Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Your worst recoil experience?

When I first started hunting deer with a handgun in Iowa I thought the .454 Casull was the answer to my question. And it worked great on a few deer for me. I used 320 gr. cast bullets with max loads. Didn't have a chrono at the time. IIRC it was 28 gr. of H110 behind that bullet. As a pistol it wasn't absolutely brutal, though I ended up going to a .357 Maximum in a successful effort to reduce recoil. Anyway, one day I decided, because I was young and dumb, to see what that .454 Casull felt like set up with the buttstock on it. Bad, bad idea. Thing kicked like a damned mule! The only other worse recoil experience I can think of is when I decided to put a 3" shell with a maximum load of #2 lead shot in it through the single shot H&R 12 gauge that I started my wingshooting experience with. That was a monster also. The most powder I've ever burned was working up loads for a friend's .338/.378 Wby and also my first experience shooting a rifle with a muzzle brake. I dreaded pulling the trigger the first time, but the brake worked a treat and it felt like I was shooting a .308 Win, with a bonus shockwave and gas blowback from the brake, but I got used to it quickly.