An earplug of the type that includes a soft foam body (14) and a more rigid core (16) that stiffens the body during its insertion into the ear canal, is mass produced so the front end (30) of the stiff core cannot rub along the surface of the ear canal during insertion. The core is elongated and bonded to the body, and the core has a front end (30) that is recessed from the front end (36) of the body, so the soft foam material of the body prevents the front end of the core from contacting the ear canal. The earplug can be mass produced by extruding the soft foam through an extrusion head (42), around the cores, with a long core device having been cut into the cores and with the extrusion (52) cut at locations to leave foam material forward of each core front end.