Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Double rifle, front trigger first, or rear?

Many advise using the rear trigger first on really hard-kicking doubles, because recoil often causes the trigger hand to shift rearward. The natural reaction of the shooter is to then re-grab the rifle, which often results in pulling the rear trigger almost instantly after the first round's fired--resulting the rifle "doubling."

This kicks the hell out of the shooter, because two rounds going off almost simultaneously from the same rifle actually quadruples recoil, rather than merely doubling it. This is because the rifle's weight isn't doubled.

Once watched a guy who claimed to be recoil-proof shoot a .600 Nitro Express double by pulling the front trigger first. The rifle doubled because the recoil caused him to "regrab" the rifle and pull the second trigger. He lost his balance, falling over backward.

I've fired doubles up to a rather light .470 Nitro Express by pulling the front trigger first with no problem, but wouldn't try it with anything that kicked much harder. In fact, anymore I don't plan on shooting many rifles that kick harder than a .416 Rigby. Shot some real hard kickers when I was younger and dumber, including a .600 double, which actually didn't kick as hard as a much lighter .505 Gibbs.