I wonder how many of y'all have fired an AR in a combat situation, without hearing protection.
I'm mostly deaf, and I wasn't inside.
I'm not complaining. It get's me out of listening to my wife's rambling stories.
Go ahead. Choose that AR for defensive purposes indoors. Just be sure to sleep with your earpro in/on.
It'd be a much better option suppressed.
I will agree that rifle wounds are devastating. There is plenty of AR ammo available that does a good job of mitigating the problem of over penetration. That 'green tip' in your mag ain't one of them.
We manned an OP position about 12 miles south of Abu Ghraib prison on Route Tampa and we set up an impromptu re-qualification lane. I happened to be about 15 feet away at someone's 2:00 when they fired off a round and I didn't have my earpro in. That one shot was quite loud so I can only imagine a firefight. I only ended up having a small amount of hearing loss and tinnitus. I keep a pair of electronic ear muffs next to my home defense (AR) pistol. It's not my only option but I like to have options. But I live on about 20 acres. Over penetration isn't an issue for me. My wife isn't a firearms expert but she's mentioned that before as well. But anyway, with the electronic ear muffs turned all the way up, I can hear a heck of a lot more that with the naked ear.