I never minded the recoil of the Rem 600 in 308, nor did I even mention recoil in my summation of the rifle. I have often had my shoulder bruised blue from recoil, but it certainly wasn't from shooting the 600. Also, I lost any flinch I may have had, at least fifty years ago.
However, noise is a completely different matter. High noise can, and does, permanently injure ears. I have been subject to a lot of high noise in my time and don't want to further injure my hearing. It used to be funny, but not funny, to hear old shooters talking to each other. You could hear them from a block away! As a point of interest, I was one of the very first shooters, probably in BC, to use ear muffs for shooting. They were designed for workers around jet aircraft, then adopted by shooters.
If you had a device to meaure noise intensity, set by your head as you fired each of a 308 with 18½" barrel and one with a 24" inch barrel, you would find the short barrel registered considerable more decibels. And Heimo, if you can't notice the difference, me tends to think thou has maybe been around too much noise!!! Also, a 35 Remington will never reach the high noise intensity of a 308.
