Earplugs vs Earmuffs for Hunting

For hunting, start with an electronic earmuff — the Howard Leight Impact Sport is the one most hunters end up owning, at a published NRR of 22 dB with amplification that cuts the instant an impulse reaches 82 dB. Switch to in-ear protection only when a muff genuinely gets in the way of mounting the gun, which for some shooters it genuinely does. At a busy range, the answer changes again: a high-blocking passive muff, or plugs and muffs together.

The reason the question is harder than it looks is that the two form factors fail in opposite ways. A muff has to seal against the side of the head, which hats, glasses arms and a rifle stock all interfere with. A plug has to be inserted correctly, which is a skill, and nobody — including the wearer — can see whether they got it right. Published ratings assume neither of those went wrong.

Below: how the two compare on the things that decide a real-world outcome, three picks with the manufacturers' published ratings, and the case for wearing both. For the category ranked rather than compared, see best hunting hearing protection.

Read that table with one thing in mind: the published rating is a laboratory figure obtained with a correct fit. The gap between a plug's rating and the protection a hurried hunter actually gets from it is the biggest unmeasured variable in this comparison, and it is why we recommend a muff first for most people despite the lower numbers.

Those are the manufacturers' own figures, cited in the sources below; we have not measured any of them. Notice the ordering, because it is the opposite of what most people assume: the cheapest, simplest, unpowered muff blocks the most, and the electronics on the other two cost you a few decibels of raw attenuation in exchange for being able to hear.

Doubling up — plugs under muffs — is standard practice at indoor ranges and around muzzle brakes, and it is worth knowing about rather than treating as paranoia. Noise damage is a function of level and duration, as NIOSH sets out, and an indoor range concentrates both.

Two honest caveats. First, wearing both does not add the two ratings together; the combination gives you more protection than either alone, but far less than the sum, and no honest source will give you a single number for it. Second, doubling up removes your ability to hear instruction, which has a real cost with a new shooter — so it suits a hunter practicing alone better than a parent coaching a child. Our best hearing protection for youth hunters page works through that trade-off properly.

Plenty of hunters still take a shot at a deer with nothing in their ears, on the reasoning that it is one shot a year. The NIDCD is explicit that noise-induced hearing loss comes from both one-time impulse sounds and repeated exposure, and that it is permanent — so "only one shot" is a statement about frequency, not about safety.

The practical answer is electronic protection, in whichever form factor the hunter will actually keep on. Amplified ambient sound means a hunter hears the woods better than with bare ears, which removes the one genuine argument against wearing protection while hunting. That is also why the question "which rates higher" matters less than the question which one will still be on their head when the deer walks in. Our do you need ear protection for hunting page makes that case at length.

Hearing protection is one of the most-used and least-bought hunting gifts, and it has no sizing problem worth speaking of. If you are buying for somebody else, buy a muff: it fits nearly everyone, it is obvious how to use it, and you are not betting on whether they will insert a plug correctly. Save the in-ear option for a hunter who has specifically complained that muffs get in the way of their gun.

Most of this page sits inside hunting gifts under $100, and the brand question is settled head-to-head in Howard Leight vs Walker's Razor.

We do not run a test lab and we have not measured a decibel. Every NRR figure, amplification claim and compression threshold above is the manufacturer's published specification, cited below, and the recommendations are reasoning from those specifications plus published guidance from NIOSH and the NIDCD on how noise damage works. Nothing here has a rating, a score or an award from us. Our method is on the how we choose page, and prices are pulled live from Amazon and stamped with the date they were captured.

Best hunting hearing protection ranks the full field with published ratings on each, best hearing protection for youth hunters covers the one case where fit decides everything, and best hunting gadgets and tools covers the rest of the small kit a hunter actually uses.