Ears

When shooting, you need certain protection equipment in order to not suffer hearing loss. At the start of my shooting career, I used passive earmuffs. They often offer good hearing protection, however when I began shooting IPSC and working as a Range Officer, I neeeded to be able to communicate more, when on the range, even when other competitors were firing. I changed to Peltor SportTac and used those for a number of years, with gel earseals. There’s some discussion of whether they offer sufficient noise reduction for shooting handguns outdoors. My personal feeling is that they are not suitable for rifle competition, at least.

When my Peltor SportTac muffs died, I chose to upgrade, and have been using MSA Sordin Pro-X with gel earseals since. They offer much better sound fidelity, compared to the Peltors.

If you’re concerned about the protection offered by your muffs, you can easily wear earplugs under the muffs, and adjust the volume to hear what your need to hear.

Eyes

When shooting IPSC and Steel Challenge, you must wear glasses to protect your eyes from projectile fragments (splatter). In my opinion, you should wear protective glasses whenever you’re shooting. You never know when you might suffer a overcharge, or a case splitting.

I’ve used Oakley M-Frame glasses in various versions for quite awhile. I use mostly ventilated Orange lenses, and clear lenses for indoor/low light use.

Breathing

When firing a gun, a plume of smoke is created which contains various heavy metals from the primer, etc. A similar situation occurs, when a metal target is struck by a bullet. Especially when shooting indoors, wearing a filter mask can be recommended. I use a mask from 3M, with replaceable filters.