I was living in Kodiak and had a really nice Marlin 1895GG in 45-70 that I had some very stiff hand loads for. I invited the head chef of the Buskin River Inn to go salmon fishing with me and he wanted to "Shoot the cowboy gun" , the first round made his eyes bug out and I coached him to keep it tight to his shoulder and keep his cheek on the buttstock for #2. That was all he could take. Later that night he had to go to the ER , the ENTIRE right side of his upper body, from his neck to the top of his abdomen was BLACK, it looked like he had been in a bad car wreck. They prescribed what I think was some anti-coagulants and percocets. The doctor at Kodiak Island Hospital was a friend of mine too (small town, wink wink) , a hunter, fisherman and shooter. When Mike told him what happend and who he was with he said the Doc laughed and laughed , (Good Alaskan Bedside manners given the circumstances, nobody died). I did not do this to him intentionally, hell, I shot the thing all the time without ill effect but am considerably more experienced and bigger physically than he was. Darnedest thing I have EVER seen related to sport shooting.
As the "inspector" says above, it IS addicting to see how much you can take. IMHO danged lightweight , even MEdiumWeight .338 Mags kick worse than ANYTHING, including BIG bore African guns.....I simply love harnessing and directing that much energy, cutting 12", 25-30' tall cottonwoods down with three shots....