I personally never use hearing protection when hunting as I want to hear everything naturally and I am lucky that my hearing is still excellent, and as you are directly behind the gun or rifle when shooting the noise is not significant anyway, especially as I hunt mostly by myself. When at the range I always wear hearing protection and I use a pair of Howard Leight Impact Sport muffs which work very well and have minimum interference with the butt stock. At work I wear hearing protection for the slightest loud noise and always have, which is why I believe my hearing is still good.

Matt.