Posted: 5/20/2008 6:40:29 PM EDT
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Just putting a feeler out there to see what sort of hard recoiling (or what you consider hard recoiling) guns folks around here have fired. Personally, I've shot the 4" S&W 500, which rocked me quite a bit (I'm a small guy ~150lbs with pretty small hands) but I don't think it was as bad as my S&W 329PD 44mag (around 2 lbs fully loaded) that I carry when backpacking in bear country. That gun will rattle your teeth around a little bit. (An interesting thing i've noticed with the 329s i've seen used is that they have rubber grips on them (they come with wood and rubber), but people don't seem to realize the rubber grips don't cover the backstrap so there is still metal-skin contact) |
I won't call you a wuss, i've heard those things are very nasty to shoot, and I can imagine so from my experience with the 329, that J frame grip is just too darn small IMO |
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You know, I actually shot the 4" .500 myself and I was absolutely shocked at how low the recoil was. It made me want to buy one. And no, I'm not just trying to sound like a tough guy, that's my honest assessment. Goes to show you how different shooting styles / grips can affect perception of recoil. I think in my case I was bracing myself for a real hard hitter and I had a good grip/stance. The hardest recoiling handgun I've shot was a .454. That rattled my teeth. The gun store down the street has a revolver chambered in 45/70. I don't want to fuck with the man who shoots that thing one handed. |
CJ, I have shot both - the the 454 premier single handed to boot. The bisley style grip seems to give more of a jolt to the arm and doesn't roll as much. It is still a pretty good thumper. The 30-30 you shot must not have had a brake. I shot my friends T/C and it was schweeet.
OR, It has been my experience that "bracing" for a heavy hitter just amplifies the recoil. I hold all my guns with a casual grip and let the recoil do it's thing. I know I can't stop it so I figure I'll just go along with it. I would shoot the 45/70 single handed since that is how the atf has determined they are to be shot.  I have shot a braked 460 weatherby mag and it was not bad at all. I think the operative word being braked. The hardest recoiling gun I have shot is a Winchester 1200 with 1-5/8 oz. activ slugs at 1700 fps. I know it is the projectile in this case because the gun is pleasant to shoot otherwise. I have even had a game warden ask me "what did you shoot that deer with, a bazooka?". |
Yup. The worst one I've shot would be my 4 inch 629 stoked with the same load mentioned above. A 250 Keith bullet over 21 grains of 2400 is plenty enough to give me a flinch and make me start to grit my teeth. That's when I quit shooting for fun, and just shoot to shoot. That's not a good thing. I feel absolutely no need to abuse myself with the monster magnums. |
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I fired a friend's Model 29 off the top of a post before I had much handgun experience. On recoil, it rocked back and pinched the meat at the bottom of my right hand between the bottom of the square butt and the post. That hurt and left a temporary mark. Nowadays I seldom shoot anything larger than .45 ACP... Oh - ETA a rented S&W 340 in .357 mag. .357 mag + 12 oz. revolver = stiff recoil. 
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I put a couple cylinders of medium reloads through a scandium Smith .44 Mag. Stiff but not awful. Then I fired a full-house magnum load. I felt the wooden grip stocks twist on the frame and it felt like someone smacked my hand with a baseball bat. I didn't see the need to give myself further nerve damage with any more of them. That made shooting +P .38's out of my Centennial seem downright pleasant in comparison. |
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I shot a .500 S&W once. Just one round. It had a long barrel. I want to say 10" or so. I was surprised as to how mild it was. I mean, it must have had a lot of push because at the height of recoil, the gun ended up about forehead height, but it wasn't snappy or painful in the least. It wasn't difficult to shoot at all. I really, really want to put a mag of .50AE through a Desert Eagle and shot an uncompensated .44 Magnum someday. |
I make sure to put a cylinder of full house magnums through it every time i take it to the range...it's fun to see the group sizes around me open up when I light that thing off. Gotta love my 329pd. |
i have also shot the .500S&W with a compensated barrel. it wasn't that bad. i'm sure that the version with no porting would be more painful than a .44 |
Yeah, that one would be the worst I'm sure. The worst one I've shot would be the S&W titanium airweight 342 in .38 Special. That one recoiled hard enough to bruise my hand pretty badly after just ten shots. The next worse would be my Charter Arms Bulldog in .44 Special. The most tolerable "hard recoiler" I've shot is my scoped Ruger Super Redhawk w/7.5" brl. in .44 Magnum. It is a very controllable handgun, actually. This is because it is heavy and has a well designed grip with no exposed steel backstrap. I have shot up to 50 full house loads through it during a shooting session with no ill effects. |
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I cannot remeber what the gun was exactly but it was a 4" 454 in a med-lrg frame revolver, it was at a gravel pit in WA and the guy who owned it had it sitting on a small folding table. I saw it and inquired becasue it looked like a nice revolver., He told me I could shoot it if I wanted to and it had a full cyl... I THOUGHT it was a 45colt or a 44mag... yeah I was stupid and maybe 20. I fired it one handed.  there was one whoppin supprise as that hammer dropped... the owner was lauging so hard that he was damned near crying. my hand hurt so bad that my glock 23 was painful to shoot. |
I've dumped a cylinder as quick as I could pull the trigger with my 12oz 340PD with Speed Gold Dot short barrel .357 magnum loads. It stings a bit. I put them all on a 12" target at about 3 yards.  My first time out with it I was shooting Remington 158gr magnums. I shot 19 out of the box of 20 and I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on the 20th round my hand hurt so bad. The gun has made my trigger finger bleed before from getting slapped with the trigger guard. The recoil is sharp and snappy, but it isn't "huge" like the gun wants to jump out of my hand. |
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I was just at the range yesterday, getting ready for fishing season, and the inevitable bear encounters. I brought along my FA .454. I was shooting some 365 hardcast under 30gr. H110. After two cylinder's worth, I was satisfied with the grouping, which was very good, because I was definetly becoming concious of a bit of recoil going on in my hands. |