In a real situation, you don't even notice the noise. My wife is very, very sensitive to loud noises, but when one of the roosters turned aggressive and she was trying to catch it because she was worried that it could possibly hurt our toddler, out came the Mossberg and BLAM! Not a mention of the noise. Same thing used to happen to me in firefighting. Fires can be LOUD, especially if the garage it burning and stuff in cans is going "boom" - yet somehow, I never really was bothered by that.