Most severely-recoiling firearms

Firing 375 h and h magnums (300 gr.) from the bench. Brutal.

This thread just goes to show that a lot of people buy more gun than they need and then can't shoot well with cause of the recoil. Shooting 300 grs. in my 45-70 or shooting 12 ga birdshot if I am shooting any length of time is about my tolerance level.

Has anyone tried the Edwards Recoil Reducer in their rifle or shotgun? How exactly does it work?

You ought to try a 460 Weatherby Magnum if you are a recoil junkie.

Some years back, I found the .30-06 in a light, Mannlicher-style carbine to be punishing on my shoulder, and that was shooting only 150-grain bullets. Too bad because the rifle, a Sauer, was truly a beauty and the action was smooth as silk!

I won't shoot it anymore for fear of detached retina's.

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hah yeah I wonder about that (with any punishing guns that is)

Words to worry about recoil for rounds/caliber: Mangum, Weatherby, Hot, etc...
Words to worry about for guns: featherweight, light, scout, mountain, etc...

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He he he . . .

It is all about mass of weapon / bullet impulse relation.

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Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

This thread just goes to show that a lot of people buy more gun than they need and then can't shoot well with cause of the recoil.

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. . . . . Yeah. But for my case I just want to try to see how much I can shoot/tolerate in a single string of firing xxx weapon xxx weapon etc. Plus I wants to try shooting two .454 Ruger Red Hawks simultaneously. So I’m PURPOSELY seeking out "Severely-Recoiling Firearms" (or SRF) purely for that reason--Just for the recoil. Not to, you know, shoot correctly or anything.
I am however worried about developing a flinch even with minimal exposure to such recoil.

About 30 years ago I loaded up some .47-70's with a full case of IMR-3031 (about 51 gr IIRC) and 500gr lead bullets. Loaded into an H&R Shikari single shot the rifle was close to being a pipe bomb and kicked horribly. Shortly after that while on emergency leave my car was broken into and all that hot .45-70 and several hundred .38 Spcl that I'd loaded up to .357 specs for my Ruger Security-six were stolen. I am sure somebody got a kick out of that.

In my experiences, I never found a .338 Win. Mag. that didn't hurt. I think the recoil of a .375 H&H is much softer. The other hard recoiler I didn't care for is a .454 Casull in a Freedom Arms revolver. I much prefer a .45 Colt loaded to potential.

Although the .300 Weatherby is the only Weatherby caliber I've ever fired, the recoil is pretty tolerable. I would imagine anything larger would become intolerable pretty quick........as would anything with Lazzeroni or Dakota stamped on it.

Shotguns

Most painful to shoot were the single shot Stevens and H&Rs. Both kicked like mules and made my teeth rattle. The most painful round out of my Mossberg 500 was a 3in. turkey load that a so called "friend" said go ahead and shoot it. I did not thinking anything about it. It hurt so bad that I had to set the gun down while my friends were rolling on the ground laughing. I had a purple stain that ran from my shoulder, down 4 inches along the rib cage from the armpit, and on the inside of my right bicep to the elbow. My wife saw it when I got home and wondered what did I do to myself.

Rifle

The most recoil from any rifle that I've shot was a Number Three Ruger in 45/70. It was a friend's gun with two loads. The 300 grain bullet loads weren't horrible, but I really had to brace myself for the 500 grain loads that he had. Felt like the push of a 12 gauge mag combined with the snap of a 30.06 bolt rifle.

Handgun

The most painful was shooting some hot 300 gr., 44 mag. handloads some friends were going to use boar hunting. Shot them out of the one friend's Colt Anaconda, and they were bearable. Shot them out of the other friend's 5 in. Ruger Redhawk, and the rubber grips tore the skin off the webbing of my right hand from the recoil. These were the same guys by the way that had the 3 in. turkey load.

Needless to say, I don't own a rifle chambered for anything more than a 30.06; I won't shoot anything bigger than 2 3/4 in. 00 buck or slugs out of a 12 ga. pump; I'm not a 44 mag recoil fan, so I'll stick with my .357 magnum whimp revolvers. Call me a chicken, but I think that I'm older and wiser.

You May Laugh

I have an Arminius single action .44 (only $100) I can shoot one handed, but no matter how I hold it, trigger guard always racks my middle nuckle on my middle finger. It starts out as a lil scrape and grows till my SO asks who I got in a fight with.

Harry Paget Flashman said:

Shortly after that while on emergency leave my car was broken into and all that hot .45-70 and several hundred .38 Spcl that I'd loaded up to .357 specs for my Ruger Security-six were stolen. I am sure somebody got a kick out of that.

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Years ago I worked for the ambulance service in Auburndale, Florida. We shared space in the same building as the police and fire department. The PD officers could carry .357 revolvers, but only .38 Spl. ammo. I started loading .38 cases to .357 pressures for several of the officers. My partner on the ambulance was also a shooter and we'd often take the ambulance and go to the range during quiet times. A friend of his was a security guard/wannabe LEO and one day he stopped by just as we were leaving to go to the range. Naturally, he wanted to go along. What I didn't realize was that he helped himself to a pocketful of the hot loaded .38s.

We got to the range and I was shooting my Model 27 S&W, my partner was shooting his M1 carbine, and the wannabe had his company-issued RG revolver. Yep. An RG. Cheap company, I guess.

Anyway, we'd been shooting just a couple minutes and this guy couldn't hit squat with the RG. Finally, I asked him to let me try it. On the second round the gun made a strange sound and kicked down instead of up. When I looked at it the top strap and top half of the cylinder were completely gone and there was a cylinder-sized hole in the corrigated tin roof over the firing line. The damned RG had blown up in my hand 'cause the jerk had loaded it with the hot .38s. I was really lucky I didn't get hurt.

I can only hope the dirtbag who stole your ammo has a similar experience.

I have shot many different types of rifles.

The single most painful for me was a .308 Ishapore Enfield that had been cut down into a fake jungle carbine.

The subsequently light rifle featured a relatively small, narrow, STEEL buttplate.

I could never finish a full 12-round box magazine out of it without the fingers on my right hand going numb.

That's how sharp the recoil was, and that was even with proper form.

It was simply brutal.

The same rifle now wears a synthetic stock with a rubber buttpad.

Even though that stock is even lighter than the chopped wooden stock, the contour and rubber material of the new buttpad make all the difference in the world.

I can shoot that rifle all day now.

But before....yikes......

hillbilly

.577 T-Rex

750gr @ 2000fps

For me it's my T/C Contender Super 16 in .45-70, shooting 300 gr Remingtons. Absolutely no fun at all. Between the .45 bore taking most of the weight out of the barrel coupled with the fact that the Contender's single shot design blows every bit of energy out the muzzle, this gun is a recoil-lovers dream. It's my nightmare. Magnaporting didn't even help much. I shot 305 gr Barnes loads out of my Redhawk. They were much more pleasant than the T/C.

As far as rifles go, I haven't shot anything bigger than .375 H&H mag, but it wasn't fun either. Probably a .50 BMG in a bolt gun like a McMillan would be eventful. 750 gr at 2700 fps, maybe?

odd as it may seem, the worst recoil I've ever felt in a pistol was in a mousegun: my .32 Seecamp. .44s don't bother me, .357s are minor, .45s I'll shoot all day long. But that tiny lil' .32 is just plain painful to shoot. And you can forget about trying to hit anything with it: no sights...

For me, I can tell you it is all about gun fit.

I have shot 458 lotts and 338/460 mag weatherbys and felt fine. But the guns were properly stocked and fit me well. I have to say the worst Rifle i have shot is a friends 338 win mag merkel SXS double rifle. Usually i do not care for a 338 as they tend to be a sharp recoil with a heavy bullet in a sporter weight rifle. This double rifle just eats me up, my cheek hurts and eyes water every time I have shot it.

second worst was a model 95 winchester in 405 win. not a brutal caliber, but in a rifle with lots of drop in the stock and a steel crescent butt plate OUCH>

Worst handgun was one I carried a lot, a old style flat top 44 mag ruger, but once i tried it with some 330 grain lead loads. just too much.

loaded with 240 or 265 grainers, it was nice to shoot, but them heavy-weight 330 grainers felt like mules kicks with every shot.

I have a .475 Linebaugh based on a Ruger Bisley frame that is easily the worst handgun I've ever fired. Far worse than hot .480's, .454's, or S&W .500's, and I've shot everything from 275 grain Barnes bullets @ 2200 fps to a 710 grain cast WFN GC @ 1200+ fps out of my .500's.

12 gauge Brenneke slug. Oh my!

The worst recoiling rifle I have fired would have to be my 98k. It is no problem standing up, but when I lay down to shoot it, it kicks the **** out of me.

The nastiest recoiling handgun I've used was the first-issue Ruger SRH Casull, back before they improved the grips on the thing. With the heavy loads recoil was intensely painful. It hurt not only my wrists, but banged my middle finger so hard it was bruised for days after the range. That thing was just nasty.

Rifle-wise, the Austro-Hungarian M-95 straight pull carbine was pretty intense! The 8x50R is one of the most powerful of WWII, reaching up to 3,000 ft. lbs. with heavy bullets. Ouch! Powerhouse .45-70 loads out of an 1895G are also pretty stiff.

Shotgun-wise, the most intense recoil I've felt was firing magnum Brenneke slugs out of a little Ithaca '37.

pistol;american deringer 45lc/410ga 16 rds of 2.5"no4's and i couldnt write the next morning.thing didnt patern worth a log either.

rifle;.416 hoffman in a dakota lh action with tapered hexagon barrel.2 rounds and i figured it was enough.

10ga new england single shot turkey gun again 2 rounds 3.5"no4's and i was "educated"

NEF 10 ga. is the worst I've ever shot.

Look at some of these

http://bsg-dornier.de/schiessen/

These are especially good

http://bsg-dornier.de/schiessen/jokes/filme/30.mpg
http://bsg-dornier.de/schiessen/jokes/filme/ibrahim.mpg

And the best of the bunch

http://bsg-dornier.de/schiessen/jokes/filme/40.mpg

Hmmm . . . in handguns, my S&W 340SC is pretty nasty with full-power loads, as is my old-style Thompson/Center Contender with the skinny octagon .44 Magnum barrel and the racy wooden original grips. And I'm not really fond of shooting single action revolvers in serious calibers, as thanks to the high bore line the d@mn grips slide around my middle finger which acts as a fulcrum.

Rifles . . . well, my .375 H&H, though it's far from being the worst, made itself unpleasant during more than one range session when seated at the bench doing load development. I had it Mag-Na-Ported and that made the difference between being able to shoot a couple of boxes off the bench and not being able to. (There's a reason why the Brit makers of large bore express rifles regulated their guns from a STANDING rest!)

jsalcedo said:

Me too except mine were the Winchester super X 350 grain hunting loads.

I could actually feel my brain sloshing around after each shot.

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Ow.

I have a Ruger SuperRedhawk in .454 Casull that's a beast when loaded with 300+ gr .454 rounds. It's actually quite tame with the .45 LCs. Ruger is making an Alaskan "snubbie" version in .454 now, bet it's a kicker! I also have a S&W 629 in .44 Mag and it isn't nearly as brutal as the .454. I've never fired one, but a Springfield Trap-Door gun in .45-70 has to be a bruiser. The ultimate winner in this category must be the Maadi-Griffin and Thunder .50 pistols in .50 BMG (that's right, the 700+ grain rifle round, not the AE pistol round) . Again, never shot one, and have no desire to. Well, okay, maybe once...

Hardest kicking gun I ever shot was a 12 ga.Mossburg 500 pump, short, smooth bore barrel. My dad wanted me to sight in a scope on this gun for him with 3 inch slugs. I dont remember the brand ammo but WOW! I use to work at an hunting shop in the early 90's where we would site in customers guns at our range and the only thing I can remember that come close to the mossburg was a friends Remington 300 magnum. I shot 15 rounds and honestly, I should have quit after #10 or #11 because the shots were going everywhere on the target at 50 yards. My shoulder was black and blue for a week. To this day I still tell people that was the badest gun I have ever shot. It was pure brutal.