I once thought my 2.5" M-19 or 6.5" M29 with full power loads were loud, until I got into long range pistol, or as some call it, metal silhouette competition. Only iron sights were allowed; you shot steel animal silhouettes at 50, 100, 150 and 200 yds and had to knock them down to score.
Standing off to the side of the active line, you could hear the report of the various guns and calibers. It was obvious the 357's were louder than the 45's, the 44 mags were louder than the 357's, then the Ruger 30 carbines, then the Thompson Contenders in 30-30, but the king of the hill were the Remington XP-100's in full length .308. Every now and then, shooting prone, I'd find myself next to a shooter with one of those hand cannons. There was plenty of time to shoot each round, 25 seconds IIRC, and I quickly learned to wait until the shooter with the cannon fired, then I'd settle down, aim and fire. The noise and blast were overwhelming; it was so powerful out of that short barrel that the front foot or two of the guy's (sometimes gal's) shooting mat would lift up, coil back in an S shape about a foot off the ground like a cobra, then slap down, raising a cloud of dust that rolled over my position.
Funny thing was, actually shooting the thing was more pleasant than shooting my M-29. After the matches, we'd have a fun shoot, and I tried one a few times. You shot them from a Creedmore position, so the muzzle was a long way out from your ears. The grip was under the front of the bolt, not behind the gun. The result was the gun rolled up from your elbow in recoil, finishing with the barrel pointing up at about 45-50 degrees from the horizontal, whereas my M-29 drove the gun mostly straight through my wrist and elbow to my shoulder. My hand and wrist always ached after about 80 rounds of match and fun runs with the M-29. The other neat thing about the 30-30's and 308's was the sighting; I adjusted my M-29 aim with range and tried to hit high on the animal silhouette to knock them down, actually raising the rear sight to max for the 200 yd rams. With the 308, I was looking through a peep sight, and the aperture was so small, I saw only black when on target. I could not tell where I was on the target. The guys who owned the guns told me not to worry; if you see black, pull the trigger, it will go down no matter where you hit it. That was fun, an I began to understand how some of them would knock down 40 out of 40 targets in a match. I usually shot in the 20's, with a best of 28 out of 40. I was good at bulls eye, but silhouette was a humbling experience. My hand and wrist began to hurt more and more and I gave it up and sold the M-29 to a friend who just had to have a Dirty Harry gun.