The only time I have had a noise problem was on a hunt with one partner. I had a deer down, but we were having trouble finding it. I saw the bullet hit the deer, but I was a bit low and a bit too far back. That almost always means a liver shot, which is a terrible place to hit an animal for two reasons...they do not bleed out nearly as fast as a heart or lung shot, and the blood goes down into the belly of the deer and you get very little in the way of a blood trail to follow. We saw the deer run 200 yds, jump a fence and go over the edge of a hill and disappear. My partner refused to believe that I hit the animal and complained constantly that after an hour of looking, we found no blood and no deer. We split up and agreed that if one of us found the deer we would fire two quick shots. Five minutes later I found the deer, stone dead, with a bullet hole exactly where I had told my partner it would be. Had I not had a brake, I would have given up on finding the animal at the one hour mark. I was shooting a 300 win mag, and prepared to fire our signal. I held the rifle in one hand and held it as high as I could reach to keep the sound away from my ears. Well, holding it in that position somehow maximized the noise, and **** that hurt. My ears didn't ring, they really hurt. I fired the second shot from my shoulder and had no problem. But, I got my deer, my partner had punched out, and we were headed for home. I know a lot of guys do not like brakes, and that is fine...do what works for you, but I will always put a brake on a gun that has any significant recoil issues, and I will always now carry ear plugs for any signal shots I have to fire.