I remember Les Bowman, gawd, that was a looonnnggg time ago.
I used to have a pair of old Mod. 70s, in .300H&H with the steel buttplates and I loaded them with either 200 gr. Speers or Nosler PTs. to the safe max. I had Leupy 3.5x10 scopes on them on Leupy QDS and they were half inch guns.
I would load each one with 5 rounds and place them on my shooting bench, then pick one up and quickly fire all five rounds, put it down and then shoot the other immediately. Most of the time, the 10 shots would go under the palm of my hand at 100 yds, using 4x setting on the scope, offhand, no sling. This is not difficult to do as .300 Mags. don't kick very much.
Les Bowman was an O'Connorite, a small-bore man and as I remember, used to boast about all the Black Bears he had shot with his .25-35 Mod. 94 carbine. Maybe he was just hyper-sensitive to recoil or maybe he was just hasslin" Elmer?
In all honesty, any healthy person can learn to shoot a .300 Mag. well, from field positions, it just takes careful practice after a bit of sound instruction. Of course, many people will NOT practice as they know they should, but, those kind will find any caliber to be too much, IMHO.
Thanks for the heads-up re: the Kimber bases, I don't much care for the Redfield style anyway and will spring for Talleys. With a rifle like this, I like to keep a spare 4x Leupy sighted in in spare rings back at the truck, so, Talleys make sense.
