Friday, January 16, 2009

Peltor Tactical 6-S Review

I haven't made much light of my love of guns here yet, but I have a few new toys in the gun inventory, so I thought I'd start reviewing them here, as well as over at We The Armed.

First up is the new hearing protection, the Peltor Tactical 6-5 earmuffs.

I took Scott and Paul out to the range today and tried the new muffs out. They're are electronic earmuffs. They have a microphone on each ear cup and a speaker inside, but the mic's won't pick up gunshots, so you have crystal clear hearing except for the gunshots. Pretty cool stuff.

Now, I was a bit skeptical of the hearing protection these things would actually provide. We were shooting at an indoor range, where I've always doubled up on yellow foamy ear plugs and ear muffs, because either one on its own still allowed an uncomfortable amount of noise through. I chose to try the Peltor's with no plugs to start out, though I had them in my pocket.

The most surprising thing was, I forgot about the plugs after the first shot. The Peltor's worked GREAT. The noise level was comfortable even as the range began to fill up and 4-5 people were shooting at the same time. I could hear the guys' questions very clearly with the electronic system, and everyone other conversation in the room, too. They don't just let you hear like normal, you can hear BETTER.

The only downsides I could find were the cheesy headband, though it works fine, so it doesn't need any more over engineering. Also, they're pretty pricey. I've seen them between $50-100. I got mine for $25 second hand, from a friend, but now that I've used them, I can say I would be willing to drop $50 for them if I had to.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

Sure they are GREAT on the range. But wait until you have to change the batteries. You have to remove the ear cushion first and that is almost impossible. PELTOR description how to do it is nearly useless. And during a major struggle probably you will rip the cushion into shreds. Also, the on/off control is not secure in the off position and easily turns on during folding the muffs for storage. This completely discharges the battery and muffs are mute when you need them next time. You have to struggle with battery replacement again.

Anonymous said...

Sure they are GREAT on the range. But wait until you have to change the batteries. You have to remove the ear cushion first and that is almost impossible. PELTOR description how to do it is nearly useless. And during a major struggle probably you will rip the cushion into shreds. Also, the on/off control is not secure in the off position and easily turns on during folding the muffs for storage. This completely discharges the battery and muffs are mute when you need them next time. You have to struggle with battery replacement again.

Anonymous said...

Sure they are GREAT on the range. But wait until you have to change the batteries. You have to remove the ear cushion first and that is almost impossible. PELTOR description how to do it is nearly useless. And during a major struggle probably you will rip the cushion into shreds. Also, the on/off control is not secure in the off position and easily turns on during folding the muffs for storage. This completely discharges the battery and muffs are mute when you need them next time. You have to struggle with battery replacement again.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, I don't know what you're talking about. We have a pair of these at work and it took me about a minute to get them apart. All you need is something to wedge into a plainly apparent notch and everything else comes apart.

Now I just need to sneak them out the next time I go to the range.

Sheriff John said...

They are great on the range. I used a small screw driver to pry off the ear muffs. On-Off switch is easily turned to On and then drains the batteries. Best to leave batteries out until you need to use them. Peltor makes a good product but these need a little more engineering.

Unknown said...

As a professional shooter I was very impressed by the technology behind these earmuffs. How many times didn't my ears hurt because of no warning when shots were fired...Now one can have a normal conversation and you can hear them clearly, while the earmuffs shut down the environmental noise as soon as a certain number of decibels equivalent to shooting a 5.6mm firearm. These earmuffs are very relaxing from this point of view even when shooting pellets with a 4.5mm air compressed weapon which gives you the confidence to focus on the task at hand. Granted the shooting skills do not rely on the ear plugs, these Peltor tactical earmuffs fine tune a shooter's capability with firearms by also eliminating an unnecessary nuisance.

Unknown said...

They are great and do drain batteries a lot ANDr difficult to change out, but my question is I've had mine for 3- 4 yrs and have had no other problem..this season I can't get them to work on either side( was only 1). How long should I expect out of these ??

Unknown said...

Surprisingly, Jeff, my batteries lasted for at least 15-16 years but they were the original issued by the manufacturer. I used them in Romania, a country of all four seasons. Not sure what to say about your batteries. Perhaps the brand itself is a failure, or the environment in which the headsets are kept, temperature wise or magnetic. To me, batteries that last at least a year are good batteries. Not all pairs of shoes break the same way together.