Tag Archives: hearing protection

Listen Up: Walkers Game Ear Razor Slim Ear Muffs

April 17, 2026Ancillary gear, Product reviewear muffs, hearing protection, razor slim ear muff, walkers game earcoldboremiracle

Introduction

Even inexpensive hearing protection is better than none. I went most of my shooting career using foamies, mainly because I wanted to spend my money on things besides ear protection. But times have changed, and I am the happy owner now of several good head sets to protect whats left of my hearing. Today we are going to take a look at one of the most affordable sets I have, the Walkers Game Ear Razor Slim Ear Muffs. These are battery powered ear muffs that amplify normal sounds so you can talk and listen to whats around you, without going deaf from gunfire.

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The Razor Slim Ear Muffs

Walkers Game Ear Razor (WGE) Slim muffs are available in a surprising variety of color and even patterns. The use a wire-band spring to hold the two muffs together, padded to fit the top of your head. The unit is powered by two included AAA batteries.

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The muffs use dual omnidirectional microphones to pick up sounds from all directions, and their .02 second compression time means you’ll only hear safe levels of sound. Full range speakers are used in the muffs to provide clear sounds while you are shooting. This all results in a 23dB reduction in noise.

Bergara, premier action, custom rifle, 7mm PRC, pure precision, carbon fiber, osprey barrel, us optics, TXH 4-24x50, suppressed, cole-tac, walkers game ear, razor slim muffs, — the Razor Slim muffs kept down the noise while shooting my Custom 7PRC

Powering up the unit is done using a dial on the left side, you can simply roll it with the tip of your finger. It has definitive click when it reaches the off position, so you dont waste battery life. As you roll the dial it adjustes the volume. These also have WGE’s typical input jack, allowing you to add your own sounds to the mix. Or it can be used together with WGE’s walkie talkie attachment to enhance communication between people.

On the Range

In no time I was on the range, shooting both rifles and handguns. Even though I often shoot suppressed, the fact that other shooters don’t often requires me to wear hearing protection anyways.

With the Razor Slim muffs powered up, I could comfortably hear people talking around me on the firing line. Even little things like bouncing brass and footsteps on the dirt would come through. This gives you much better situational awareness while shooting, and that can be important around others.

Bersa, m2xi, 9mm, 2011, pistol, walkers game ear, razor slim muffs, holosun scs carry, surefire x300, shooting pistol at gun range with open valley and lake behind, — shooting handguns woth ear pro is a must, this Bersa M2Xi is a blast with the **Holosun SCS** and the **Surefire X300**

Wearing the muffs for an hour here and there during the course of my shooting gave a good impression. Some other muffs often give me a headache from squeezing too hard. The soft cups of these muffs felt fine, and even sealed up over the temple arms of my glasses well. To be sure they were comfy, I even wore them around the office for a few hours.

Pros and Cons

These muff are perfectly serviceable for most shooting purposes. Whether you shoot indoor or outdoors like me, they will keep you hearing safe from gunfire. I will say this, when shooting extra large guns like the 50BMG, you may want to double up by adding some foamies underneath the muffs. I love the various color patterns, allowing you to get your own custom look. Additionally it is much less likely to get your muffs mixed up with someone else’s. They fold up nicely, and fit easily into your shooting bag.

I am not sure if my demerits for these muffs are fair. I have several other pairs of hearing protection, but they are significantly more expensive. While the others might be more comfortable, and have added tech like bluetooth, that comes at a cost.

walkers game ear, razor slim muffs, power dial, volume dial, headphone jack, walkie talkie,

Whereas the WGE Razor Slim muffs are obviously meant to be more for the mainstream. If you need those additional features that come at a higher price point, you can certainly look at WGE Recon or Firemax muff sets.

walkers game ear, hearing protection, ppe, razor slim ear muffs, electronic ear protection, — drawing my **Ruger RXM** from the Blackpoint Tactical holster, you can read more about it here

Final Words

Unless you are some kind of professional shooter, these WGE Razor Slim muffs are more than enough hearing protection for most American shooting enthusiasts. And even if you are a professional shooter, they’d still probably work. I am going to make sure they are always in my shooting bag, in case I need them, or someone needs to borrow a set. With a street price under $60, its a small price to pay to keep your dirty shooting fingers out of your ears.

-CBM

Check out other hearing protection options here

Walker Game Ear Suppressor Bluetooth Earbuds

March 30, 2026Ancillary gear, Electronics and Tech, Product reviewbluetooth, earbuds, earplugs, hearing protection, suppressor earbuds, walkers game earcoldboremiracle

Preface

Technology continues to work into our shooting experience. And today I present to you another new to me product that brings more electronic gizmos into the shooting realm. Our subject today is the Walkers Game Ear Suppressor Bluetooth Earbuds. These are electronic bluetooth earbuds that have the noise cancelling Walkers is famous for, with all the added benefits that your typical earbuds also give.

Walkers Game Ear Suppressor

Walkers is famous for the ability to not only protect your hearing, but amplify your surroundings at the same time. This has typically been more for hunters than shooters. The Suppressor Bluetooth Earbuds offer the next level of both protection, situational awareness, and even entertainment.

With omnidirectional stereo sound from four microphones, the Suppressors give you 25 DB protection from gunfire. While also providing you connection to your surroundings, and even the ability to enhance those sounds.

Not only does it come with various sizes of foam and silicone tips for maximum comfort, they also allow four different frequencies of sound to customize your hearing experience. All this in a wireless rechargeable earbud set much like those all the cool kids are wearing these days. And like the popular kids, you can charge these up to three times in their discreet battery powered case. The case can also be charged via a USB-C included cord.

As if all that wasn’t enough, you can customize your listening experience on the fly using the Walkers Link 4.0 application on your phone to adjust balance, volume and the differential between your favorite tunes playing by bluetooth and the ambient noise around you.

Controlling the Suppressor Earbuds

Aside from directly operating the earbuds through the app, you can also adjust the volume, skip songs, and change hearing settings all by touching the control surfaces on the exterior of the earbuds.

You can also adjust the auto-off setting between 2, 4, and 6 hours. Or not at all. You can balance between your ears if you choose as well.

Sound Quality

As an earbud, these are fantastic. The quality of the music sound played from my phone is as good as other comparably priced earbuds I borrowed from my wife.

Additionally, the sounds picked up by the microphones are also impressive. As I type this out, I can hear the keystrokes over the music playing at an aggressive volume. I could also hear my wife’s phone playing a video inside another room with a closed door.

walkers game ear, suppressor earbuds, bluetooth, earbuds, hearing protection, ear plugs, mueller, mueller optics, tachunter, 6-24x50, scope, riflescope, — Shooting my **Quattro 15 rifle** with the **Mueller Optics** TacHunter 6-24 scope

Fit and Feel

The various ear canal gaskets give you various options. I tend to prefer the foam ones as the silicone ones seem to work loose on me. The foam plugs are a bit stiffer and keep a good grip inside your ear, aided by the rubber rib mounted under the plug. If you have sensitive ears, the silicone plugs might be better as they don’t press out against your ear canal as hard.

These Suppressor Earbuds do stick out a little further than I’d like. Its not like I’m gonna be snagging them against tree limbs or something. But they are out there enough that you could brush them loose when adjusting your beenie or glasses. This is certainly not a deal breaker, but something to be aware of.

walkers game ear, suppressor earbuds, bluetooth, earbuds, hearing protection, ear plugs, Girsan, witness 2311, 9mm, eaa, 2011, vortex, vortex optics, defender CCW, enclosed, red dot, — shooting my **Girsan 2311**, seen here with a **Holosun SCS Carry** and **Surefire X300**

On the Range

I’ve used these earbuds on the range several times now, in addition to my wearing around the house and office to listen to music. They do a great job keeping the noise of firearms down. As someone who wore foamie ear-plugs for the majority of my shooting career, these feel like they cancel the noise just as good as any foamie might. With the added benefit of being able to hear those around you, in stereo. It also allows me to listen to John Wick Mode by Castlevania while I do reloads with my Staccato.

Pros and Cons

There are very few cons that I found with these earbuds. I mentioned the slight protrusion from the ear, and the possibility of the foam pressing out against your ear canal. Other than that I can confidently say they knocked it out of the park with these earbuds. I remember nearly a decade ago paying twice this much for custom fitting electronic ear protection. Only to find within the first few minutes that they were slightly worse than foamies, and were always dead with expensive batteries.

In Closing

My conversion to electronic hearing protection is fairly recent. But I don’t think I’ll be using foamies anytime soon short of an emergency. I quite enjoy these earbuds, and look forward to more days at the range wearing them. If you are looking for electronic hearing protection, these might be right up your ear canal, especially if you like accompaniment.

-CBM

Check out other ear protection here

Shell Shock Ultimate Eyes and Ears Combo pack

February 4, 2026Ancillary gear, Product reviewbluetooth, EXO Pro, eye protection, glasses, hearing protection, shell shock, shell shock protection, Switchcoldboremiracle

Preface

It would be foolish of someone who shoots often, to not take proper precautions for their safety. When I was younger, I didn’t think about it much and looking back I sure wish that I had. Protecting eyes and ears while shooting has never been more easy, with technology and materials giving us many options. Today I am bringing you my opinion of another one of those options. Shell Shock Protection is a manufacturer of safety equipment for shooters, and today I present to you their Shell Shock Ultimate Eyes and Ears Combo. Just like it sounds, this kit comes with everything you need for shooting protection.

shell shock protection, eyes & ears combo, hearing protection, headphones, eye protection, glasses, eye pro, ruger rxm, — we did quite a bit of shooting with the **Ruger RXM**, you can read more about it here

Shell Shock Ultimate Eyes and Ears Combo

The Shell Shock kit comes with a set of their EXO PRO Bluetooth Earmuff’s and a pair of Switch Ballistic Glasses. These items come with a few additional accessories in a tidy little soft-case lined with foam and enclosed by a zipper.

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The EXO PRO Bluetooth Earmuff

Pulling the EXO Pro muffs from the case, I was happy to see they use a gel cup for comfort. My other headsets also have this feature so I was both aware of and pleased by it. The ear cups fold out from the wire headband making them compact to stow and quick to deploy. The headset came with a set of AAA batteries and an AUX cord for plumbing in audio to the headset.

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In addition to the dual omnidirectional microphones, the EXO Pro also has a Bluetooth connection feature. This allows you to connect your phone or other device to the headset to listen to music or in my case a conference call while sitting on a shooting bench. There are two individual volume knobs to adjust the BT volume and the ambient sounds.

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Switch Ballistic Glasses

The Switch Ballistic Glasses come with two lenses, a shaded one for bright sunny days, and a clear lens for indoors. The lenses can be switched out of the frame by unlocking two levers on each side of the frame before swapping the lens. There is also a handy protective cinch-close carry liner to protect the glasses from being scratched or damaged.

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The lenses are coated to prevent fogging, and of course they are rated Z87 for protection against flying debris that could damage your eyesight.

On the Range

As I shoot pretty often, it wasn’t long before I put the kit to use. Both indoor shooting and out door shooting would be involved. I typically shoot suppressed, which arguably doesn’t often require hearing protection. But I like to shoot handguns unsuppressed, and you definitely want ears for that.

I found the headset to fit just fine, and the gel cups felt soft against my face. One of the nice things about the gel cups is that they easily form around the temple arms of the glasses. I dislike when a headset crushes the temple arms of my glasses causing discomfort of the ear. The gel cups balanced the pressure against your head without pressing too hard, and still making a good seal.

The dual microphone pickups on the EXO Pro do a great job of picking up the sound around you, and blocking out what you don’t want to hear. I did notice that there seemed to be a bit higher frequency of sound picked up by the microphones, making it sound slightly more shrill sounding than I’d anticipated. Of course I had to fire up the BT receiver on the EXO Pro, so I could listen to my jams while I shot.

With the Switch Ballistic Glasses on, I found something that is typical of personal protective equipment. Not everybody’s face is the same, and I found that the glasses rode a smidge high on my nose for my taste. Requiring me to keep them further out on my nose, this leaves a little more gap than I’d like around the eyes. I think I can correct the issue by altering the removeable nose-pad some. Either way, glasses always fit depending on how your face is built. The lenses were nice, and the dark lens wasn’t as dark as many of my other sunglasses which made it easy to find targets. Switching out the lenses was quick and easy, though I am afraid I’d be more likely to lose one of them. Perhaps I should just get another frame.

shell shock protection, eyes & ears combo, hearing protection, headphones, eye protection, glasses, eye pro, desert tech, MDRX, WLVRN, Huxwrx, flow, 7.62, — Using the Switch glasses, I could see clearly through the **Vortex Razor 1-6** mounted here on my Desert Tech MDRX

Finding pistol sights and red dots through the lenses was easy, and it does feel good to have something between my eyes and all the bullet spall and debris flying around the range.

Pros and Cons

I mentioned the fit of the glasses not being perfect for my face, but that’s just life when you look like I do. It certainly wasn’t a big deal. On the EXO Pro headset I felt just a slight let-down. I’d expected the dual mics to give better awareness of sound direction. I also had hoped they had a rechargeable internal battery option. But to be fair the battery life is pretty good, so maybe I’ll just keep a couple AAA batteries in my shooting bag.

On the positive side, the headset does a great job of protecting your ears from the noise of shooting. They are comfortable even after several hours, and I love the Bluetooth option. For the street price of around $135 dollars, I think these are a pretty solid buy.

Conclusion

If you are ready to step up to a set of electronic ears, or just need another set of protective equipment to keep in your vehicle this would be a good option. It comes in a handy case ready for the range making it a slam-dunk for shooters on the move.

-CBM

Looking for more hearing protection? Click here.

Safariland Liberator HP 2.0 hearing protection

June 2, 2024Ancillary gear, Product reviewhearing protection, liberator, safarilandcoldboremiracle

Preface

After decades of shooting, I have noticed a decline in my quality of hearing. No doubt in part to a lack of using good hearing protection. I have more recently adopted the use of various hearing protection options, and today I bring one of them to you. I’ve been using the Safariland Liberator HP 2.0 headset for several months now, and I think its time to tell you more about them.

Safariland Liberator HP 2.0

Modern hearing protection is incredibly helpful compared to what many of us grew up on. I remember wearing those original old foamies, which were better than nothing but still unpleasant. And then there was the old hand-me-down headphones we used to use for both shooting and riding around in Dad’s airboat. Neither gave great protection, and of course resulted in plenty of yelling in order to communicate.

The Safariland Liberator HP 2.0 headset is a modern electronic advancement. It is an over-the-ear design that uses gel-filled cushions, spring-wire band, and dual microphones to bring in only the sound you want to hear. The Liberator’s are powered by a rechargeable battery using a USB-C connection. You can also power them with dual AAA batteries or a single CR123 lithium cell. The Liberators feature noise cancelling technology with multiple settings to adjust to your liking. Push-button controls allow you to adjust settings and volume, and the stereo mics and high definition speakers will help you with situational awareness.

the Safariland Liberators, note dual wind insulated mics.

In the field with the Liberators

Most of my shooting is done with rifles and carbines. But due to an overwhelmingly fun time shooting pistols, I have recently started spending a lot of time shooting them more. I usually don’t care for over-ear protection when shooting rifles, especially since I always shoot suppressed in open country. But for shooting pistols the Liberators are ideal, and I have put them to great use.

I have used other headsets before, but my very first impression of the Liberators was fantastic. The gel filled ear cups are very comfortable, and seal very well to the side of my head. The dual sealing cups block out a great deal of noise.

note the very soft gel filled cushions, with dual sealing rings to keep out noise

Turning on the headset was another satisfying experience, when powered up you here a “power on” followed by the sound of your surroundings in great detail. You can adjust the volume to better suit your conditions, a high pitch tone accompanies the volume up button and a low pitch tone accompanies the lower volume button.

Other less expensive headsets cancel noise, and pass voices through to your ears. But they also make it hard to tell where sounds are coming from. The Liberators dual mics give you a 360 degree awareness of where sounds come from.

Until shooting with the Safariland Liberators, I had never realized how valuable this feature is. If you’re out shooting alone it may not be a big deal. But when you are on a live range with others around its nice to know where everybody is, and which direction the shooting is coming from.

Going Hot

As I drew my pistol from my Safariland holster I was excited to get busy with targets. Most 9mm pistols aren’t incredibly loud, but they certainly justify hearing protection. As I went through magazine after magazine I was very quickly enamored with the sound control the Liberators offer. I tried different settings to see which one I liked best, allowing the voices of my friends to come through while blocking out the high impulse noise of gunfire.

the push-button controls are simple and have audible sounds when actuated

The spring suspension of the Liberators holds tight to your head without being uncomfortable. It also doubles to help keep your ball cap in-place when the wind gets out of hand. The Liberators can be swapped to behind the head suspension as well, or to a helmet set.

The three modes allow for differing scenarios, such as mostly quiet other than occasional gunfire. A second one for when there is more ambient noise present such as riding in vehicles. And the third setting is for very loud environments like a Swifty concert where you want to keep all noise suppressed but the voices right around you. All three settings are designed to be compatible with radio transmissions.

While I don’t particularly care for wearing any headset for longer than necessary, I found the Safariland Liberators to be as pleasant as possible. I’ve used the Liberators over the course of many range days, and I have recently distilled my opinions on them.

Pros & Cons

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons I’ve come up with so far:

Pros

Very comfortable ear cups and spring suspension
Excellent noise reduction
Excellent situational awareness with stereo sound
Three modes for different conditions
Push-button controls
Very handsome presentation
Available in various colors and camo patterns
American made product
Rechargeable battery system
Compatible with other Safariland HP configurations
Not huge, can be used without stock interference

The comfort and ease of operation make the Liberators an excellent choice for hearing protection. They are easy to use, and always ready with long battery life and ease of recharging. And they are good looking too, and the custom color options will match your best mall-ninja outfit. The Liberators truly shine because of the quality audio, and how they help your directional hearing.

watertight USB-C charging port, which can be swapped out to run the AAA or CR123 batteries

Cons

Your ears can get sweaty
Not inexpensive

The only downsides I could come up with about the Liberator was of course the cost, as they are more expensive than other options. And as with any over-ear headset you are likely going to sweat when it gets hot or if you live in Houston.

Conclusion

I have really grown to appreciate good ear protection. And having used the Liberators for around six months, I can say they are an excellent product. If you need or desire professional grade hearing protection, I don’t think you could go wrong with the Safariland Liberator HP 2.0. I will continue to use these and others to see how they compare and endure, make sure you follow for more.

-CBM