I like to shoot, but I’m serious about keeping my hearing. That means I have to be serious about my ear protection while shooting. Today I tried out the Pro For Sho Safety Earmuffs. We have our podcast part of the review below.
Disclaimer
Pro For Sho asked if they could send us earmuffs to review. We didn’t promise we’d even do a review and told them they’d have no say in what we reported if we did. They agreed to those terms and sent us two pair for free. We can’t be bought; particularly for a couple of sub $20 earmuffs (black pair is priced at $16.97 and the white pair is priced at $17.45). We wanted you to know up front that they were manufacturered supplied.
Slaty says “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be trying to attack her… I’ve seen how she shoots.”
What Are Pro For Sho Safety Earmuffs?
As unboxing videos are pretty lame (not to say the boxes were bad or anything, we just don’t like unboxing videos… (the earmuffs were actually packaged very well), we’re skipping that part.
What we got was a couple pair of over-the ear earmuffs; one white pair and one black. The boxes looked different but had all the same text. The earmuffs are the same just different colors.
There’s an arch of plastic, covered with a foam cover, that fits over the head and ear cups with padded rims on pivoting wire supports that also allow you to adjust the length of each arm for better fit. They feel reasonably well made and solid; not indestructible but get real, they retail for that price range. They’re ANSI certified to lower sound by 34 dB. That’s a lot. They do fold up to a more compact size than the common run of shooting earmuffs I’ve seen.
The testing
We used three different kinds of ammo in two handguns for the tests. Salty’s .22 Heritage six-shooter revolver with interchangeable cylinders shot the .22 Federal bulk long rifle and .22 Winchester WMR rounds. My Glock shot the 9 mm Federal ball with aluminum casing.
With each kind of ammo, I shot a bunch of rounds each wearing the Pro For Sho earmuffs, my usual Winchester pink earmuffs, an earplug set on an over-the head headpiece, and those common orange earplugs-on-a-string one wears around the neck. I was under a metal pavilion roof, which is mildly and ineffectually sound-proofed; so it’s a pretty loud spot for an outdoor shooting environment.
The results: Pro For Sho earmuffs come out ahead, actually pretty far ahead…
We didn’t use decibel-meters; results are based on my perceptions.
Both kinds of ear plugs trailed both sets of earmuffs in efficiency by a wide margin, to our complete lack of surprise.
The Pro For Sho and Winchester earmuffs were similar in perceived loudness. The Winchesters were maybe a smidge softer overall. There was a distinct difference in sound quality though: The Winchester let through a much higher pitched result, while the Pro For Sho sound was of medium pitch, near the middle of my hearing range (which is normal). This fact held for all types of ammo tested.
Pro For Sho earmuffs on the left, Winchester on the right.
Here’s the thing though: I know a couple things about how our hearing systems work. We are much less efficient at perceiving sounds near the high and low ends of our range. In other words, a sound has to be much more intense (have more energy) to sound loud if it’s of high pitch than if it’s of medium pitch.
That means the Winchester, to sound about the same loudness, was letting through a lot more energy. Moreover, it was energy that activated the far end of my hearing apparatus; and the far ends of our hearing membranes are much more readily damaged than the middle of the membranes. In short, the Winchester earmuffs were not doing as good a job of protecting my hearing as the Pro For Sho earmuffs.
In Summary
I found the Pro For Sho earmuffs quite comfortable; both the XL set and the smaller ones. Salty found both fit pretty well too; so that’s a pretty wide range of head sizes accommodated.
They seemed reasonably well-built and solid; not amazing but quite respectable for the price point.
I think the Pro For Sho’s did the best job of protecting my hearing, although the perceived loudness was similar to the other earmuffs.
The Pro For Sho’s fold up smaller than the earmuffs I had been using.
I took the ones I had been using out of the range box and left the Pro For Sho’s in there.
Here’s a link to the Black and the White Pro Fo Sho earmuffs on Amazon. This is NOT an affiliate link, we get nothing out of any purchase you make, we aren’t in this to make money.