound for that purpose is only marginally successful. The real challange would be to reduce the conduction of the sound impulse from the weapon system to the skeletal system.
Perhaps this could be a challange to some of the other members within this forum to consider / propose ways to do that. There are a lot of really talanted folks across this group - any ideas?