I guided an elk Hunter from Australia in the Frank Church wilderness one time. He was shooting a 375H andH.. He missed a 5 point bull, and a nice mule deer from solid rests. He was so scared of the recoil, that he had a terrible flinch and couldn't hit anything. I shot his rifle to verify that it was shooting ok. It was, but even at that,I wasn't crazy about the recoil either, as that was the first one that I had shot. He later shot a small bull with my 243 I had in camp. I had a lot of hunters over the years that had magnum rifles and couldn't shoot them very well because of th e recoil flinch they developed. Most of the hunters that shot decent, and there weren't very many of them, shot something that didn't kick as bad. Something in the 270, or 30 06 range. I always liked it when a hunter showed up with something like that. Chances were, they would shoot better.
With many, the “magnum moniker” alone, scares a lot of people. The 375 H&H, is not much more than a 30-06 (similar trajectories at typical hunting distances) with a larger bore. As “most” .375 H&H’s are fairly heavy....the felt recoil, is pretty tame. About 30 years ago, my wife (girl friend @ the time) ran some 300 grainers through my Win. Model 70. Her comment, “That’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be”! This from a women that biggest cartridge shot previously was a .264 WM.
Now, if you bring the weight down to a much more practical “hunting carry weight” ( 9 pounds or under - scoped, loaded, and scoped) the recoil will be a bit more. However, nothing that an experienced shooter should fear. Unless the shooter has some injury (shoulder, ect.) that is sensitive to recoil!
A little math comparison: A 9.0 pound 375 H&H, shooting a 270 grain bullet (2700 fps) has a felt recoil of approximately 45 ft/lbs. My wife’s 9.0 pound .338 WM, pushing 225 grainers @ 2950, provides a bit over 39.0 ft/lbs. I don’t think an additional 5 or so ft/lb. felt recoil to be a serious challenge! JMO. memtb
