Having been pummeled into a quivering mass of gelatonous matter by several big rifles and shotguns over the years, it has occured to me that some of the worst beatings I ever took were at the hands of front stuffing firearms, and I shoot big centerfires quite a bit so here is a question for ya'll..... please relate for our twisted amusement some of the worst mule kicking frontloaders OR centerfire rifle or pistol experiences you have ever endured. Here are my three:

1) At the bulletproof and knowing it all age of 18 (a rather long time ago) my cousin and friend borrowed from an old neihbor a really long - perhaps six feet - and heavy 8 bore punt gun. Designed really to be fired from over the bow of a john boat, not stood behuind and such like I tried to do. Steel buttplates were the norm on these. I scrounged some musket caps, we poured what was likely about 1/4 lb of 2F down the muzzle followed by a wad of aluminum foil, then some torn sheet material, then about a half cup of reclaimed #8 shot then an over wad of more aluminum foil and torn sheet material. Can't exactly recall where I got this "recipe" Since I was the biggest and strongest and ...... well, you know, PLUS it was my idea to try to fire the damned thing I manned up to the tortu.... uh.. shooting station and placing a cap upon the nipple and cocking the massive hammer I tensed up and leaned forward and pulled the trigger and.... pop! Just the musket cap..... Dang it! two more trys gave the same result so, not recognizing the providential hand of a loving and protective God I came up with yet ANOTHER of my bright ideas, a touch of green dot under the nipple! Simple, really.... just unscrew the nipple, drop in a few flakes of modern gunpowder to 'help' things along and... Well, that flat WORKED!!!! Had I not ran backwards several steps upon being slammed by the 6 foot tall punt gun I would have been thrown to the ground and hard. THAT one made me go OUCH! But just a little

Fast forward to the still knowing it all years and buying a kit to build an early Lyman Great Plains 54 caliber rifle. NICE looking guns, these, and I wanted to take an Elk with mine so off to the range with my good buddy Rufous from here at 24hrcf. Forgetting that Black powder guns CAN generate some backwards thrust and ignoring the sharp edged, deeply curved and thin STEEL buttplate I had so carefully inletted to the Walnut stock I proceeded to pour 120gr of 3F down the tube, folowed by a Hornaday Great Plains bullet of great weight (540grs?)and inertia meaning a great desire to stay put right there in the barrel and not move forward without extracing some wampum in return from the firee - me. THAT one hurt like H%!! and I have NEVER tried to replicate the event! Me likey round balls in that rifle now!

Much more recent..... Cape Buff Client wants to take a big African Buff with a custom muzzleloader soooooo.... he proceeds to have built for him a side by side rifle in 54 Caliber BUT with a very fast twist rifleing so that it will stabilize with SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY GRAIN SLUGS! backed by TWO HUNDRED GRAINS OF 2F! in each barrel. Here is how this deal works..... Intrepid hunter wiggles up to unsuspecting big black Mbogobuff, takes careful aim and Ka-BOOMEY!!!! when the considerable smoke clears, whomever gets back up first from the dual blows just delivered has won that round and we do this again, unless it is considered more pleasant to simply allow the buff to now merely plow us under rather than to fire the other barrel of that miserable rifle!

So, what tales of woe do my buds here have to tell?

PS still shooting hot loaded 416 Rigby and a titanium/scandium framed 44 MAgnum (329PD) so I guess I am a little low on the learning curve.......

Most people learn from bad choices after the first one....or two

Like I said, I am a tad slow on the learning curve as am still getting pummeled by several currently owned rigs. Happiness at the range is a concussion headache, no?

My face caught some backsplash from shooting steel with a .40, which kinda hurt pulling it out. Does that count?

3.5" 12 gauges and 14" ported .223's (ears).

Remmy 16" Mohawk .308 with hard plastic butt plate and 180's. I was young and wasn't expecting recoil from a puny .308 having had several magnums previous to picking that one up. Learned something.

3 1/2 12 gauge out of a synthetic stocked 870

The worst kicking gun I've ever shot was a T/C Encore Katahdin barrel (18"?) in 3" - 12 gauge with a Nitro Company Turkey load. Gun came in under 6lbs and when I would light it off with that heavy turkey load and extremely tight choke it would rock your world!

had a Iver Johnson single shot 12 gauge that belonged to my grandfather that i got when i was a kid.it had a dangerously lite trigger and on more than one occasion it got touched off before the gun was pulled snug to my shoulder. man that thing hurt

Had a 10 gauge single shot that would give me headaches shooting it. Paid $79 for it brand spankin' new. My two best days with the gun were the day I bought it and the day I sold it. The rest I don't worry about..I've shot a friends 50 bmg a lot and it's a pussy cat. My win 375 HH is sharp but not painful. My SBE gets your attention but no headaches. But that darned 10 gauge....good riddance.

I forgot about the ole H&R 12 ga single shot. Must have been a mental block. I used to loan it to "friends".

I had a very similar experience with a similar 8 Ga punt gun. This was orchestrated by my father & grand father to teach me a lesson. IT WORKED!

A couple come to mind.

A Brit Enfield #5 Jungle Carbine

my 458 Winchester Model 70

a Ruger #1 in 416 Remington

my Uncle's 10 ga Parker DBL

I have an 1896 Spencer Ejector 12 gauge with a 18 inch barrel I got from my dad when he passed. Light and mean. Ain't worth $5 but wouldn't sell it for $1000 because it was my dad's. Also don't shoot it anymore.

My Mossberg 835 with 3.5 in turkey loads is something that will get your attention.

But my BFR SA revolver in 450 Marlin takes the prize...and I still like shooting it.

Two Rifles come to mind:

1. Marlin Lever in 44 Mag with straight stock. Gave me a bloody nose every time from thumb hitting nose each time I fired it. Don't have it no more.

2. Browning bolt rifle in 300 Win. Not only did I get Weatherby EyeBrow (had to have stitches) but recoil brain and nearly passed out at one session.

Those two rifles simply did not fit me and I don't have them anymore. I am able to shoot heavy recoiling rifles as I have a 338, a 375, a 416 and a 450 Nitro that i am able to shoot with no problems.

I bought a Marlin '94 in .44 Mag several years ago. Pretty straightforward levergun, 20" barrel, walnut stock and forend. Like I said, a normal looking lever-action; except for the comb on the stock. It had a squared off comb like you'd see on a carbine type gun such as on a 10/22.

Shortly after I bought it, I took it to the range and fired 75 rounds through it and then sold it off as quickly as I could for what I paid. That squared off comb damn near re-located my cheek bone up near my right temple.

I'm actually a pretty fast learner.
My Dad bought a Benelli M2 cop shotgun. With an EOTech on top, eh? So what better to sight it in than with slugs? From the bench?
So Dad did the honors of the first shot and instantly started giving me the line that, as a senior citizen he shouldn't have to put his rotator cuff at risk, blah blah.
As things are, it's now great fun to shoot clays and buckshot, but both of us are ambivalent about setting it up with slugs. I kind of feel sorry for hunters that have to use slugs. Even a 200 WBY is more fun than slugs.

8mm Rem Mag in a M700.

Sharpest, nastiest recoiling thing I ever shot.

It's no longer here...

All my "recoil epiphanies" have come via heavy loads in light shotguns, with one of the most visibly apparent ones (massive bruise on shoulder & cheek) coming from a .20ga H&R cut down to 12" LOP and weighing around 5lbs.

Having been pounded enough by 3" Turkey loads, I have never, and will never (knowingly) touch off a 3.5" shell.

An old mentor of mine talked me into shooting a .458 Win. mag that he had just built. He had some 500gr hardcast handloads that were loaded to about .45-70 level, and out of the 10# Mauser, the recoil was negligible.

Being the sneaky old Bastid that he was, he couldn't keep from slipping a full power load in the magazine when I wasn't looking. While I was surprised by the recoil of the full power load, it was not painful, even from the bench. Shotguns have hurt me a lot worse.

My dad had an old Stevens single-shot 12 ga. that I used to shoot when I was growing up. Haven't shot anything that hurt that bad, since.

a thompson center single shot in .416, i don't know what it is about that stock design but it makes any larger caliber obnoxious. and i already consider the .416 to be obnoxious in ANY rifle.
Never EVER again.

Iver Johnson single shot 20 guage. 3 rounds will bring tears to your eyes and your cheekbone will hurt for a week.

Fired (one time!) a friend's . 308 Norma Mag. Almost dropped the rifle and had a headache for a week.

80 round match with M1 Garand doesn't bother me a bit.

454 Casull, 15" Encore pistol loaded with 300 grain XTP & near max load of VV-N110. Left some pretty good bruising on the hand after a few shots!

An International Arms Semi Auto 12 Gage Shotgun was the one that beat the holy crap out of me, it was spring loaded and every time I shot it it would leave a black and blue mark on my left shoulder and arm. I tried everything to take the bite out of it but it still got me. The only reason I kept it was it shot a real tight pattern and it won more Turkey Shoots than any other shotgun I owned at the time.

When I was about 12 we were back at Grandpa's farm for Thanksgiving. I decided to take his double barreled 12 gauge out after some pheasants for the first time. Finally got one up close enough that I figured I could hit it, pulled up on the bird and touched the trigger. I was instantly aware, as I was being spun around and knocked towards the ground, that being left handed I'd pulled both triggers at close to the same time... The bruise on my shoulder lasted a couple weeks and went from purple, to green, to yellow, to brown... Thought I'd broken my shoulder...

My friend's dad handed us a rifle one time. He said "Hey try out my new gun." Then he handed us a box of 6 rounds labelled either 500 or 600 gr. I can't remember anymore. I said, "What the hell is this?" he had just purchased a used 458 with a very "forgiving" (note the sarcasm) steel butt plate. The two of us went to the range. Loaded up without thinking and I took the first shot. I've never felt pain like that from a gun in my life. My fingernails hurt.

.378Wby..... offda.

Mossberg 835 3.5" magnum, with 3.5" magnum 00 buckshot.

Most painful was an old 16 ga side by side Ithaca that my grandpa had cut down for my 5 foot tall grandma. Had a Covey of quail bust in front of me, pulled up with that and pulled the trigger... both barrels fired with the buttplate about 2 inches from my shoulder.... the thought still hurts!

Worst beating I've taken to date has been with a Handi-Rifle in 45-70. Loaded up some rounds at the Ruger/Marlin pressure levels. [bleep], that hurt.

my dad told me a story about that Iver Johnson 12 gauge once. he let a friend use it when they went duck hunting. his buddy had the gun resting on his thigh and when he went to raise it to take a shot it went off and kicked him in the nuts. my dad had tiers in his eyes he was laughing to so hard telling me about taking his buddy to the ER with his balls swelled up like grape fruits. but seriously that gun was dangerous you could slap the stock hard and it would go off

TC encore with 150grs worth of pellets a 300 gr bullet and one of those heavy aluminum ram rods is a heavy recoiler. No idea how many grains one of those rods weighs but can testify that the recoil is substantial when the rod is fired along with the 300 gr bullet. I know of 5 other guys who fired their ramrods down range I was the only one that got by without stitches.

Weatherby UL in 300Wby.....I don't miss that one!!

So far the worst has been a Marlin 45-70 GG with Garret 420 gr. flat nose death dealers. I thought I broke my cheekbone.

8 bore BP rifle w/ 350gns FFF swiss and a 850gn round ball,
BOOOMMMM-----SH-T.
Gunner

The worst beating I ever took from a long gun was from a 3 1/2" 10ga. H&R shotgun shooting 2 1/4oz. of lead BB's. That has got to be the most rediculous gun ever designed!!! The worst from a handgun was from a S&W 460 shooting full house loads.
I have fired rifles all the way up to 416 Rigby and none were worse than the two above!

Elk Country

Two most memorable kickers in my collection have been a 378Roy that came in(weighed on a laboratory balance) at 9 lbs with scope-that thing with 300gr partitions would thump me pretty good! Next in line was a Benelli M4 shotgun loaded with 3" buckshot loads-that really kicked hard, for some reason.

I guess third place would be my 340 Accumark;with 250 gr partions @2900fps it boots ya pretty good also.

I still have the 340, so I guess I haven't entirely learned my lesson.

Ruger #1 in 458 win mag, if I had been alone I think I would have cried!!! When I pulled the trigger it actually dazed me for a couple of seconds.. Never again....

I've never tried to shoulder shoot a punt gun!

My 50 cal. Lyman GPR will bite my shoulder with just 70 grains of 3fg. I load 60 grains for target shooting and wear a PAST pad for hunting loads. The but plate on those rifles is designed to hurt you!

The hardest kicking thing I will shoot on purpose is my 870 three inch mag loaded with 2 ounce turkey loads. Even with a good recoil pad and three ounces of lead added to the stock, it's more than I enjoy.

The worst beating I ever took from a gun was goose hunting in rice fields with my Red Label and three inch magnum loads. It was fun the first day.

1) 870 12 gauge with 3" magnums with shotgun fired almost vertical.

2) Weatherby Mark V .300 WM with a 24" light contour barrel.......
sighted in in 3 shots for a friend.

3) Winchester M71 .450 Alaskan fired with 400 grain cast bullet
medium loads.
4) M70 .30 Gibbs, Winchester factory low comb stock and factory butt plate.
This rifle now has a laminated stock/decelerator pad.

The biggest kicker I got is a Ruger RSM in 458 Lott. I'm good for about 20 rounds max before I start getting punchy and have to put it away.

My 475 NE double is a bit short for me and when I use the rear trigger I tend to get a mouthful of the back of my thumb. But it's not that bad a kicker. Just need to get a lace on butt extender.

You know I wasn't sure and I'd had a chance to own several of them real cheap. But now that I own one I don't understand the big deal. My load is 300 Nosler at 2954 fps.

Wow.
And here I thought a guy with 17 Ackley in his name was going to say that a 22-250 was a hard kicker!

Any 12 ga pump (or single-shot) shotgun with 3.5" chambers and using turkey loads... YOW..

And last - my Ruger Alaskan in .454C.. If you're still sleepy after one or two rounds with that - you've been heavily drugged..

378 wby, quickest, hardest ever in a 9.5 lb gun........but then again, I've never shot a 460 wby.

MM

MM,
FWIW, I have read in a few different places that the 378's felt recoil is worse than that of a 460Wby.
Now, I don't know if that is true,as I have never fired the 460 but I found it to be noteworthy all the same.

A friend of mine has one of those side by side coach guns. You know the style: short barrels, light weight, narrow comb and hard buttplate. A couple of turkey magnum type shells was plenty for me.

Weatherby Euromark .378 magnum. Weatherby stuffed that cartridge into a standard sporter-weight barrel and stock. That baby was whiplash and detached retinas when you touched it off and had a muzzleblast that would curdle milk.

I have to give Weatherby credit though. They claim 1.5" groups with their rifle and ammo and that rifle would shoot 1.375" groups at 100 yards. Three shots was about all I could stand.

The factory ammo also chronographed within 3 fps. of what the Weatherby catalog claimed.

.460 Wby. I have never fired the .378, so I can compare the two, but the .460 gets your attention.

Another one that I didn't like was a Whitworth Express that weighed about 7 pounds in .458 Win.

Neither of the above were fun to shoot.

Of all the guns I have fired that hurt worse than they should have, considering their muzzle energy and type of loads was a 16 gauge Savage Autoloader. It was made on the design of a hump backed Browning, and I think it was something called a long recoiling action.

It was much worse than any shotgun I have ever fired, and I have fired a lot of 3 inch 12 gauge in my OU.

Speaking of slugs, and the comments on the forum about how they hurt. My first deer gun was a 16 guage 6 pound Ithica pump. I used slugs, and as well as I remember, it wasn't all that bad.

For we they've been relatively "mild" calibers. Both had recoil pads with the consistency of hockey pucks and weighed under 8lbs.

.300 Weatherby with 220 gr. (factory)
.338 Winchester with 250 gr. (reload)

Both shot off the bench and oddly within a couple of weeks from each other. One was a friend's, the other an acquaintance at the range.

I've shot 9lb 375's with 270 gr boolits that were far easier to shoot than those two.

This is easy for me. A 600 NE that doubled.

I will back up your claim to the No. 5 Enfield Jungle Carbine. It's not so much the recoil as the muzzle flip. Scoped one and the thing jumped up and drove the wire of my Ray Ban glasses deep into the bridge of my nose. Being younger and dumber in those days, I shot again just to see if it was a fluke. nope. Still got the scar.

My top three miserable shooters:
#3 - No. 5 Enfield

#2 1895 WINCHERSTER in .405

#1
.460 Weatherby. They muzzle blast alone from the brake will make your head ring. Roy can have that POS.

any shotgun sucks

Ithica 37 Deerslayer, 12ga, 2 3/4", 1 1/4" Fed mag slugs......tears to the eyes.

Colonel Bob Brown, of Soldier of Fortune Magazine, let me shoot his .470 Nitro Express double one time. It definitely got my attention. He put two cartridges in it but one was enough for me.

Seems like I just read about that somewhere.

* I was wrong . It was an article by Boddington in Rifleshooter that I just read. He had a 600 double on him too.

In regards to "normal rifles" rather than the monster magnums...

Did find out that a bad fitting stock can tear a guy up. A friend had a 1980's Savage 110 in 30-06 that he complained about, and I pooh-poohed him. How bad can a 30-06 be? Shot a bunch of them, no big deal.

Took it to the range with some factory ammo wearing a t-shirt, and that sucker had my shoulder bruised and bleeding from scraped skin in 3 shots. Don't know what it was about that stock, but I had to apologize and agree with him. It was one phugged up gun.

'twas a lovely little spanish made sxs 12 ga . It turned REALLY UGLY when I pulled the trigger on a shell loaded with a Red Dot bushingfull of Unique combined with a Unique bushingfull of Unique under a tight fitting cardboard wad column and 1 1/4 oz of shot .

The righthand chamber was then ten-thousandths oversize and I was [ the next day ] black from my right shoulder all the way to my belly-button .

That was forty-five years ago and may explain why I tolerate recoil pretty good . If it could kill , I'd be dead .

.378 Whtby. Said a he** of a lot more than ouch.

Had a M98 Mauser in 8mm. and was shooting some milsurp 196gr European stuff through it. The first round, I was a wee bit too close to the scope and got a 40mm cookie cutter around the right eye. OUCH!

PM sent on that 475 Rifle. Need more info on a rifle in my favorite desired or sought after cal!

Good posts, folks! This is more fun - in a sick and weird way - than I thought and I had high (or Low) hopes for it ...

A neighbor brought a marlin 94 in 44mag out to the ranch and said shoot it. I fired it once and handed it back. He shot it twice and took it to the next gun show. That little turd was brutal. I've shot a 375h&h(not to bad) and a 458 that took some hanging on to. That little marlin was just evil.
Fred

I had an 1895 Browning leveraction in 30-06 rebored to 35 Whelen.

It kept the factory steel but plate. As soon as I got it from the gunsmith, I shot 40 rds of 250 gr factory loads from the bench. Afterwards,I had a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my shoulder.

I shoulda' spent a little extra and had a nice, soft recoil pad installed when I had all of the work done. Live and learn.

Dan

Two that come to mind, the worse, a cheap, piece of c--- H&R or New England single shot 12 ga. weighing in at about 6 lbs and taking the 3.5" shells; muzzle-light to boot. Touched off a round thinking it would be a down 'n dirty turkey snuffer. Conditions were such that I was on my haunches, Indian style, and it promptly dumped me, blunt end down, into a pool of water.

The second a 458 Lott 500-grainer at top end, about 2400 fps off the bench--sitting; about a 9.5 lb rifle. Though finely made, my love affair with that rifle ended quite soon.

As some have stated....3" turkey loads out of my Benelli M2 which has a 24" barrel...TC Contender with the 44 mag barrel.....the darn trigger guard slaps so hard that my middle finger was continuously purple...and my grand dad's 10ga. single shot with 30" barrel.....yikes! My own .375 H&H doesn't hurt THAT bad!!

Well, lessee here ...

I shot a bunch of custom five-shot Blackhawks once for a story. A 45-70, a 475 Linebaugh, a 500 Linebaugh, and a 444 Marlin. The 444 had to be the worst - it had a very sharp snap instead of a push like the others. Hurt my wrist like the devil.

Then there was the .585 Nyati elephant rifle on a 10-pound Winchester M-70 action. It has double the recoil of a .458 Winchester - 200+ ft-lbs of recoil. Even with a muzzle brake (removable!!!) it kicked twice as hard as a .375 H&H. With the brake screwed on, the back blast would neatly remove your hat with every shot - and off of every bystander within 20 feet. I fired it twice, just to prove I'm a slow learner, LOL!

A Ruger #3 in .45-70 with it's metal buttpad made me say ouch. The loads were the #3 loads in the Hornady Manual. 500g RN at 1800 fps!

I'll put the 3.5" Nitro loads up there for plain brutal!

I have shot 2 that were harder than they should have been.
Both are 308win,one a early savage bolt rifle ,the other a savage m99.
I put a recoil pad on the bolt rifle and it is better,but the savage m99 is still a brute to shoot.
I have shot a 30-378 and it feels so much lighter in the recoil dept.

Well, at the risk of sounding like a blithering female reproductive organ, I once had a 700 remington BDL chambered for .270 WCF that would kick all the fillings out of my teeth, everytime I touched it off. I put 20 rounds through that hateful wretch one afternoon, shortly after I got it, and immediately before I got rid of it.

PM replied.

3" magnum 20 guage loads in a Savage Model 24c -- a 5 pound gun with a steel butplate.

BMT

I had a similar experience with a 700 ADL, iron sights, and some 160 grain corelokt loads.

BMT

Per others posts here, I will agree that light little carbines in 45/70 can be awful. I had one of the early straigh stocked lightweight Marlins so chambered and loaded it with the #3 loads out of the Speer Manual and firing thaqt little beast caused me to see stars! Hmmmmm did this about the same time as the 8 bore punt gun experience and right before marrying my first wife. Hmmmm...a pattern is beginning to develop! I was a budding Masochist!!!

Winchester 1895 carbine 30-40. The comb was that flat-topped carbine style.

Bruce

Westley Richards with the classic old stock chambered in 425. Great looking rifle with extended magazine, horn bolt knob, steel butt plate and lots of drop in the stock. Ever been hit so hard you get the impression you need to wait for your eyes and brain to start vibrating in sync to continue?

Anymore and anything above a .22 mag at the bench, I use a Past ambidex, strap on, recoil pad for the shoulders (practice left handed, too). Some of the better money I've spent on shooting stuff. I'm a wuss. I confess.

Absolutely correct! That splinter of a straight stock on the old Long Tom 10ga was a killer.

my uncle had a Beretta 413,folding shotgun,he handed it to me when I was about 12,with little shooting experience,he put a duck load in it and let me fire it,that was a bit of an eye opener.

The first was a Winchester model 11 with some sort of buckshot when I was about 11 or 12 that belonged to my uncle. He gave it to me after that and I had it about 12 or 15 years and don't think I ever shot again. He asked for it once he got married and had a son of his own and I was happy to give it back.

After the third shot with a .600 NE I developed a flinch and stopped shooting it.

Same here - my brothers ADL 30-06 bought in the late 60's.
No recoil pad. That thing was a holy terror! I talked a school pal of mine into shooting it and he still cusses me out about it !

Then there's my brother in laws .300 Whinney. Another pal and I took it to the range to sight it in for him. We each fired maybe 3 shots apiece, before we loaded the damned thing in the truck and took it back to him, telling him to sight the miserable SOB in himself. It wears an awkward ( to me ) California style stock and a skinny little brick hard rifle pad.

ditto...

Blew the guts out of a suppressor while shooting a .300 Win mag. Figure about 8 ounces of stainless went down range, some all of 100 yards. I took 7 stitches to my right eyebrow. It was later determined by the manufacturer to be a defective can. However, they didn't offer to pay my deductible.

Good times.....

Gettin' shot in the ass by ya cousin with a Crosman 760 Powermaster count?

He always was a mean lil' bastard. Last I heard he was in jail.

Original 95 Winchester in .405, with that evil "Crescent Butt plate".

My bud's got one that he restocked with a steel "Shotgun Plate"
....a reasonably pleasant powerhouse to shoot.....though one does feel that he's accomplished something, on laying it down.

GTC

Smart guys. My wife, God Bless her, wanted to get me something good for Christmas back in my duck hunting days, so she went to Acadamy and asked for the "best" duck hunting shells. All she knew was 12ga. They sold her a case of 3.5" BB's. I had a Browning BPS that would shoot them, and they wouldn't take them back, so I shot them. It scarred me so bad I gave the gun away, just to make sure I wouldn't shoot any more. I don't even want to think about the one, magnum load of 00 buck I shot.

Strangely, the worst I've ever been beat up was shooting a round of trap with a pump .410. It fit my buddy just fine, but it beat my cheek to hamburger. Can't figure out why, he's 5'8" and a buck sixty, I'm 6'6" and 300+.

I have benched as big as a .375 H&H in a Ruger #1 - which bucked and twisted a lot but didn't really hurt.

My first time to shoot a .454 Casull was a borrowed Super Redhawk. I fired 6 shots over the chrono, and the 300 grain slugs were making over 1600 fps. I bought a set of rubber lined PAST gloves after that point. I'd like to get a Freedom Arms in either .475 or .500 Wyoming Express but don't fancy a case of carpal tunnel.

Saw one guy at the range years ago who had a 12" Contender in .45-70. He'd hand made a grip for it and was bragging it wasn't bad to shoot. He got no takers to shoot it, and I noticed he was trying to sell it at the next gun show a week or two later.

Can't really say I've shot one that made me say ouch, but the worst handling rifle I ever shot was a bear bones pre 64 win. model 70 in .458 win mag. The gun weighed 8 lbs., at the most. I benched it for a guy to get the irons on at 50 yds. Fired it 16 times, and finally got the irons on. However it took a 1/2 bottle of canadian mist to get rid of the dee-doop-dee-doops....after the range session

I might add, that the only time I was ever scope bit, was with my sons H&R Ultra Hunter. Had it on my bench, crawled the stock, fired, scope hit glasses on bridge of nose...blood everywhere!



maddog

When I was about 12 or so I got an old single shot 20 ga. Stevens IIRC, that would just hammer me. I spent the next few years scared to give a 12 ga. a try -- 20 was enough. That sucker must of been choked hard or something because when I finally started shooting some 12s, I don't think that I've found one yet that kicked like that 20 did.

It sat in my gun case after that for 10 or 15 years until a bud asked me if I knew of anybody that had a 20 ga that they would make a good deal on. I guess he had this idea that he was gonna start bringing his grouchy wife along duck and pheasant hunting with us sometimes and wanted to break her in with a 20 ga. so she wouldn't get sore and want to stay home -- I had just the deal for him. Ha ha ha ha ha she never did come out with us.

A friend bought a Ruger #1 in 416 Remington magnum. He had a box of factory ammo and we both were just itching to shoot that beautiful rifle. Wow, a few shots scratched that itch. That rifle spent s lot of time in his close before he sold it.

custum 378 wtyb is the worst I've ever shot.

I have a couple of 10 ga, and they are ok, even the single shot thats super light. I have all the sizes of 12 and they are ok

I've shot 375, 416s, 458s of both flavors and the 460 wtby and my 50 bmg... no big deal.

I shoot a 54 MZ with a 535 gn(I think its that, its 535 or larger) conical in front of 100 gns of real black.. it gets your attention, but then the first thing I ever did to it was take off the steel hook buttplate and put on a recoil pad.. no need in even trying that steel pad, the hooked one in my 45 will nab you if you shoot it in a particular position....

That 378 though....(and I have a 338-378 and have shot a30-378 doing load work and have a couple of various 300s....) I never want to shoot again at all. Ever... It was horrible. SO FAST. I handed it back to the owner after #1 and said nope. He had just got it. First shot broke his shooting glasses in half since he had a high thumb position and his thumb smacked the glasses...

I have not shot any of the big NE rounds... I'd love to though... just to see. My thoughts are I can handle a big shove, I cannot handle a big fast SNAP.

And I've never fired a 378 but had a 460 for about a dozen years. I really had fun shooting that gun, except for the 600 grain Barnes I had for it. Those hurt. The thing I've heard about the 378 vs the 460, is the 378 comes back quicker. Having had a Lazz Warbird, I can understand the concept. That Warbird deserved about as much respect as the 460 or it could leave a mark. Good form, good follow though, and remembering what you're shooting accounts for a lot of whether the rifle gets the better of the shooter or not, I believe.

I'm pretty recoil tolerant but I met my maker with a Heym Bolt action in 500 Jeffrey. Ouch. jorge

If we're talking getting your bell rung, I had my .450 #2 NE double on me, twice! I developed a flinch and stopped shooting for almost a year. Got back into it with the help of several hundred rounds of .22lr.

Remington XP100R PISTOL in 350 Rem. Mag. w/14" bbl
62 gr. 4064, with a 180gr. Speer

Throws enough barrel flash to gut the deer by
before it dies out

Same here, except I was patterning with turkey loads. Hoping a gobbler never showed, tell ya...

Thanks a LOT bud.... now I need two asprin just from READING about that incident! Owie...

My buddy asked me to sight in his 870 slug gun for him since I was shooting anyway.I shot a box of 5 of his 3"slugs.
The same shells in my auto with the mercury recoil suppresor were not bad at all,but the short barreled,plastic butt plated 870 was a killer.
As bad or worse was a T/C hawken with brass crescent butt and 460gr maxi hunter conicals.As least the muzzleloader shots were a few minutes apart.

I'm pretty tolerant of rifle recoil, though most of my shooting has been with things 0.308 and smaller.

A Freedom Arms 454 Casull was handed quickly back to its' owner after one shot. I have RA in my hands and wrists that tolerate a full bore 44 mag load fine. That 454 crossed some sort of line.

I don't do 3.5" 12 ga. My momma never raised no foo.....

Got scope bit from a 788 carbine in .308 shooting Hornady Customs 165 load. Was shooting (awkwardly)from an improvised rest and things went very wrong

Cumulative damage:

Lyman Trade Rifle 50 cal. shooting sabotted 240 and 300 gr. XTP's, as well as some of the 385gr Great Plains bullets. A few dozen of those from a bench and I had a horribly sore check for a week or so.

Shooting a sporting clays event to benefit BSA with an 870 pump. Shells provided were AA Super Handicaps and I shot over 200 that day.
I was shooting way over my head that day on what was an extremely difficult coarse. One station had 3 different true pairs that would break at your feet if you did not get them in the air. I was the only person out of a couple hundred (including many pro's) that broke all six birds on that station. Several other stations had shots that were all but impossible with a pump gun and I paid a price. Many of my shots were taken with the shotgun nowhere near my shoulder. I think a lot of my second shots were taken with the butt over my breast.

I was shooting on a company sponsored team that day and won some tremendous bragging rights, though the pain I endured is much fresher in my memory. I spent the next three days flat on my back barely able to breathe. It seems those repeated shots with the butt plate against my ribs really did some damage.

The first day I could really walk after that I went and bought a Beretta sporting clays gun in the semi-auto config.

Oh I got scope bit, but it didn't bother me any... 338 win mag and 210 tsx... same awkward position.... and the next morning (it cut and bled even with a rubber ring on the eyepiece of the zeiss..) I took 3 shots at a doe, 2 at her head at long range and then moved to the lungs to kill her.. first 2 were awkward and took flesh off my finger from the bolt knob... literally a chunk of bloody flesh but no big deal there either.

But back to this 378... nope, no way no how..

Has anyone ever fired an M1 with a grenade launcher?

I have heard the recoil from one of those is pretty bad.

In 1959 when I was twelve a guy we met at the West Linn gravel pit talked me into shooting his lightweight 300 weatherby from prone, no sling.

I suppose he thought it was funny.

After that, 11/4 oz slugs out of my Ithaca Deerslayer are right up there.

Before I shot the Deerslayer I had a 81/2# 338 that I thought kicked pretty good. I now regard it as mild.

Yes once Camp Lejune N.C. 1966 had no trouble in recalling the event. The deal was if you hit the target tank you did not hump ammo. I got a god hit and sat rubbing my shoulder as the rest of the PLT. took their shots.

Worst for me was shooting a Winchester Supreme turkey load, 3" @ 2oz load from an Aluminum receiver Charles Daly semi-auto shotgun that weighed around 7 lbs. I don't want a turkey that bad..! 2oz load = 875 gr...!

Those recoil (P-Pads) pads that Buffalo Arms sells are NICE, in that they are designed for PRONE shooting, ....and have a big old hank of the material wrapped up around one's collar bone.

Pretty hard to get into trouble with,.......

SEMPER BIG BORES !

GTC

For me it was a Model 24 Winchester S/S. The kick was'nt bad ,but everytime you shot it the damn trigger guard smacked your finger and cut it. 1Longbow

Worst recoiling rifle that I ever shot, my buddy's Weatherby Ultralight in .300 Weatherby Magnum. I fired 3 rounds through it at the bench and the bolt handle bloddied the knuckles on my right hand. My buddy got bit by the scope on the eyebrow. By far worse than my .340 Weatherby Accumark or my Winchester 70 in .375 H&H. Just a sharp quick snap that packs a punch.

A Marlin 94 in .44mag brutal???? I've fired those and it's less than a 30-30, which is basically nothin' ...

My father had an old 12ga. Stevens double barrel shotgun he used to carry on the floorboard of his truck. When out in the counrty he would shoot the occasional quail, rabbit, snake, etc., with it. When I was about 16 or so (some 40 years ago) I saw something, cannot recall what now, I wanted to shoot. I got the old gun out, aimed, and instead of pulling the front trigger as is usual proceedure, I pulled the rear trigger first. BOTH barrels fired at once with a thunderous explosion, whacking the fool out of me. That is the worst recoil experience I can remember. Still got that old shotgun. Have not shot it in years. It is pretty worn and beat up. I have thought of having a gunsmith try to refurbish it.

45-70 with crescent butt plate off the bench. Caught the lower corner in the pocket of my shoulder, brought tears to my eyes. Shooting 400 grain #3 loads. Didn't like that too much.

I also had a Marlin model 90 with straight English style stock in 12 gauge that bit me pretty good, even with standard 1 1/8 oz loads. Stock design had a lot to do with it, just barked the hell out of me. I shot fine with it, just didn't like gettin' bit all the time. Moved it down the road and picked up an Ithaca from Mr. Barsness.

An 03A3 with a grenade launcher fireing a flare. The manual said to fire it with the butt on the ground. Like a fool I did it from the shoulder.

HOLEY MACKEL KINGFISH.

I thougth my collar bone was broke.

BCR