Something I have always wondered about is why so many writers will say that the reason so many deer-elk-antelope,hogs etc are killed with low recoiling rounds such as the 243, 250, 260, 30-30 is that the caliber has very little recoil. Like thats why it works. Quite often it is stated they are good for beginners for that same reason.

I just read an article on the 250 Savage where this was stated and it makes me wonder.

Do they actually mean it?? I mean if a 250 kills well because it kicks little so you hit em right, then a 22-250 must be even better because then you would never miss right??

Too much is made of this in my opinion. It is often said about cartridges that recoil pretty good and are in fact very well designed for the game being hunted. Why say that?

As somebody who has grown up a subsistence hunter-(Indian Reservation, without caliber restrictions) and living in a state with .22 centerfires being the minimum for big game, having taken deer with a fair amount of calibers that recoil very little- I'll say that little recoil has nothing to do with it. You still have to put the projectile into the kill zone and then dont chase it. Do that and ur eating meat for dinner.

The fact that the 250 or 243,6mm, 257 rob, 260,30-30's dont kick a whole lot has nothing to do with their killing ability. They all have bullets designed to perform on game of a certain build and size and they do. They can be asked to do more by competent hunters and do that fine too.

Once you get down below that level you run into even smaller calibers that can and have taken a great many game animals around the world such as the 22-250, 7.62X39, 220 swift and 223 ect. They recoil even less. Their killing power is not related to their lack of recoil but instead to the shooter knowing they are slightly undergunned and making good shots and decisions after the shot.

Below that we get to rounds that don't recoil at all and still they have and will take loads of big game if ya go about it smart. They certainly don't kill it all because of their nonexistent recoil. And they dont kill because of some special bullet, a 22 Hornet with a tsx is still a lil bitty bullet.

So my wish is for those writers to give those cartridges their due, they kill well because they were designed to. My 22-250 with 60gr Partitions at 3400fps is still not the big game round its papa is.

I'm not a gun writer, but I would wager that the gun writer response will be similar to the following. The reason (as you state) that "so many writers will say that the reason so many deer-elk-antelope,hogs etc are killed with such and such caliber is that it has very little recoil," (and you might want to change that to "such and such a cartridge," as there is a big difference between a .30-30 and a .30/.378 Wby, but they are of the same caliber - semantics matter)is that when shooters aren't concerned about recoil, the incidence of flinching is greatly reduced and there is no worry about recoil, therefore more concentration focused on bullet placement and less on what will happen to your body after pulling the trigger. I don't know of any gun writer that will say that energy delivered on target trump bullet placement. Bullet placement trumps EVERYTHING - a cartridge only needs to have the energy and bullet construction to punch a hole in the vitals of the target to prove deadly. I don't think any sensible current writers discredit low-recoiling rounds or don't give them their "due". Modern bullet designs have changed the capabilities of quite a few popular cartridges that used to be considered marginal for big game.

I think that t is a diplomatic way of saying that quite a few people, not least of them beginners, get rifles that are loud and kick hard, thinking that this means that they'll be the hammer of Thor, but then can't hit worth a damn with them because of how loud they are and how hard they kick.

The bullet has to damage something vital, and if you can't do that it doesn't really matter how powerful the rifle is.

Very good Dan! Hard kickin', hard hittin', is meaningless, with out proper placement. In the last several years, my wife has racked up many kills on deer, with a .223! All, excellent head or neck shots! Not much recoil, just dead deer!

Most people don't shoot enough to become hardened riflemen so recoil and I personally believe, muzzle blast, inhibit precise placement.

The resulting flinch makes people fear, rather than embrace their rifle so they simply do not want to shoot it for pleasure.

Familiarity breeds confidence. The alternative is not as constructive. It's that simple.
John

Popped primers remain the supreme tutorial?

David

Thanks guys, I think we agree.

Selmer, I just edited the title and clarified what I meant. Makes more sense I hope.

I guess I just dont understand why its put like that. Itd be more accurate to say something like: it doesnt kick much so its really fun to shoot and that will of course make a big difference when you actually need to make your shots count.

Exactly what you just said has been said and penned by many gunwriters.

Shod

If recoil bothers a person so much that it induces flinching, makes practice unbearable or painful, and otherwise scares them, they need to switch to a lesser recoiling rifle/cartridge combo. This chit is not rocket science. The thing that gets you in the vitals of a big game animal is practice, practice, and more practice. Shoot sporting clays or trap in the off season, practice on running jacks, coyotes, pigs and other vermin. Punch paper too as it builds confidence in your rifle and your load. When the moment of truth comes along you shouldn't be focused on recoil, scope eye relief, or whether your rifle is going to go bang. Use enough gun for the game your hunting and put the bullet in the vitals. A big cartridge doesn't guarantee a DRT and neither does a small cartridge. What does matter is whether the bullet lands in the vitals. Some guys can put them in and some guys can't, regardless of the cartridge/rifle used. You'll know these guys because they cry about losing animals because their rifle recoils too much. If you can't handle a big gun, use a 243 and don't blame your inadequacy and poor skill/lack of markmanship on the size of cartridge in the chamber..

Well said bsa1917hunter.

5.56 kills equal to a 300 WSM for me. Let's see I have seen 4 gut shots so far this year with a 30-06....

Pretty much.

Physics

Equal and opposite direction

Re deer sized game, I've never seen the big, brutal cartridges kill any better than a .243, 6mm Rem, .25-06 or the like.

I've taken deer with .223 - .45/70, including the 7mm & .300 mags, and really enjoy shooting the lighter recoiling rifles much more. Besides, they're great for off-season varmint & coyote hunting. That doggone .25-06 of mine has become a real favorite, at least partly because it's so very easy to shoot. My son feels the same way about his 6mm Rem.

Guy

Same here, but I settled on a .243. Definitely not macho, but it has killed a few truckloads of game. Not once have I wished I had a .300 mag intead.

Even the most macho guys will get the fact that the lighter recoiling guns are easier to shoot with precision. I have a .458 I can shot with precision, but it is real work to do so. With my .243 or .260 it is just easy to hit targets.......

First of all, the question is based on a false assumption. I have never seen gunwriters "equate recoil as killing ability".
Lots of people here HAVE equated shot placement with killing ability. That fact has been proven so many times over so many years that it is beyond debate. When people shoot rifles that are above their level of recoil toilerance, they can't place shots well u nder field conditions. That fact has been well established by studies done by the US military, and by observetions of thousands of competetive shooters, guides and most anyone else that has spent time around the hunting/shooting game.
I am always amused by these threads that totaly reframe something that has been said, and then ask "Why did they say THAT????" Well, the answer is usually simple as in this case- They didm't say "that".

Well, yeah, the reason until now I decided not to comment. At least the original post didn't make the common comment of including all gun writers in one sweeping generalization.

I have, however, known a few gun writers who, as far as I could tell, did equate a LOT of recoil with killing power. One even seemed to enjoy getting the snot kicked out of him, which may explain the erratic behavior that eventually removed him from the business.

Since my brain is mostly idling in neutral today, this discussion made me think about muzzle brakes, and that made me think about muzzle blast and shooting thumpers in general.

And that made me wonder... has anyone ever done a study on the long-term effects of repeated heavy muzzle blast exposure? That might help explain the behavior of some writers I know and a fair number of individuals here. ;-)

I never notice recoil while out in the field.

I think most people don't.

The flinch develops at the bench, not in the field.



P

and/or the shooting skills never get developed because they don't shoot rifles that hurt them...

David

A good crisp trigger does not make a rifle any more accurate but it does make it easier for it to be shot accurately. Same thing with low recoil cartridges vs big boomers.

Shoot 10-15 thousand 12Ga per year and most will flinch sometime or another, and it will not make a difference if you are shooting a .410, .22lr or .30-06. It just pops up and you never know when. Too many popped primers?

Little recoil may delay a flinch, but if one shoots a lot eventually it will happen. Then there is a recoil induced flinch and a visual flinch. They both end up with the same result. You have it bad when the forearm muscles tense to the point of becoming hard, but the finger can't pull the trigger.

I've flinched a good bit with both types on targets-mostly clays-but only twice that I can recall on live game.

Ok since somebody has said that I am imagining things here is the quote, "we used a 250 on deer and pronghorn with great success. I uused to wonder why as kids we never lost an animal with the 250. Now I know 250s mild recoil helped us place our shots just right"
I know that my title could use work but I also dont know how to describe it better in so few words. The second sentence provides a decent idea of what Im asking tho. I thought anyways.

This isnt an ancient article and no we wont discuss names, this isnt personal or slander/libel. I would never say that all writers do anything, except write of course. But it has been a fairly common phrase used often enough thru time Talking about purposely designed medium game rounds. Its just that. Id rather see something like, the lack of recoil helps but you still need to put a good bullet in the correct place.

*Implied. Not said, my mistake.

Regarding recoil damage, that makes a lot of sense! If a fighter can get punch drunk, a wrestler/grappler can get brain damage from being dipped in his/her dome too many times why not damage caused by lots of heavy recoil sustained over time??

Also the shotgun angle, I read somewhere like ten years ago that skeet/trap type competitors sometimes had to look at extreme fixes like a reverse trigger that fires on release because their brain would not allow the finger to pull the trigger normally anymore. Is that a real thing still??

Are you under the impression that if a child is handed a 30-378 weatherby mag as a ten year old that shot placement will not be effected?

Just trying to figure what your angle is.

Seems to me that in the hands of a youngster the 250 would bring home more
Meat?

Shod

A comment I made has predictably been dropped from the conversation.

I have always believed that muzzle blast is a greater contributor to flinch. As someone who tended to specialize in bigger bores and magnum cartridges, I watched people closely when they shot my, or test rifles which I loaded and shot on a public range.

It was my observation that perceived recoil caused more flinch than actual recoil. If a shooter believes he will be belted before he takes the shot, he will be convinced he was right after the shot.

I first noticed this 30 years ago when there was a few 20" barreled rifles released onto the market such as the Model 70 carbines, Steyr Manlicher Stutzen full wood carbines and the Weatherby Vanguard 20" carbines. The 7mm Remington version taught me a lot about many things from perceived recoil to suitable powders in short barreled magnums, which is a common topic here on the fire.
John

And to be fair to the OP, I just read an article in American Hunter on hunting Alberta deer touting a "accurate, flat-shooting caliber such as .25-06 through any of the .300 Magnums". Even past 400 yds my .260 Remington fits that bill, as does the .243 Winchester, without excessive recoil and plenty of energy downrange. It will take something extraordinary to reach for anything more than my .260 Remington with a 129 gr. Hornady Interlock or 130 gr. Nosler AB. It just gets the job done, time after time and doesn't pound me to death. Add on top of that the fact that I can load cast bullet loads for target practice and get loads of target time in for about the same price as current .22 LR ammunition costs.

Definitely.

A lot of shooters believe a flinch is all mental, and can be overcome by practice and concentration. To a certain extent that's true of an "early-onset" flinch, caused by introducing somebody who doesn't know much about shooting to a firearm that hurts them. A lot of people do this inadvertently, because they don't realize not everybody feels the same things when a firearm goes off. This kind of flinch can usually be overcome by sufficient practice with a firearm that doesn't hurt.

But what might be called a long-term flinch is caused by plenty of popped primers, as Battue stated. One of the greatest professional shotgunners of his era, Bob Brister, suffered from this kind of flinch, simply because he was addicted to shooting. He shot so much his brain eventually subconsciously refused to pull the trigger, because his body had taken so many rounds of punishment over the decades. He eventually went to both lighter-recoiling shotguns and a release trigger, but eventually even that solution doesn't last.

I once hunted ducks and doves in Argentina with Bob when he was around 70, and had been shooting a release trigger in competition for a while. For that trip he brought a shotgun with a standard trigger, because he worried somebody might pick up his release-trigger shotgun and have an accidental discharge. He shot pretty well during the first, duck-hunting part of the trip, because the limit was "only" 25 a day and he didn't use many more than 25 rounds to kill them.

But when we switched to doves, with unlimited shooting, by the first noon his brain/body connection often refused to pull the trigger. I once watched him stagger forward four paces while he attempted to use his whole body to pull the trigger, and it just didn't happen. And that is not unusual in shotgunners who pop 10,000 primers or more a month, as Bob did.

I had a brush with the subconscious effects of cumulative recoil maybe 10 years ago when I went on a prairie dog shoot with a company that had just introduced a new varmint rifle. The rifle was actually designed for coyotes, with a medium-weight barrel chambered for .22-250, weighing about 9 pounds with a scope, but it's far easier to test new varmint rifles on numerous prairie dogs, rather than relatively few coyotes.

We started shooting about 10 o'clock one morning, and aside from a little lunch break, shot until late afternoon. Then we got up the next morning and started all over again. By mid-morning the .22-250 started feeling more like a .375 H&H every time it went off, and I realized I'd started flinching. Yeah, I could overcome it by concentrating, but shooting had really ceased to be fun. I switched to a .22 rimfire and the flinch went away.

On any such test I make it habit to put my fired cases in a duffel bag, in order to keep a round count. It turned out I'd fired about 600 rounds of .22-250 ammo. So now I know my 24-hour limit of what most people would consider light rifle recoil.

I didn't miss it; picked up a 26"-barreled 6-250 here a few years ago and noticed that right away. Blast is much more flinch-inducing for me than recoil, although they often go together.

I wasn't attempting to be "snippy", but wanted to highlight the noise aspect, I think goes with recoil and even as a separate contributor, can be damaging to accuracy and shooter performance.

JW

I agree about blast being an important factor, especially after witnessing a green young shooter take a shot with a very short barreled 243. The kick hardly moved the boy at all, but he was clearly bothered by the report and wanted no part of another shot.

Veddy, veddy intadesting, John.

I have never considered myself a flincher, or recoil sensitive in any way. It truly has to be a cannon to bother me. BUT, I'm am sure everyone, including myself, has their limits. I guess maybe after so many rounds, recoil may subconciously take a toll on even the most experienced of shooters, once the body has absorbed a certain amount of "damage".

I hate brakes with a passion. Especially someone else's that is shooting next to me. But even on my own guns, I'd much rather the recoil than the muzzle blast/percussion.....

Steven Jay Gould once wrote about how evolution tends to weed out the extremes of traits in an ordinary environment. I think it applies to firearms. Using rifles of adequate power to do the job if the bullet gets where it needs to go, but not so powerful, heavy, and loud that they are hard to shoot and induce fear and flinching, is the same thing. Try to hunt deer regularly with a 17 Hornet, you're apt to lose a lot of game for lack of range and killing power. Shoot an .300 Ultra for average deer hunting, or even elk, and you may find (or not, but keep using it anyway) that it's just too big to place shots well. That fairly large range in the middle ground (lets say from around the .243 to the .30-06) is where most hunters are going to find the most success, I think. And I think I may have made this connection from reading a gunwriter many years ago, so I will give credit to whomever put the thought in my mind. I'm wondering if it was Mule Deer?

I dry-fire a rifle more than a little, and sometimes, even when I know there will be no recoil, I can feel the shoulder pocket tense at trigger pull.

+1. I was at the range today, shooting a 243, 260, and 7-08. Not hard recoilers but all the rifles were lightweights, one NULA, one Kimber, and one custom, so they had some jump. I was shooting prone a lot, and I shot pretty much continuously, rotating the rifles and burned probably a hundred rounds. Toward the end I felt worn out and "punch drunk."

It was good practice, and I got a lot done. I couldn't imagine shooting that volume with any hard kickers in the mix, which goes back to the original point about volume shooting being much easier with lighter recoiling rounds/rifles.

Shod,
noo nothing of the sort. Im saying lack of recoil doesnt make the 22 Hornet or 221 Fireball a solid deer round. Although yes it will kill, the fact that they were not designed for that purpose means you will need a really good shot placement. The rounds that I referred in the original post are designed for taking deer and similar animals are much more versatile in their abilities and do not need premium bullets to do it. Thats all.

The stuff about flinch, recoil and muzzle blast is really interesting! I know muzzle blast of short barreled magnum handguns is a good example of that.

Learned long ago -- I flinch for noise. I double protect and use a PACT pad, too, because eventually recoil does hurt. Bench shooting for .416 Rigby load production lead to headache by shot #17. Better to shoot off bags put atop two seats on the bench.

Having gone through load development for rifles up to .375 Wby before, practicing off sticks is much less traumatic. Can't imagine taking the punishment of endless shotgun use...

It's basic physics. Less recoil expends less energy to shooter and more energy to target.

For myself, I never really feel the recoil or muzzle blast when hunting and shooting at an animal. It is there, I know but it is not relevant. Off the bench, it is another matter. The 9.3X62 with heavy loads and the 300H&H with heavies, about 10 to 15 rounds .. Then I know I am going to "feel" it and shots start to go down hill. I am accurate with them, but I do believe that recoil and blast matter. Practice, practice and know your limit. I as well have seen newbies with the biggest badest magnum fail horribly at game when in the fields and the old guy with the "puny" cartridge get the animal with no fuss.

?

I think you are right there. The overall effect tends to be a combination of factors including noise and also what is happening between the ears of the shooter - mute witness to which is the fact that most don't even notice recoil when making a shot on game. Shooting static targets at the range seems to let these things become a distraction.

How you hold the rifle plays a part too and this may be a part of the problem for beginners or those who have poor technique - and perhaps those who tense up expecting to be belted make things worse for themselves just by doing that.

Bottom line though is that you need to be able to put the bullet through something vital, and that is less likely with a rifle that you find hard to shoot.

Good question.

How does less recoil deliver more energy to target?

Its really rather simple.....

You always position for the shot so you can use the counter rotation of the earth to your advantage. It pulls the rifle away from the shoulder gravitationally while at the same time slinging the animal toward the bullet because the earth is spinning at over 2000 mph.

Shesh...you'd think a mathman would know this stuff

Shod

I've heard of loaded questions, but now we're into loaded answers.

I think much of it is that many hunters are too civilized, or domesticated. This dampens the 'killer' instinct. Deep down we do not want to kill, because of our disassociation with meat and how we get it. Farmers and country folk have less of an issue with this therefore the caliber of rifle is less of a concern. Those of us that have no mental issue with it tend to be more successful.

a lot of what is being said here, I've seen over the last 12 years or so, handloading ammo in various calibers for kids when they are beginning hunters...

I sorta got started with observations over at our local range... typical was a 10 to 12 year old, that was given Grandpa's 30/06... dad would taken him out to shoot it, and then get angry as hell at the kid for him getting intimidated due to the gun kicking the crap out of him...

I had pretty much in my old age, figured out that one doesn't need a cannon to down a deer...also 90% of all game is taken within 100 yds and 99% is taken within 200 yds or less...so I was asking myself, why does one need a 500 yd load, to take a darn deer at 100 to 200 yds...

So with the pair of those concepts in my noggin, I decided to take a closer look at the reduced loads Speer had in their manuals...doing alot of testing also with bullet penetration capabilities at different velocities into different mediums.. I started noticing a lot of stuff that was happening that wasn't in the hunting mags and the reload manuals...

I came to the conclusion that the reason the 30/30 has hung on for so long, as it covers a lot of what the average guy really needs... so I started loading stuff to 30/30 speeds...

Kids and women really responded well to the reduced recoil and blast....what was really funny, is that once some of these dads had their kids try these reduced loads at the range and saw how well their kids did with them, they would ask me how much would it cost to have me load some up for their kids...

My policy always was, since it was for a kid, if the dad bought the components, I'd load them for the boy or girl at no charge...
just passing on to the next generation of shooters...

What was funny was after loading up a batch of ammo for a kid, the dad would call me up in a week or two and ask for some more... I'd ask if their son had already shot the ammo up, frequently they would reply NO... they shot a couple of them and liked the lack of recoil, that they wanted to have me load some up for them...

I usually would if it didn't get too crazy close to deer season...

I've used a lot of these reduced loads myself, for deer hunting locally...last really good sized black tail I took weighed about 205 to 210 lbs on the hoof...he was taken with a heart shot at 50 yds or so...I'd seen this animal a couple of seasons over the years and he was a wylie darn buck...

He was taken with a 7 x 57... with a charge of 28 grains of SR 4759 and a 115 grain Speer HP...Recoil felt less than a 223...

here is why the deer dropped with a 115 grain Varmint Bullet, was due to shot placement and the Varmint bullet performance at lower speeds...



Although using a different powder ( Blue Dot) and a 130 grain Sierra SP...this is the same 7 x 57, and here is the results from 100 yds with it...charge was 22.5 grains of Blue Dot..
Rifle is a Model 70 Featherweight, chambered in "7mm Mauser" as stamped on the barrel...



So lack of recoil, on this rifle as an example, shows how shot placement is made a lot easier...

and if you look at a trajectory chart in some of the reload manuals, you will see, that is a bullet ( regardless of Weight or caliber), if the MV is in the 2250 to 2300 fps range.. if zeroed 3.5 inches high at 100 yds, it will be pretty much dead on at 200 and about 3.5 inches low at 230 to 240 yds or so..

equate that with the fact that an average antelope is 14 inches from back bone to breast bone ( regardless of weight), cut that in half you have 7 inches...consider a trajectory that is calculated at 3.5 inches high to 3.5 low, all one has to do is hold the rifle steady, and you can aim at hair.. pull the trigger, and you should not have to do any compensation for trajectory out to just short of 250 yds...

then return to consider that most game is taken at 100 yds or less and definitely 200 yds or less, you have an awfully capable load, especially matching the bullet to the impact velocity speeds...

no advocating here of anything, just offering food for thought...

it definitely helps kids and women with shooting accuracy and shot placement made easier.... and if we can think outside the box, it'll probably work for the most macho of Campfire Members also...

Because information coming from a different source is often received more willingly, I've let my two older daughters read the pertinent replies in this thread which explain the reality of flinching and how to "fix" it in the short-term. When we're working with their 20 gauge slug guns or .243 Win and .260 Rem, , even with reduced loads, it's more recoil than either of them like, though Seafire's Blue Dot loads are a God-send in the rifles. I always have the option of loading their guns for them and I'll mix in a fired shell to check for follow-through and flinching.
They have not fully understood why I take away the 20 gauge and the .243 Win when I see them flinch and had them the .22LR if they want to keep shooting. My explanations are the same as all of yours, but someone other than dad saying it can make all the difference. This has evolved into an excellent discussion out what I thought was a trolling OP. I obviously thought wrong.

These loads are great, thanks. When (if) I get set up for loading at the new house I'll give these a try. I'm sure the pigs won't know the difference between these and "regular" loads, and it'll help when practicing in the field.

That's a very interesting post, John, especially the part about the accumulating affect of recoil on developing a flinch. I have a question, though: How do military snipers/sharpshooters overcome it? They probably shoot as much as anyone, and their life literally depends on their ability to connect shot with target.

And, more generally, what's the secret to overcoming a flinch if lighter recoiling guns aren't always the solution?

Thanks.

Here are some guesses:

1) Most snipers are young.

2) Most U.S. sniper rifles are chambered for the 7.62X51 (.308 Winchester), and those for bigger cartridges are mostly braked.

3) The rifles tend to be heavier than many hunting rifles.

4) While snipers practice a lot, I doubt many shoot as much as a hard-core shotgunning competitor. And when in the field, they sure don't shoot as much as a shotgunner during a weekend competition.

These little nuggets are somewhat amusing too. Flinching, whether an acquired habit or a natural response to noise and recoil, is real and there is not much truth in these gems...

Some friends and relatives of mine in Central Texas used to hunt deer in the 1960s and 70s, and decided they would like to hunt varmints (coyotes, bobcats, foxes) on the off seasons. Some couldn't afford two rifles and didn't want to shoot coyotes with their hard-kicking 30-06s, so they traded for .243s. They found that their success on deer went way up. The off-season practice with the one rifle, shooting smaller, often-moving targets, made it much easier to make vital hits on deer. After all, a fox's whole chest is about the size of a deer's heart.

They simply weren't willing to practice as much with the larger rifles. I think most everybody enjoys practice more with the rifles that kick less.

Less kick doesn't mean the rifle is more deadly, but less kick means the shooter gets more practice, and more practice DOES mean the SHOOTER is more deadly.

Hence, the 7x57 for big game.........

I feel like Corleone. Every time I get away, it just pulls me back.

Since Ingwe is out of touch, I'll answer for him: Well, yeah...!!!

I have shot skeet and clays with a friend who has shoots several times a week year round. Many rifle shooters dont understand this means one to several hundred rounds per occasion. Tom is a great shot and does not miss much. Except when he cant pull the trigger. It is funny to see him all hunched up taking a step toward the departing "bird and his whole hand is jerking, but the trigger is not being pulled.

Back in the 70's my family hunted a lot. We used the 250Savage, 257Roberts and the 7x57. My brother always had to have the biggest and baddest so he went down and bought a 264W western w/I believe 22in barrel. He wanted me to go and help him sight it in. He had some 140gr Winchester PP's and we proceeded to the range. Not really ever having shot anything bigger than an Enfield 30-06 I volunteered to go first. The recoil was brutal due in part to poor stock design but also the caliber. What I noticed after 3 shots was that the muzzle blast bothered me as much as the recoil...abrupt and brutal. There was a short period of time after that I could not shoot even the little 250Savage w/o flinching and squinting at the shot. I have since learned the stock design has a lot to do w/recoil but nothing helps w/muzzle blast and a brake just makes it worse. I have since shot lots of magnums w/no ill affect up to the 375 but my mind always goes back to the 264M experience. Weird! powdr

I always wondered how the shotgun shooters faired..

We could develop a flinch from the 308 due to shooting 2 weeks at Camp Perry with M1A in 308. YOu would not think so but by the end of week two it took a LOT of concentration to break clean shots.

I can't imagine shooting 10K rounds a month. Don't think I could afford it and it would get really old doing that much shooting. Heck even 20K a YEAR I was waiting for the off season so we could relax a few months...

I defer to you that mental cannot overcome flinch then in some cases.

I still say it can in most hunting/varmint cases.

I never had the money or dedication to be serious about the clays games. Thats why I have never shot trap, even though there is a ATA field 3 miles from the house at my local range. I shoot for fun and skeet and S. clays fit me. However shooting 150 or so shotgun rounds several times a month made my 300 win mag kick a lot less. It seems recoil is something one can get used to with the right training, but extreme amounts can breed a flinch. Knew a guy with classIII guns, on Labor Day I would help him with a shoot for his family and friends. Dont believe a 9mm or 45acp has much recoil. I would be purple from my nipple to below the shoulder from MP40's and a Thompson. This was 25+ years ago, hate to guess what that would cost to do today.