A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:
Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.
I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.
Technical questions
Gun control proposals for feasibility
Industry
Training
Wacky opinions
General geekery
Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173
https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE
https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E
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Notes -
Tell me everything about hearing protection.
....how about some things?
The most important bit is the NRR (noise reduction rating), which is essentially how much noise (in decibels) they lop off the top. Don't bother with anything less than 25, 30 is better. After that, you're paying for comfort or electronics. Comfort is somewhat important, but moreso if you're wearing them for long periods of time.
Shooting indoors is much louder than shooting outside, consider wearing in-ear foam plugs as well as muffs. This is known as "double plugging", despite there being only one set of plugs, and the term sounding vaguely dirty.
Pro Fo Sho makes some very good ear protection that is reasonably comfortable for twenty bucks a set or so.
Should I get something better than those ribbed, earwax-scraping earplugs I've worn to the range before, then? I feel like they give me pretty good protection, but they are a little fussy to get right.
Personally I don't like the rubber ribbed inserts, I prefer the foamy plugs. Either work, but I find it harder to get a good seal with the rubber ones.
Muffs are the easiest, and as I said, you can get pretty good ones for twenty or twenty-five bucks. Worth the investment if you shoot even semi-regularly.
Do you have any opinions on peltors or whatever other active hearing protection things are out there now? Do you think they make situational awareness better on the range/in competitions?
No, I don't. Peltors are really nice, I have a very nice set of MSAs, but the electronics broke a couple years back and I never bothered to get it fixed. They're very comfortable, which is nice on a long competition day, but you just don't need the electronics, and in fact I found it a distraction. Electronics can be handy situationally, but for normal shooting and competition, save your money and buy comfort.
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