I own the S&W PC .460 with the 12 inch (unported) barrel. I haven't fired the gun at animal in the woods yet (this fall will be her maiden voyage into the woods) so I was curious as to how bad the volume was going to be. About a month ago I was at one of our hunting camps and let a guy shoot the gun. Just as I was saying "aim and squeeze" and bringing my hands up to cover my ears... "BOOM". I was pleasantly suprised to find out that the volume from that gun was no worse on my unprotected ears than my 300 WSM or an '06. Like the guns recoil, the volume was certainly not all it was hyped up to be.