I'm not the Hearing Protection Police, but highly recommend protecting your hearing as much as possible. My tinnitus comes and goes, but it's in full-force as I am typing this. Probably why I chimed in.
A suggestion made earlier was a hearing plug in your left ear as you right probably receives less damage during a shot. Seems reasonable for big-game hunting where you're probably (hopefully) only pulling the trigger once.
You know, in all of this we missed one major thing........that is a hell of a nice deer!!!!!!
I have used a lot of different brakes over the years on 5.56, 308, Grendels, 300 win mag. The brakes Warped makes are as good as you will find for recoil reduction, without horrible noise busting your eardrums. An excellent brake. The only reason I don't use one is I shoot in really unusual conditions where ground dust kick up is a problem. However, I think he is now making brakes that can be adjusted to eliminate that issue. That would easily make those brakes the top one I have used.
I have probably used a total of 15-20 different brakes over the past 25 years.
Also outdoor conditions can vary so much that at times it is tolerable, other times it is bad, environmental conditions are strange that way.
If it felt like that to you I would suggest ear pro, if you ever shot one of my other rifles you would really be hurting, the grendel is not that bad.
The .270 can really put a hurting on your ears. Of course that thing is launching bullets at 3200fps
yeah rock is as bad as being next to a building
in an area where it is lush and green it is way better, however hearing damage is not always so obvious.
Take a word of advice from us old hard of hearing types...
When I am on a public range I get dirty looks for letting the .270 bark.
People have yelled "what the hell is that thing?"