Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 300 Mags and recoil

7.82 Warbird
30-378 Wby
300 RUM
300 Wby
300 Win
300 WSM
340 Wby
338 Win

all factory guns, none of them have brakes and none of them have enough recoil to be a whiny twat about , and all ammo is handloaded HOT for fastest velocity with the heaviest, highest bc bullets

guns are supposed to recoil

The .338WinMag with 250gr bullets is good step up from the .30-06. The .300 ones aren't worth two farts over the .30-06.

learn how to shoot beyond 100 yards, your personal failures as a shooter have zero to do with those who can and their choice of a superior cartridge

the Warbird, 30-378 Wby and 300 RUM all have more velocity/energy at 500 yards over what the 30-06 has at the muzzle with 180 gr bullets, step up to 230 gr bullets and the '06 sharts itself compared to the others

learn to shoot man , preferably past 1000 yards and you'll become wiser

have a 300 win mag custom with a bansner stock.recoil is nothing.now i also have a 300 dakota custom with a bansner.it originally when built was put back in the laminate model 700 stock.it was a kicker so i got it switched and much better.shot a 338 a couple times when i was going to have one built for alaska and bears.it was also a model 700.said hell no after i shot the 375 h&h.the 375 was a pleasure.250 grain from the 338.300 from the 375.didnt make all that much sense for basically equal weights.hey swamplord you are special.how much to you truly love yourself !!! ps i had the 375 built.

My 2nd 300 Win mag was m700 1st gen ss with their tupperware stock bought used it had not been shot much. The recoil was vicious not overly heavy and the recoil pad had very little give to it. I replaced it with a Limbsaver and it made a big difference in felt recoil. A lot of factory pads are not effective as they could be. Mb

I guess it boils down to what you can tolerate. A Winchester M70 .338 WM in a factory Tupperware stock was the worst felt recoil I have experienced. It was also an inaccurate pos, as well. Now, my big rifle is a .300 Weatherby Fibermark with no brake. Shoots well and recoil is tolerable. Of the 15 or so elk hunters that I know, none shoot a .338 Win Mag and most shoot 7mm or .300 magnums of one flavor or another with a couple ‘06 s thrown in.

I had a 7mm RM in a standard BDL and it was comfy.
So I dumped it and went to a .300 WM in another.
Years ago, but I could do two boxes from the bench.
It was "snappy".
Longtime headache sufferer, it was not bad, but it had a fatiguing effect and my neck was OK the next day.

Older now, I dunno if I could tolerate it as well.

My buddy got the 700 classic back then in .35 Whelen and loaded 250s near .338WM velocity.
Think that stock made of balsa. It was LIGHT

Yet I found that gun to be a big shove, not a smack. So...........dumped my .300WM.
Yup, right or wrong, I'm skipping .300 magnums.

Go smaller or bigger.

I love a 300 win mag, excellent NA game rifle. I tried in my misguided youth to build a 1000 yard sporter based on the .300. I was able to do so and still have her parked in the gun safe, Remington 700 KS Custom shop gun and I've pushed it out to 1000 yards.. Quit that nonsense.. Just too much recoil in a sporter on the bench.. I pulled the turret scope off of her several years ago and mounted a Leupold VX3 4x12 AO and sighted her in for 200 yards and that's the config she's gonna stay in..About 10 rounds off the bench and I do not want to shoot that rifle again for several days..

Hunting scenario I have no issue with the recoil, don't even notice it.. 3-5 rounds off the bench checking zero or making the gun go bang is fine.. Once a year.. I shoot other rifles in similar configuration and trigger set up often enough that I don't need to shoot the old girl frequently to stay current on her.

my .02 worth..

I had my 300 Win Mag at the range earlier this year checking the zero on it, while I was letting the barrel cool down, the guy next to me asked me what I was shooting. I told him 300 Win Mag, he was like gosh how can you handle that thing? I just looked at him and said, like any other rifle. Then I pulled out my Mossberg Patriot 338 Win Mag, and shot it. Recoil is recoil.

Three years ago I purchased a Tikka T3x .300 Win from Whittaker’s. With scope it weighs 7 1/8 lbs. Even with the supposedly improved recoil pad, my shoulder was really feeling it after about 7 Federal factory 180 gr. rounds. I changed out the pad for a Simms Limbsaver and a few weeks later was shooting 20+ rounds of my 200 gr. NPs at @2875 fps with no soreness. That Simms pad really made all the difference!

That first 300 I had was an A Bolt with the BOSS system. Even with the BOSS it seemed too kick worse than my dads friend’s Mod 700 in 300 WIn Mag. But man that thing was a tack driver
Wonder what the weight difference was with B&C. Was it heavier or lighter than the factory stock? Either way I’m sure it was a better designed stock.
It seemed like I couldn’t miss with that A Bolt. I guess I was too Ignorant then to know that A Bolts are supposed too be “Junk.”

You are your own best metric in the recoil equation. Myself, I have flinched with air rifles, bows, shotguns, pistols, and rifles of many flavors at one time or another. A 180 grainer launched at 3000 fps is about the energy level where I want to modify things, starting with exposure.

We all know or should at least know that rifle weight, stock design,LOP, recoil pad etc etc all play a role in felt recoil.
Im not saying a 300 doesn’t recoil more than a 270 if the rifles are set up the same. Physics is physics.
Obviously a 378 Wby is a kicking machine but we have grown healthy men complaining the recoil of 8-9 lb 270’s and 30-06’s etc with well designed stocks and nice soft recoil pads and long eye relief scopes. Obviously if you are shooting a few boxes per day or a few hundred rounds in a day on a prairie dog town that’s another story. We know that you can hunt most game animals in N.A. with something smaller. However a grown healthy man that can’t pick up a 30-06 and take it elk hunting?

Physics are physics, but perception and outlook play a big part. No different than optimists and pessimists.
Say “this thing has some kick” and some will fear it, flinch, let it effect them, etc, while others will say “gimmie that damn thing, let’s see”. Everyone is different.
I always downplay it to people when taking them shooting, because that’s my mental outlook on it. I don’t let it factor in to the equation.

The last buddy I took shooting, I let him shoot a 30-06. It was his first time shooting a caliber larger than .223 and he asked, like everyone, “how bad does it kick?”. I gave him a soft punch/push to his shoulder and said “does that hurt? It’s about like that”. He went into it fearless, and it showed in his shooting. I would’ve said the same thing with a larger caliber. The point is to have him not focused on or even thinking about the recoil.

I really like @john55’s use of the word “obnoxious”. That might be the best descriptor I’ve ever heard for the muzzle blast & sound, and even recoil. I’ll definitely be using that from now on.

My Steyr Prohunter .30-06 is heavy. Factory pad was kinda hard, and w 150's it bumped. Not bad but .....it bumped.
Got the softer pad and it helped quite a bit. Just wearing a T shirt

Have a Ruger #1 in .280 rem, it kicks harder w 140's. Sweatjacket over T shirt.

Same benches/position.

Excellent observation. We love to calculate recoil energy, factoring only the rifle - while completely ignoring the shooter's mass, visco-elastic elements, acceleration, resulting velocity, etc.

If designing an artillery piece you'd not fail to consider the carriage (recoil absorption system). That humans are all completely different rifle-bearing "carriages" confounds the mathematical analysis, yes. The difficulty does not nullify the point.

hey hookeye..bought the same 35 whelen for black bears years ago.in that classic rem stock with 250 grainers it to me was much worse than the 300 with 200 grainers.guess its all a personal effect.that was back in i believe 1992.when to custom builds and stocks and pachmayer pads.proper fit and stock choice make a big difference.many equations and physics with all things shooting.

I love big bores but I was kicked into next week by two weapons, The first was a .54 Cal Thompson Center Hawken shooting black powder 90 grains pushing a 430 grain conical maxi-ball. I shot it off the bench. I had not been hit that hard or had the breathe knocked out of me since high school football days. The next was a 3 1/2 inch turkey load fired from the bench. I won't make those two mistakes again.

It is a mental DECISION to aim while pulling the trigger without flinching, while accepting a kick is coming regardless of how much kick.

However, the 300 Win Mag is the threshold for me becoming aware that if I shoot this just a few more times I'm going to be sore.

Also, a morning shooting at geese with a 12 ga. 3 1/2" mag will, sure enough, leave some manly bruises on my shoulder.

The 300 mags hit a recoil threshold for me. I want them to weigh 7.5-8.5 lbs. I can shoot a string of about 60 rounds off a bench with a 7mm mag. but the 300 I try to keep it under 40 in a string. I can switch off to another lower kicking rifle and then resume shooting the 300 but better to keep the round count low.

The 375 shooting 250 grain bullets is pretty manageable, but I was sighting in with 300 grain bullets and there is a noticeable increase in recoil. To top it off I sort of forgot what I was shooting and shot the last couple of groups free recoil. Don't do that especially off a low bench. I developed a flinch from that and had to quit for the day. Off of sticks when hunting I notice it is not a 243 but it is entirely manageable.

Recoil is physical, mental and cumulative.