Coffin- I always use earplugs and earmuffs at the range, no problem with hearing damage. There are nice sound attenuated muffs for less than 60 bucks that let you hear voices but cancel out high peak decibel noises. If you are hunting elk and caribou, or anything west of say the Mississippi, you need something that shoots fast and flat, as in it doesn't drop rapidly down range. This lets you hold center mass of your target and have about 8 inches of kill zone inside 300 yards. Any shots laonger than that are in my judgement, not kosher. I have a 30.06 Sako fiberglass that will bring down most anything with one shot, but that would be the minimum for Elk. A belted magnum, like a .300 Winchester magnum will do anything. There are too many new flat shooting cartridges to keep up with, any of the hunting magazines are full of new comparisons. I'd get an 30.06 if you plan to hunt in both wooded terrain and in the West. Almost all of the rifles sold today are accurate enough to do the job, thanks to CNC machining. I'm partial to Remington 700's and Sako's, but a Savage is quite a nice rifle out of the box for not much money. The 30-30 is a short range brush gun, and the .308 may not cut it after 200 yards. Ammo has a lot to do with it. Good glass is really important, Leupold, Burris, Swarovski, Zeiss, and Kahles are all very good. Hope this helps. Oh yeah, don't worry about noise while hunting, you need to hear everything out there, and if you do your part, you'll only fire one round, and believe me, you won't hear it!