Want to know how loud your hunting firearms are?

In case any of you are interested in just how loud (or how quiet) your various firearms/calibers are, there's a nifty little, free app available: Sound Meter It's an Android app in the Smart Tools section, and it works on my iPhone. It's kinda neat to find out just how much sound is suppressed when you attach your suppressor and fire the arm, then remove it and compare.

Before/after numbers?

Which one? Just looked and had 2 free ones. One with red colored chart and one that looks like a lil meter?

My STW will peg that sucker out. I'm not putting my phone near that rifle, though. The screen has enough cracks already.

It gives you the peak dB level for each shot, so you can record the before, and then the after.

Either will work; I used the one with the red colored chart. I used it this morning next to my DP-12 using Buckshot and then Slugs, and recorded a 96dB level on both loads. And it does not seem to harm my iPhone. I just set the phone up, turn on the app, lay the phone on the shooting table, and take my shots. The meter on the app goes up to 110 dB.

I got this info from the i'net:

Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) – this is hearing loss due to exposure to either a sudden, loud noise or exposure to loud noises for a period of time. A dangerous sound is anything that is 85 dB (sound pressure level – SPL) or higher.

Funny, my first thought was exactly this rifle. A STW with a break on it is about as loud as a Barret .50 cal. That gun can be heard miles away.

I wonder if it will work with my bow???

7ARanch, believe it or not, it WILL work with your bow! I can bring the app up on my phone and as I talk to my shooting buddy and he speaks back to me, the different sound levels are recorded. A mockingbird landed in a tree about 10 yards from our shooting bench and began performing, and the meter followed it precisely. So, as a TwangOmeter, it ought to do just fine.

The smart phone app sound meters are notoriously unreliable and they are NOT calibrated. mikei, your shotgun isn't 96 db unless you had squib loads.

Double Naught, interestingly enough, the little test I did was with RIO Low Velocity loads. About as close to squib loads as you can get. I haven't had the time or opportunity to do any serious comparison work, but I'll share what I find once I do. And I realize that the results you get from phone app sound meters aren't something to take real seriously, but if you use them for comparison, between calibers and firearms there may be something to be learned.

Your loads may be "as close to squib loads as you can get" in velocity, but not sound. Once the bullet leaves the end of the barrel, the sound is MUCH louder than a squib, even with low velocity rounds.

Useful? Maybe, but at best it would be relative, like saying "this gun is louder that this gun" which is something you probably knew anyway. The sound meter apps won't tell you how much louder in any accurate manner because they can't actually tell you what the correct sound level is for a gun shot.