Quote Originally Posted by gatordev View Post
but how loud is the action noise? How much of the loudness is the gas and how much of it is the action moving back and forth? A rhetorical question, but the point is constantly being subjected to noise at a fixed frequency, even if it's "hearing safe" still has the potential to cause damage.
115 to 120 approximately Tack on another 25ish decibels for port pop on a standard AR15.

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The real question for me that I haven't seen tested is how fast the sound dissipates with distance. For example a 145DB port pop going off a few inches from your face is clearly loud AF, but if you put that same 145DB 3x as far away how does it dissipate? Super nerd stuff and it's getting into the point of just sciency stuff but it would be interesting to learn.

Based on really really rough math in my head the sound dissipates about 8 DB roughly 24 inches away from the shooter's face when shooting suppressed on a bolt action vs semi auto. That's just a general estimate.