Loudest gun you've been around or fired?

[Detachment Charlie]

16" Naval Rifles

Onboard the Battleship New Jersey each of three guns in a turret was charged with a 2,200 lbs. round (not sure what that works out to in grains) and was backed by SIX 110 lbs. bags of powder.
Dudes, unless you were on the Enola Gay, I doubt if you've ever heard anything lke this.

 

[starsandstriper]

muzzelloader

for some reason, my TC diamondback muzzelloader hurts my ears morethan anything else with only a 100 gr pyrodex charge. i have fired over 100 rounds of .410,a nd 100 rounds of a short barreled (22inch) 20 gauge in one trip and i didnt so much as blink, but 1 shot from the muzzelloader to unload after a deer hunt to unload, an my ears rang for a week. i am still not sure why it bugs me more.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

Originally posted by Detachment Charlie:
Onboard the Battleship New Jersey each of three guns in a turret was charged with a 2,200 lbs. round (not sure what that works out to in grains) and was backed by SIX 110 lbs. bags of powder.

There are 7,000 grains in a pound. A 15,400,000-grain projectile with a 4,620,000-grain powder charge. That oughta git 'r' done. And isn't it black powder?

 

[stevekl]

Geez...

Has anyone on this forum NOT served on a battleship?

 

[sorensen440]

Geez...

Has anyone on this forum NOT served on a battleship?

I havnt

 

[DC3-CVN-72]

Deasert Eagle .50 A.E.

The loudest has to be a Deasert Eagle in .50 A.E. fired next to me at a in-door range! It rattled the partishon next to me and one of the cieling tiles fell to the ground in my lane.

 

[Rey B]

No battleship service here either. I had friends on Missouri and New Jersey that were firecontrolmen on the 16" gunfire control system but my time was spent on small boys, FFG-23 and DD-973. CIWS and MK 86

 

[bclark1]

.50 cal's a the indoor range are bad. i don't know what these guys were shooting last time i was there but there was a pressure blast from it several stalls down.

people tell me my 1895g is a pain to be on the bench next to, it doesn't bother me a whole lot.

probably the worst i've gotten it is when i forgot ears (actually forgot a lot of stuff, like the gps, clipboard, camera, etc... it was pretty rushed) on my last scouting trip for turkey. had to pattern in, shot maybe 10 shells of 3-1/2"ers out of two shotguns without hearing protection. that got me ringing for a couple days.

 

[RH822]

No Battleship service, U.S. Army Artillery. I used to pull tail on a M110 8" howitzer firing a charge 7 white bag, that was a big BOOM.

RH

 

[Archer1945]

Indoors I think the loudest I've heard was a Desert Eagle .50AE. Outdoors it was the guy next to me at 25 yards with a 300 Win Mag., concussion almost knocked me over. On the skeet range it was a fellow shooter with a Cutts Compensator on a Model 12, I think, Winchester.

Compensators may be great for reducing recoil but they do it at the expense of everyone's airdrums in a 20 mile radius. And that is if everyone is wearing ear protection.

 

[The Cavalry]

M109A3 Howitzer would be the loudest "gun" I've gotten to fire, running 2nd place to the 120mm main gun of my former ride.

 

[MKEITH]

My Smith&Wesson bodyguard .357after it came back from magnaport getting quadraported. When i first got it back, my ears rang for two days after 5 rounds of 38 special.Always use ear protection now.

 

[jad0110]

There are 7,000 grains in a pound. A 15,400,000-grain projectile with a 4,620,000-grain powder charge. That oughta git 'r' done.

Sorta nukes the whole 9 mm vs 45 ACP debate, don't it?

 

[rugerdude]

I was getting ready to do some informal plinking with a friend and two older relatives of his. One the old fellas decided to fire a .38 snubby next to my head without telling me or saying anything to anyone. He was actually standing a tad behind me, but to my right so that the gun was even with my ear and about 2 feet away.

I immediately dropped to my knees and bolted left before I even realized what had happened.

Needless to say, I don't shoot with him anymore.

My mosin nagant makes a nice racket.

Some people are distracted by my 500a at the skeet range, but it just doesn't sound that loud on my end.

 

[Jrob24]

outdoors = Serbu .50 BMG

indoors = Desert eagle .50 AE

 

[CWQnee]

This isn't in the same range as some of the posts here but my NAA "Black Widow" in .22 WMR with a 2" barrel has one heck of a loud bark! Probably in about the same range of dB as a .357 from a 6" barrel revolver.

 

[scout26]

Never been on a battleship. (The Army didn't have any. )

Loudest I've been around:
M110 8" SP Howizter.

Loudest I've fired:
M198 155mm Towed Howizter. Yep, I got to pull the lanyard during ROTC Advance Camp at Ft. Lewis.

Also fired the 120mm main gun (and all the other guns) on an M1A1.

 

[1911 guy]

No battleship service.

I spent my time on flat tops and ground pounding, turning wrenches on airplanes then cross rated to the SeaBees. I've been around Destroyer gunfire, though. It's on a previous post.

 

[FIFTYGUY]

I bet a .22 with a muzzle 1" from your ear is just as loud as an 18" gun at 50 yards. All relative...

Crunker1337 wrote:

Anyone fired a 20mm rifle?

Yes, my own. And the loudest I remember was firing it outdoors without hearing protection.

At the time I was firing prone and somehow forgot to put down my earmuffs. I know it sounds strange, but I *swear* I could hear the metal-on-metal "zing" of the projo going down the barrel. Maybe it was one of those "time dilation under stress" things. This was followed by an unbearabe piercing pain in my left ear from the muzzle blast.

Like others here have described, I got up and staggered around while clutching my head in my hands. Big bores, muzzle brakes, and bare ears is a bad combination...

The Lone Haranguer wrote:

And isn't it black powder?

The black powder used on the 16" 50 cal US Naval guns is only present in the igniter pad used to get the main charge of single-base multi-perforated smokeless powder burning.

 

[WinchesterAA]

S&W 500s at the indoor range were pretty damn unpleasant, but I gotta give props to the .50BMG and of course my MN m44 =)

However, by far the LOUDEST damn firearm I have ever been around/fired was a 1911 style italian .22LR. I've got permanent hearing damage that hasn't lessened at all in the last 12 years of my life just from shooting that thing once without hearing protection. Oh man that was a dreadfully obnoxious pistol!

never had a misfire though, and it was pretty accurate.

 

[CC Bob]

The loudest I experienced was from a .50 BMG at our outdoor range. The moron who owned it had his buddy videotaping him shooting it, and before rapid firing through the entire magazine, the guy yells out "Fire in the hole!" and cuts loose... all of us just shook our heads.

 

[igor]

95mm recoilless, TOW or APILAS. Hard to say.

 

[Tsgtbob]

Loudest, M109A6 Paladin howitzer at my former employer's test range. I was photographing the recoil with a still camera from about 20 yards away in the test bunker. Blew the windows on the cap of the photo lab's pickup truck sitting in the parking lot. ( my co-worker had to explain that one to the motor pool...)

Second loudest, M-1 (no A1, E1, the original Abrams, with the 105mm main gun in the mid-80s) at Wildflicken range. idiot crew loaded a real HE round, (from the combat load in the floor) that sucker made one helluva a noise! The Bradley's 25mm chain gun is a close second, and I got to fire that one.

Third loudest, the armaments on an AC130, lighting up some "targets".

Honorable mentions, I have two. An A-10 making main gun runs, and, well, it's not a gun, but, the pure terror noise of a B-1 on takeoff! You don't hear it as much as feel it!

 

[Mac45]

It's a toss up, one buddy has a Blackhawk in .30 Carbine, another has a Vaquero in .32-20.
Both are load enough to make people move at an outdoor range

 

[Stevie-Ray]

Honorable mentions, I have two. An A-10 making main gun runs, and, well, it's not a gun, but, the pure terror noise of a B-1 on takeoff! You don't hear it as much as feel it!

Never heard the Avenger cannon, but I witnessed 3 passes by a B-1B at our local airshow. 2 were high speed runs, 1 with an unrestricted climb. The B-1B is unquestionably the loudest and most chest-thumping awesome spectacle at today's airshows.