What Redfish said about the sound of loading it in the chamber. I woke up one night in my apartment in college, heard some noise, and saw some idiots trying to break into my neighbor's car. It was late- like 2:30am and the windows on my groundlevel apartment were open. The car was probably 15 feet from my window. Anyway, I got out my trusty Mossberg 12-gauge bolt action. I knew I wasn't going to fire it. I held the Mossberg in the window and just worked the bolt action just once. They dropped their tools, ran like scalded-ass cats, hopped over the fence, and were gone! i laughed my ass off! I told my neighbor about it the next morning. He got an alarm installed that day, and we never had any more trouble.