What's your recoil limit???

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No Question - .357 S&W Scandium J-Frame snub with heavy loads

Expectation is always worse then the actual event. For practice I'll mix a couple .357s in with .38s and the magnum loads never seem to bother me as much as they do when I know I'm about to touch one off.

Anyone want to comment on the recoil and muzzle blast of the.454 vs. .480?
 
I have been past my limit with a .357 Derringer. I bought it new, shot 4 rounds out of it, and sold it. A guy at the range let me shoot 3 rounds out of his .50 LAR Grizzly and that was okay, but I don't have any real desire to do it again. I don't have a real desire to shoot a .500 S&W or .357 out of Scandium J-Frames either.

50 rounds or more out of a 4" steel .357 is fine. I am still having fun after 200 rounds at the range of .45 in a 1911.
 
I haven't yet shot a handgun that I felt was at my recoil limit.

I can handle 50 relatively heavy rounds at a time of .357 mag out of my 4" Taurus 65. Been wanting to try Double Tap, their 200 grain load looks like it might hurt.

I fired an (8.75 inch?) Redhawk .44mag and it was much more pleasant to shoot than my Kel-Tec P11 9MM. More like a slow shove than a quick snap. Been wanting a Redhawk for a while, thought I might go all out and get the .454 Casull, it can't be that bad with a 7.5 inch barrel.
 
I can get through about half a box of .22 LR from my S&W 617 before my wrists start trembling too badly. Then I know it's time to stop and go bck to the dart-gun.
:neener:

In all honesty, the largest handgun I've fired has been a .45 ACP. I hope to change that very soon, though!
 
The largest caliber handgun I've ever fired was a custom made revolver in .45-70. That revolver probably weighed as much as a rifle and I don't remember it being unpleasant. OTOH I find my 7.5" barrel Ruger Redhawk .44 magnum, even with Pachmayer Grips, about all that I can handle. The recoil, IMO, is violent. Maybe it's because I don't know how to properly grip for best recoil dispersion. Anyway, I once shot 50 rounds in one session and had the shakes pretty bad. It's my upper threshold for handgun recoil. I have no interest in a .500 magnum. My hat's off to those who shoot them, the .460 and the .454.

I can shoot .40 and .45 all day (and frequently do) with no noticable effects. Full house .357 is a 'tweener. Not pleasant, but not in the .44 magnum catagory.
 
Ruger5104copy.jpg

525 grain bullet, 1350 fps, 63 ft-lbs of recoil, at 35 fps. Whacked web of my hand pretty good, through Past shooting gloves. 2,125 ft lbs of energy. :banghead:

Probably reload the other way, to slower velocities.

The Beast:
21 foot pounds of energy, at 41 fps, with 125 at 1450 fps.

360and475.jpg

The beast is the BOTTOM gun.:D

The top gun is just perfect: 400 grain hps @1350 fps, 38 ft pounds, at 27 ft sec.

Average 44 magnum load: 240 grain bullet, at 1350 fps: 16 ftlbs of recoil, at 18 fps.

What's that disease where you develop a permenant flinch, due to heavy recoil in handguns???:(

S
 
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I'll shoot anything i can lay my hands on. I may regret it later, but i'll still shoot it.
 
The Right Gun For You

A few weeks back I was at my local indoor range and there was a manufacturer shoot going on and I was able to shoot a dozen different guns. I fired three different .44mags, two where revolvers and the other was a Desert Eagle. The first revolver I had 25 round and had to quit after about 15 rounds, very uncomfortable to shoot and if I would have continued probably would have become painful. The second revolver I shot the last 10 rounds and bought and shot 25 more, this gun felt great and probably could of shoot all day long. The Desert Eagle felt like any other auto but with the kick of a. 44mag.

Sorry, I shot some many different guns that day I don't remember which one's they where but my point is. The gun need to be the right fit and feel for you or it’s not going to be the best shooting experience. With the right fitting gun you can shoot just about anything with out punishing yourself.
 
Ever wonder what it'd be like to shoot a pistol chambered for an elephant gun like the 600 Nitro Express?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lzri8dn7p0

I like shooting my 10mm Glock 20. I typically shoot 200-400 of my mild reloads whenever I go to the range. With the 746 ft lb full house loads from Double Tap, the recoil still isn't bad. My hands could handle shooting a few hundred of those, but my wallet couldn't. Basically, it's a 15 shot .41 magnum. The ergonomics are good for me, so the felt recoil is not bad.

What I find unpleasant is +P ammo in tiny lightweight pocket pistols. The felt recoil is harsh, and is spread over a small area so it's unpleasant. These guns also tend to have such small grips that they feel like they're going to flip up and fly away. These are defensive guns, not plinkers or range guns.

I have a Kel-Tec PLR-16, a pistol chambered for .223. It's a blast to shoot. You can definitely feel the recoil, but it's not that bad. The muzzle flash is 12" in diameter and 24" long if I leave off the flash suppressor, and the report is so loud I wear ear plugs under my ear muffs. It's the sort of shock wave that bystanders feel propagating through their internal organs. The blast knocks down grass ten feet in front of the muzzle. I've never had a .22 pistol that'll punch a hole in 3/8" plate steel before. It's a lot of fun.

http://www.kel-tec.com/plr16.html

PLR-16_JL_BumpFireball02.jpg
 
I guess I don't know what my actual limit is, but I shot a S&W Ti revo over the weekend and will not repeat the experience again.
 
i shot a .44 magnum this weekend and must say i was a little disapointed. it was a ruger single action revolver. had nice plastic grips. i was expecting pain, but it was very comfortable to shoot. it was probly a 7"+ long barrel. i dont know if i could shoot it all day, but i could comfortable shoot it one handed and hit stuff. though i'll admit that my hand was shaking a lot.

i think i need to shoot a .500. or a BFR.
 
.44Mag in 5-inch S&W 629

Yeah... I've shot bigger, but if you're talking upper limit of comfort, one box (50) of full power .44, even with the neoprene grips, is all I can handle without starting to flinch. More than that is just a chore. I find full power .44 mag and *Ruger Only* .45LC handloads in a 7 1/2 inch New Model Blackhawk is really entirely enough firepower for me to pack into a handgun.
 
One fine afternoon I went out with a friend of a friend, whose smallest pistol is a .357. He had a variety of Dan Wessons in heavy calibers, like .480 and .475. They handed be the Desert Eagle in .50 AE, and I was ready to shoot it the way I shoot my 1911, and one guy advised me to lock at least one elbow. I rolled my eyes and ignored him. I still have a scar just inside my hairline where the ridge to the scope mount hit me.

After I washed the blood off of my face, I finished the rotation of all the guns, (no good to look stupid AND wimpy the same day,) I proceeded to shoot a cylinder of everything. Honestly, the one that was the worst was a .454 Casull in a Raging Bull with a 'compensator' on the end. It was like catching fastballs with a bare hand. Freakin ow.

I came to a few conclusions that day. I don't pistol hunt and I don't want to. (Besides carrying my 1911 as backup hunting deer in case I happen upon a shot too close for a rifle.) When I am rich, I MAY get a full-size, full-weight 629 to shoot for fun. Other than that, I have no reason to want any really heavy handguns.
 
Hi
I CAN'T SAY IT ENOUGH, BUT ABOUT 105% OF RECOIL TOLERANCE IS HAVING THE RIGHT GRIPS ON THE GUNS. ALL MY BIG GUNS HAVE CUSTOM GRIPS. I TRIED shooting them with standard factory grips, designed for medium to smaller hands. I had to death grip the guns, and, even then, I was more concerned with holding on then shooting. A pistolsmith put thicker, wider grips on my guns, first a 454 level 45 Colt Seville. The difference with heavy loads was night and day. I had, at that point, decided 325 grains, at 1350-1550 fps was all I'd ever be able to shoot. His grips changed all that, and made those loads comfortable.
Likewise the custom, bigger grips on the 500 Maximum, and the 475 FA 83.

So, before you decide what's the recoil limit, get high quality, custom grips, made for your size hands...


Same with rifles.

S
 
Ehh, Im a light weight.

My limit is .357magnum out of a small framed revolver......I can do it for a few cylinders, but thats it.
 
There is so much more that gun manufacturers could do to reduce felt recoil. Good ergonomics help, and there have been some subtle improvements there, but I think ergonomic improvements have mostly been made to improve the feel of the gun and its "pointability", and improved recoil characteristics were sort of a freebie. S&W did do some intentional work to manage felt recoil in their very large magnums, but only out of a sense of necessity, and even then all they did was make the frame smaller so they could add more padding to the grip instead of forcing people to start with the factory grip and then try to add some magical grip pad to reduce recoil and improve the fit. It's a start, but there are a lot of other active methods of controlling felt recoil besides more cushiony grips and more weight.

The same need for factory designed recoil reduction is true with rifles and shotguns. I think recoil reduction in all firearms will be one of the big modern advancements that will sweep across the entire industry, and it should have happened at least fifty years ago.
 
I agree with Socrates concerning the grips. Even "standard" aftermarket grips, such as those made by Hogue or Pachmayer can help. Gun makers invaribably put uncomfortable-to-me grips on their guns.

For instance, I love my new .44 Blackhawk... one of the flat tops. But the "default" grips just gotta go.
 
I'm a "flash and bang" junky. Just so happens that usually comes with recoil. I don't like to put more than a dozen full power 300 gr loads through my 454 Cassul at a time. I've shot over 500 rounds of 40 S&W in a day. My arms get tired before I get sore from my 50 AE Desert Eagle, and the Ti Taurus 455 in 45 ACP is a bit "snappy" for more than about 50 rounds.
 
Shooting both barrels at the same time from my double barrel 12 gauge shootgun

That left a nice weld on my shoulder. I fired a full size 500 S&W with 525 grain handloads. I fired 10 rounds out of that Revolver and my hands tingled for a couple of days after that. I would say I don't want anything for daily use over a 44 magnum myself. In rifles, I'm fine with my .308 browning automatic. I could shot bigger but find no need to.

:)
 
What amount of recoil can you tolerate on a regular basis from a handgun?
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.44 mag I find uncomfortable. Anything less than that that I have tried (.45 ACP, .40S&M (sic), .357 Magnum and on down) I can shoot all day (albeit through full sized handguns). 9mm Makarov beats up my hand worse than anything else less than .44 Mag.

I did have the "opportunity" to shoot a S&W 500. I have to say that's the heaviest recoiling pistol I've ever shot and found its recoil to be down right unpleasant. Unless there's some greater reason than simply putting holes in paper I have little desire to shoot one again.
Click to expand...

:evil: Gunshop I frequent has, on more than one occation, had a box of .500 minus a couple cartridges show up on their junk table. Always wondered what the story on that was.
 
Someday.......When you git old.

All that hammerin' you have been doin' to your wrists is gonna come back and bite you.:(
 
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