Hardest kicking gun you've ever shot?

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I had the opportunity to fire a punt gun mounted to a small rowboat. The recoil from a 20 oz BB load sent us about 20 yards in reverse. The concussion was insane, and my ears were ringing for almost 5 hours afterwards.

The hardest kicking man portable, shoulder fired weapon I've ever fired would be a single shot .50BMG with a broken muzzle brake. The muzzle brake had a crack in the end when my buddy bought it so we hacksawed the end off and dealt with a 1 chamber muzzle brake that day... Needless to say we all had bruised shoulders, ringing ears and headaches after that range trip. He ordered a new muzzle brake the next day.
 
My T/C Contender pistol with tapered barrel in .45-70 shooting a factory Remington 300 gr load. Literally, like a firecracker going off in your hand. (I've had that experience also) A few rounds later, my hand was completely numb. Had it Magnaported rifle style. Afterward, and armed with gloves it was better, but still too much gun for me. Of course the 405 gr loads are nice, but they are extremely weak. I guess I want my shooting to be pleasureable. I've never found any .44 mag objectionable, so I guess that's the upper limit of pleasureable for me. I have a CBC single-shot shotgun that I've heard is a shoulder-breaker. I wouldn't know, as I've never fired it.
 
I lost three teeth when I shot a turkey lefthanded. I was shooting a 3" 2 1/4 oz Active in my 1300 Win. We found a formula to calculate recoil. The 1300 had around 55# of recoil with that load. My 270 has about 17#.

That wasn't even the hardest kick that I have had. Just the most painful and most expensive. The hardest was a 458 Win Mag.

Note to self. Don't shoot lefthanded unless you are lefthanded.
 
2 3/4" 1 oz 12 ga out of a Mossberg 500.

With 13 grains more Green Dot than expected due to a drilled out powder bushing. BOOM.
 
Most painful was a Marlin lever action in .45-70 with full house hunting reloads...
Click to expand...
Around 1977 I loaded up some max 405 gr JSP loads for my 1974 vintage Marlin M95 with a nice looking hard, curved buttplate. I fired 2 rounds & gave the rest away. I haven't had any thing hit me that hard since I was a kid & stuck my nose in a jar of Muriatic acid and sniffed... :eek:
 
3 1/2" goose loads out of an old sxs 10 gauge. The gun was a friends that we were shooting with. He had gotten the gun from his father and only had the one box of shells. They were old paper hulls, Winchester I think. Well, the gun was beefy enough to take a lot of the recoil, I thought that it was a lot of fun. Not everyone did though. The most painful gun I've ever shot was my S-R K31. I was prone and it hit me hard on the collar bone. I'm thin and don't have a lot over my collar bone.
 
Fired my brother's contender in 45-70 with a 300 grain bullet. In a rifle it has to be my marlin guide gun the 450 marlin out of a 16 1/2 inch barrel. The marlin bruised my shoulder for about 2 weeks.
 
I started out hunting with a Savage/Stevens Mdl 94B 16-Ga with that light "Tenite" stock. It was "Pops" {Grandfathers stored by the back door gun for keeping the fox out of the chicken house, etc} shotgun, and it was a real BEAST with heavy-duty loads.

Shot a .375H&H bolt-action rifle...ONCE
 
Beretta 1201FP with 3-inch Brenneke 1.25-oz slugs. The recoil is BRUTAL with the factory field-type stock but become VERY manageable with the installation of a Benelli M1 Super90 or Choate pistol gripped buttstock.
 
One of the worst was first time ever firing a gun - nice double barrel at a pheasant when I was about 12. As a LH, those triggers were in the perfect spot for me to pull both at once - THAT hurt..........and there was nothing left to eat of that bird either
 
One that I remember, was when I was in my 20s had a very light 30-06 it hurt... Sold it ;)

OOPs this is a shotgun shoot....:eek:

Hmmm ;)

I have a model 37 that is cut down and still legal, shooting it one handed is a hand full...Shooting it with two hands is a breeze... The hold on tight and squeeze the trigger and pump:evil:
 
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a Husqavarna 30.6 with a scope. The scope came back and sliced me across the top of my eye.
 
two that come to mind. An NEF UltraComp that I fitted a Tracker II 3" 12 gauge slug barrel to. With Remington Buckhammers, it bloodied my eyebrow with the scope. Didn't Hurt!!! (too much!!) The second was an NEF 36" full choke 3" mag 12 gauge. Man, it kicked worse than a 10 gauge singleshot that I had. I thought that I was used to recoil as I used to load my Siamese Mauser 45/70 approaching .458 power but that 12 gauge gave me a quick reminder. Sert01
 
A friend of mine asked me to take a few shots with his Mossberg 695 12GA Bolt Action slug gun to help him sight it in...I never should have taken him up on that. That gun is ultra light and he was shooting 3" Winchester Partition Golds...I will never shoot that gun for him again...It is certainly no fun and that is an understatement.
 
I fired 3" magnum #4 turkey loads out of my Beretta 390 to try and pattern it. That was traumatic to say the least. I replaced the plastic recoil pad the next day with a Limbsaver. Everyone who has mentioned the Mossberg 835 with 3 1/2" shells, check under your recoil pad and see if the plastic spacer between the stock and the gun (on synthetic stocks anyways) is still in one piece. I put a couple 3 1/2 #4's through it and it cracked the spacer in half. Luckily a replacement is only 6 bucks.

A Marlin XL7 in 30-06 isn't very fun either. It has scoped me twice. Better optics are on the way before shooting that again.

b
 
On paper it is a .416 Rigby, Ruger #1 Tropical. The only gun/cartridge combo, however, that ever gave me a problem because of recoil was a T/C Encore with a 20" SSK barrel. It is chambered for one of SSK's "Whisper" series of subsonic cartridges, the 50-70-750.
As noted, One loads a BMG bullet into a 50-70 case over a charge of H322 or RE7. The result is a bullet that comes out of the barrel at about 900 fps.
No big deal?
It is the only rifle that I have ever fired (and I have shot them from .22RF up to 50 BMGs and pistols from .22 to 500 S&W) - the only gun that has ever caught me with the scope. I broke a couple of pair of shooting glasses trying to find the right place for a scope. I had to go to a Red Dot to get enough eye relief. The recoil pulse in that light rifle was so fast that I could not keep out of the way.
In pistols.....also a T/C Encore....was the 500 S&W using some of Rick Gibson's 750 grain "Tyrannosaur Thumpers". Every shot hurt....every single one....a 750 grainer at 1200 fps.

I know that this is in the shotgun forum but the OP was "gun" so to the above. As far as SGs are concerned, I have had a twelve gauge SXS double on me - a turkey had risen from, literally, under my feet. It was about as big as a B-52. I brought the gun up and BOOM! I thought right away that it was a bit more than it should have been. I missed the bird.
I suspect that a lightish pump gun and 3.5 inch 12 ga. Turkey loads would be a handful.
Pete
 
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Haha 230 I have to agree with you. I have a .300 weatherby that kicks like an angry mule. Ten gauge with hevi shot turkey loads is no slouch either though.
 
I was "lucky" enough to get to shoot a Hyem 600 Nitro Express bolt-action rifle---one round was more then enough for me! The cost of the ammo alone even back then would pay for months of shooting .45 or 9mm.
 
Oldpuppymax,

I bet that 06' was a Savage!! I can't remember the model, I want to say 110?? There was something about that Savage that kicked like a PO'd mule!! Hated that rifle but was all I had to hunt elk when I was 16.
 
7mm Mag, hard kicker

I've got a 7mm Mag with souped up handloads. Fire comes out the barrel about three feet when you shoot. It does knock you back a bit. It's cool at dusk though, shooting coyotes or woodchucks, when the fire comes out the barrel in the dark:) After a long day of shooting woodchucks, the shoulder WILL be black and blue but the gun is a joy and it's very accurate with handloads. 110 grain hollow points make a mist out of anything it hits. It's got a 30-06 beat in all areas.
 
a wally-world singleshot. No recoil pad. Slugs.

i was 15 .. and the friend who handed it to me
had this smile on his face .....
 
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