I allways wear them when shooting,But when I am hunting it's a different story.Monday was the first day to fire it without mufs.I was pumped to and my adrenilin was pumping when I seen the deer.It didn't help though.My ears are still ringing today.I can deal with the recoil,no problem there at all,This was my first brake gun and thought I would try it out the brake system.For varmit when you got time to put on mufs or earplugs prob not bad.But for deer hunting,carrying mufs or earplugs around don't seam logical unless you got a blind deer.