Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Medical issue with recoil ,suggestions needed

I think a 300 BO or 6.5 Grendel would both work great.

I would think having a stock with a high top of comb would help reduce felt recoil. I have a tikka t3x in 270 win that really kicks. The top of the comb slopes down, as a rifle with iron sights would use. I will be either trading the tikka or buying a aftermarket stock for it.
I had a 270 Browning BAR w/BOSS in 270 that had almost no recoil. A BAR w/Muzzle break in 243 would be one route is what I would consider.

This.!
I've played some with various reduced loads and have shot braked muzzeled rifles.
I would think that "if" he has a favorite rifle, the loads could be reduced and a break installed, and he should be on his way.

For him, I would think getting the meat out of the woods would be the more serious dilema once the recoil is addressed.

In August of 2000 I had a neck fusion. I had to wait a couple months until it was fused well. I had a Mod 7 blued action and a spare synthetic stock (formally a .260 with the short, skinny "didn't want to shoot for me" barrel). I had a barrel in .220 Swift that came off a Mod 700 Classic ( sporter weight) My smith put it together for me, put a good muzzlebrake on it, and I shot the them available Federal 55gr Trophy Bonded load. I killed mule deer/varmints in Utah, then went to Texas and killed 2 big Blackbuck and an axis doe. It was a sweety. A .22-250 set up the same way would be a better killer , IMO, than the .223. With all the good bullets/ammo available today, no reason for him not to use some kind of hot .22 and enjoy life! Put at least a 4x12 on it so he can "finesse" them with sniper like precision!

I agree, both with getting a second opinion and the 223. Check your state hunting laws as some states ban all .22 cal rifles. Stupid I know, but what lawmaker isn't.

Jim

I'd be looking into ,22,6 or 7 BR build

In addition to a good muzzle brake, a thumbhole stock will transfer some portion of whatever recoil is left to the web of his hand.

AR15 in 6.8SPC with a muzzle break on it. Has less recoil then a 223.
Kills as well or a bit better than the original 257 Roberts load back in the 50s and 60s

I'd be Pm'ing Doc Rocket and asking his opinion....

One thing I will say is Dr's don't necessarily have a clue about guns. My first Cardiologist in North Carolina told me to shoot nothing more than a 223 for the first year (from last November). My Cardiologist in PA tells me I should be able to shoot anything under a ".50 caliber sniper rifle". The truth is I can only handle three shots from my 45-70 and that's with the Remington 405 grain load at 1,200 fps. Which ain't much recoil! I don't think I can do a real range session with anything bigger than a .243 or I get chest pains. As I said, I am left handed and that is a big part of the problem.

Mike74-my daddy had his 1st open heart surgery back in the early 80's in Feb. of whichever year it was. Daddy shot left handed and his deer rifle was a Rem 760 in 30/06. While there are a lot of rifles out there that kick a lot harder than it does, I find that it is getting more and more uncomfortable to shoot every year as it now resides at my house since daddy's passing. His Cardiologist back then told him he needed to find something that didn't have as much recoil. Our local hardware/gun store in our small town got in a BAR in a 243 Win and daddy got it and shot it right handed for a year. If I remember, he used it for one year and killed 1 deer with it and the next year went back to 30/06.

I had open heart surgery 6 yrs. ago this past August. That Fall/Winter I bought the little Marlin 7 in 25/06 as my doctor recommended something with very light recoil that year (really didn't want me hunting at all, but that was not an option). I didn't have any problems, but the little Marlin took the place of my Ruger ultra light in 270 Win. The recoil had never bothered me with that rifle, but the guy I swapped for it with had to go to the chiropractor every time he shot it...true story. But I've never had the urge to go back to the 270 since then. Neither of us had a pacemaker at that time. Daddy had one later in his life, but by that time he was no longer able to hunt.

Ruger, did your Dad stick with shooting right handed or did he go back to left handed?

I'm not a doctor but have an employee who has one in his left shoulder. Because he shoots right handed he is still able to shoot and hunt. Pace makers/ defibrillators are placed in the shoulder right where you would mount your gun. However, I would not mount a gun with any load over the top of this unit and pull a trigger. Things can go wrong. The guy I know had a wire break and the defibrillator when off 23 times before they could get to the emergency room and get it stopped. As far I as I know he still has the record in the U.S. for this. He said every time it went off he would put him to his knees and he is a big strong guy. I think everyone has seen someone being defibrillated on T.V. Doens't look like any fun to me.

I would get a second opinion from a doctor before doing any shooting.

I have one. If you break a wire or pull one out (they are inserted into the heart wall), you’ll have a fair chance of living, but personally, I wouldn’t want to go through that operation again.
If the wire doesn’t break, and instead, it’s shoved through the side of your heart wall, you’ll never make it to a hospital before you realize somethings wrong.
It’s like being shot in the heart, you’ll bleed out internally.
That actually just happen to a guy that goes to the same family Dr. I go to.

It takes 6 to 10 weeks to heal, and for the wires to be enveloped in the scar tissue so that they are unlikely to move.
99% of the pacemakers are inserted in the left side. Having the wires run all the way across the chest throws a lot more complications into the problems you can have.
Shopping around for Drs to get the answer you want to hear may not be a good thing.

REMEMBER...... 50% of the practicing Drs graduated in the bottom half of their class.

Some 10 years ago I drew a TPW Lottery Hunt at Lake Mineral Wells SP that is adjacent to the old Army helicopter school and the grounds have been used by NG's Artillery units for years. The blinds are laid out on jeep trail type roads and the hunters are taken to and from the blinds by staff, thru locked gates to keep them off the former artillery range. as there is still some left over live rounds everywhere.

On my staff truck was an old couple who hunted seperately, he was 86 and she was 81. He had a pacemaker with some sort of external battery pack I coud see bulging under his shirt, and she had gotten a new knee about 6 weeks earlier. Tough old birds they were. They lived in Amarillo and traveled all winter to various TPW hunt sites try to make a Hunt with a last minute standby entry where staff distributes any leftover tags available to anybody at the gate and have them pay the hunt fee, for a winwin deal for everybody. System's totally chanbged nowdays and the old ways are gone forever.

Both of them shot 250 Savages, in either a Savage Lever gun or a light weight bolt action carbine I did not recognize, and very successfuly killed their limits of 2 WTails each at that SP's Bag Limit. They had already made one earlier hunt that week at another SP and had those 3 deer on ice in the back of the truck. He said they ran all winter this way to kill as many deer as possible and feed 4 families back in Amarillo...I thought I had seen my future for sure, They never had any problems with the killing capability of the little 250's either and had been doing this for over 10 years.

FWIW... CDNN in Abilene is still got some Marlin XS7 243's they are offering at $239 that might make a good really soft recoil deer shooter. At 73 I've already bought a T3 6.5 Swede SuperLite for my old age gun to settle into when my 4 stents need to get replaced with a Pacemaker, and gonna work on 100gr NPT loads for the business end of things .
Ron

No Sir, Mike. He went back to shooting left-handed and ditched the Browning for his 760...lol. He loved the pump 30/06's so much that when he decided he needed a new rifle to replace the 760 he had bought back in the 60's, he bought another 760 in the same caliber. All of that to get a prettier stock as his old one (mine now) was pretty beat up!

All this has gotten me to thinking about my future shooting plans. I do not have any issues with the reasons I had by-pass surgery 6 or 7 years ago, however I do have a valve that is leaking some and have to have an ECHO done every once in a while to see how it is progressing. Doctor says that there might come a time when I need a pacemaker. Not sure if it has to do with the valve or because of the damage from the heart attack. At 58 years old, I try not to think about those things and just live the best I can for the moment!

Hey 77

I've had a Defibrillator (pace maker +jump starter) since Jan 2015. I have no problems shooting anything I want.
Being R handed the Dr put it on my L shoulder.

I weld -- 20 ft from the power box.

I use chain saws etc, just NOT close to my chest.

I hope you have as good a Dr. as mine.

Jerry

Mr. Jerry...thanks for that info. By the time daddy got his pacemaker/defib he could no longer hunt. Sounds like I will be fine if the day ever comes. At this time I have a great Cardiologist, however he is close to retiring. His NP assured us though that the guy that will be taking his place is an excellent young doctor. Time will tell. Thanks my Friend! Eddie