I don't know about the recoil reduction from experience. The gun was built with the barrel that was MagNaPorted from day one. I do know that my .300 with the porting and synthetic stock weighs less than my Sako Finbar .30-06 and it has less felt recoil. It might be the design of the stock, although the shapes are pretty identical with the exception of the fore end.

When this barrel gets burned out and my groups get too big I'll go with a real brake. There weren't that many out back when I had the rifle built.

The way I got my kids worked around recoil is a lot of shooting with .22s or air rifles so they learn good skills there. Then move them up to a hunting weight rifle but don't have them shoot so many rounds at a time that they get hammered. Then go back to the .22. It helps to have the same sight system (scopes for us) on both weapons.

My daughter's rifle is a .308. It's a tiny Model 7 that weighs almost nothing and has a very straight stock. It kicks like it has a grudge but she can still make it hit because it fits her and she learned to shoot first.

Realistically you don't need a lot of rounds through your hunting rig to be able to shoot it well enough to hunt, unless you want to snipe at long range but that's not for beginners.

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