As others have mentioned, the recoil increase of 300 WM is significant. My Savage has on on/off muzzle brake. It's tolerable with the brake off for a few shots in the field, but I wouldn't shoot it at the bench that way. I leave the brake on in the field, and just carry hearing protection. Otherwise, ringing in my ears from 1 shot in the field indicates that it's damaging my hearing. At the range, I actually double up and wear ear plugs with muffs over, because it's that loud. My setup weighs about 11 pounds with scope and bipod, so it's not doing a lot to tame the recoil besides the brake. To me, 7mm Rem Mag with 140 grain bullets in a hunting weight rifle is the high end of recoil I'll tolerate at the range, and I'm only good for 40 rounds with my 7mm rifle. With a shoulder recoil shield, I'm good for about 60. With the brake on my 300, I can shoot until I run out of ammo with no degradation in my accuracy.