When it came to rifles of 338 Win. mag class, and 44 magnums with standard 300 grain full throttle loads I used to be quite recoil tolerant. Then I learned about LBT bullets from Ross Seyfried and got into the big & heavy thing. Long seated WLN's out of my Redhawk 44 mag, various big ones from Ruger 45 Colt Bisleys, you know the drill. It was a lot of fun loading them up there. For a while.
One afternoon at the range my nervous system said enough. Sort of like when the 2001 Space Odyssey computer named Hal told the astronaut "I can't let you do that Dave." I was done. I had to relearn how to shoot, starting back from a 22.
I've built back up a good way, but now there's that constant nag in the back of my mind that I must stifle every time I squeeze a trigger, no matter the cartridge.
I think John Taffin admitted some years ago that he had some chronic pain issues in his hands, likely from shooting many heavy revolver loads. It made it hard for him to type.
I shot a .454 Super Redhawk with heavy factory loads, and they were driving 300 JHP's at over 1600 fps on my chrono. 6 shots was damn enough, too
My big bruiser now is a .480 SRH. I've shot it with 370's at about 1300 fps, and that's damn enough too for 6 shots, unless I'm wearing a PAST Glove. I also now have one of the Bisley 5 shots in .480, and I'm probably going to throttle my .480 loads down to around 1200 fps with 350-370gr cast WFN's, and look at Accurate #9, maybe even Power Pistol instead of the slow burners. Speer has a 275gr .475 bullet, and that seems plenty for deer, or Mountain lions.
