➡ The sound of a shotgun doesn’t travel as far as many people think, and factors like wind can affect how it’s heard. If you’re far from the source, it’s harder to pinpoint where the sound is coming from because it bounces off different things. This information can be useful in planning activities like hunting. Remember to prepare and stay safe, and you can find quality survival gear at CanadianPreparedness.com.

Hi folks, CanadianPrepper here. Have you ever wanted to know how far can you hear a gunshot? Are you going to be attracting attention to yourself? If you’re a prepper, you’re a survivalist, you’re a homesteader, there’s value in knowing if I’m out hunting, how far can that gunshot be heard? Will I be attracting unwanted attention if I’m doing target shooting? How much of a difference will the caliber, the weather, the topography, and all of the various factors that we’re going to talk about today, how are they going to factor in to how far that sound is going to travel? In addition to that, there’s a security component to this.

I want to know if I can hear a gunshot when I’m sleeping. How far away am I going to be able to hear it from? If we’re in a collapse and my neighbors down the road a mile away get into an altercation, am I going to be able to hear those gunshots? Now how we’re going to do this is we’re going to test out two conditions. One, we’re obstructed by forest and one in the open grasslands. So this decibel meter is going to give us a quantitative breakdown of exactly how loud the gunshot is at various distances along the way.

And we’re going to be taking into account various obstructions. And we’re going to be testing out today two different types of calibers. What kind of caliber do you have there? This is a 22. And this, of course, is a 12-gauge shotgun. Between these two, more or less, a 12-gauge shotgun is going to be quite loud. It’s likely going to be around the same level of loudness as an AR. Of course, there’s going to be differences in terms of the type of sound. An AR sound is likely going to be a bit sharper, whereas this is going to be more of a boom.

And of course, a 50 cal is going to be significantly louder. But generally speaking, I think a 12-gauge is a good all-around gun to do this test. So I’m going to be shooting the gun in various conditions. And my son Dominic is going to be measuring the sound at various distances. So the first thing we’re going to test is a 22. We’ll do a few just so we get a good read. We spiked at about 74 that time. That’s not very loud. That time was 83. Okay, now bring it a little bit closer to here if you can.

We just want to get a nice control. This is right out the gun. This is how loud it’s going to be at the shooter’s head. That was way more or less than 83. So now we’re going to try a 12-gauge shotgun. I’m just shooting target load. It should more or less be a similar sound. Here we go. We’re going live. It went to 82. That was still like 84. The decibel meter is not going to be entirely accurate. We’re mostly going to be relying on auditory cues. So that’s why we have a child here today, because apparently they can hear more frequencies than adults.

They generally tend to have better hearing. So if we can get far enough away from the gunshot that a child can’t hear it, then there’s a good chance that an adult will never be able to hear it as well. Without further ado, let’s get into the bush. All right, guys. So there’s a bit of a clearing here, but there’s forest in all directions. Guess I got to chamber it around first. All right, guys. So we’re going to fire the 22 one more time. All right, so it looked like we peaked around 47 to 45. I heard it very nice and clear.

It was a very distinct sound. And it kind of sounded like a guy cutting a tree with an axe. That’s how loud it was. All right, guys. Hello. We’re going to shoot the 12 gauge with the forest obstruction. One, two, three. We heard it, and it was a very nice and distinct sound. And we peaked around 73 to 70. It was kind of the same. It was a bit last. Like last time, it was like 44, and now it was 40. As the last time, it was 73. This was 71. It was way more faint than the other ones.

So this time around, it was way quieter, but it echoed. Okay, so here we got the 12 gauge, and it’s pointed in your general direction. Something you never want to hear. So I could definitely hear it way louder than the 22. Overall, I think the 12 gauge was way louder. This one was 59, and our first one was 72. Our second shot was a bit quieter, but it echoed for longer. That was definitely sounded if I was sleeping. I wouldn’t be able to hear it. It wouldn’t wake me up. 69. So you still heard that one pretty good then? Yeah.

Yeah, that was nothing. We could hear, but it was like very, very, very faint. If you were listening, would it sound like a gunshot to you? No, not really. I don’t think I would notice it. Okay, interesting. All right, let’s see if you notice the 12 gauge. That one moved it up by like five. Our background decibels, they are way higher than before, because we’re closer to the road, and there’s any more crickets and all that stuff. So it just was 37, and now it is 45. Was it audible to you at all? All right, so I’m going to do the shotgun now.

How was that? I heard it, but it was faint to them last time, but it still sounded like a shotgun. It kind of feels like a wasp flying by you. That’s how loud it is. It is way fainter than last time. Our decibel meter is not even registering or picking up anything, and it’s literally just sounding like a tree falling down in the forest. Okay, do you hear that? No. No. Okay, here comes the 12 gauge. You ready? We hear that? We heard that one, but it was delayed. You were already on the line.

The 12 gauge, I think our next stop, we won’t be able to hear it. Do you want me to fire it one more time real quick here? Sure. We just heard it now. Wow, so it took the sound that long to travel there. We are even further out. We cannot hear the 22 at all, so now we’re just going to do the 12 gauge. Okay, here we go. Let me know if you hear it. All right, so here we are now. We are in an open field. Those guys are the same distance away. They couldn’t hear either gun.

Now we’re going to start with the 22, and we’re going to see if they can hear it with very few obstructions in between us. Did you hear that? No. I’m going to fire a few 22 shots in rapid succession, and you can tell me if you can hear it, okay? All right, here we go. Nothing. Nothing. It sounded like somebody knocked on a door, but it was like very, very quiet. Like you wouldn’t know that was gunshots. Yeah. Okay, guys, so what we’re finding is they’re around three kilometers away, and because we’re using cell phones, that’s traveling more or less at the speed of light.

There’s very little delay. The sound is actually taking much longer to get there than the cell connection. Okay, so here we go, guys. We’re going to do another 12 gauge in an open field, and you’re going to tell me if you can hear. Are you guys ready? There. Yep. If we weren’t sitting here listening for a bullet, I don’t even think, if you were walking, I bet you wouldn’t even hear it. Were you at all amazed at how long it took the sound of the gunshot to reach you? I’m in my 40s, and I never knew there was that much of a delay with a gunshot.

Like we were only, what, three kilometers apart, and it took about 10 seconds for the sound to get to you. You’re not at all amazed by that. Gen A, guys, Generation Alpha. When we were on the phone with each other, our messages were reaching at almost at the speed of light, and so the sound took a lot longer to get there. I was a little surprised that the forest didn’t muffle the sound more. I thought that it would have had more of an impact. Now, you guys were at three kilometers, and you couldn’t hear the 22 or the 12 gauge when we were in the forest, but you could hear it when we were in the open.

Is that correct? Yep. There’s so many other factors to consider, so I think if it was windy, I would suspect that you would probably cut the distance that you could hear this stuff in half. If it was rainy, there’s cars going down the road. If it was snowy, you know, all of these things are going to likely dampen the sound even more. In the best conditions, a shotgun sound in an open field is only going to travel maybe three to five kilometers, and you’re not even going to be able to tell if it’s a shotgun sound, and you’re likely only going to hear it if you’re waiting for it.

That’s pretty crazy when you think about it, because I think a lot of people think that that sound is going to travel a lot further. You know, this inspires a bit more confidence in me to know that if you’re in a collapsed situation, you might want to factor in all those variables with respect to planning on when you’re going to do hunting or when you’re going to do certain things. We know what I’d like to see. How does wind affect the transfer of sound? If there’s a gust of wind, like a crosswind, in between me and the receiver of the information, is that going to attenuate the sound? You know, that old folklore about, your voice carries on the wind or something, you know? Like, is that true? I don’t know.

Well, it did get harder to tell where the sound was coming from. Okay. The further out. Like, it just, like, it was a pop in that direction. Right. You know? So you’re saying that the echolocation is more difficult the further you are from the sound. Well, and likely it’s bouncing off a lot of different things as it’s dissipating. So what the communist cameraman is saying is that the further you go away from it, that sound is ricocheting off various obstacles. And so it’s harder to precisely echolocate where it’s coming from.

All right, guys. Thanks for watching. Don’t forget to like, comment, subscribe. Show your support for the channel by sharing this on other social media platforms. And by all means, if you need your gear, CanadianPreparedness.com. Thanks for watching. The best way to support this channel is to support yourself by gearing up at CanadianPreparedness.com, where you’ll find high-quality survival gear at the best prices, no junk, and no gimmicks. Use discount code preppinggear for 10% off. Don’t forget the strong survive, but the prepared thrive. Stay safe. [tr:trw].

See more of Canadian Prepper on their Public Channel and the MPN Canadian Prepper channel.