Originally Posted by 8SNAKE
The thread about worst recoil made me think about my most pleasantly surprising experience with recoil. I have one of Melvin's rifles chambered in .340 Bee that I fully expected to kick like a mule, but it just doesn't. Sure, there is some recoil, but it's not particularly abusive and that rifle is much easier to shoot than I anticipated. I credit Melvin's stock design for a lot of that.

My experience is similar. Back in 2009, for my first Alaska hunt, I bought a barely-used Wby Mk V Accumark in .340 Wby. I had bought a 700 BDL in .300 WM when I was 18 back in 1986, and I had tolerated that fine. I was determined to master the .340 Wby, but was concerned by all of the infamy about the cartridge’s supposedly-wicked recoil. I bought a bunch of different weights of bullets and loadings hoping to find the one that would not tear me apart. I was thinking about having a mercury tube added by a gunsmith to mitigate what was sure to be a horrifying level of recoil that was almost certain to break my shoulder and disfigure my face.

Without doing so, I put a 1-lb bipod on it, took it to the range, put on a Past shoulder pad, and I and let go with a 200gr loading. I was thinking WTF?!!! That’s all there is to it? I shot a few more of those rounds and then went up to the 250gr Partitions with no discomfort at all. I eventually switched to CorBon-loaded 225 TTSXs that leave my muzzle at 3,140 fps. Still no big deal (the Past or similar pads really help BTW).

It is the most accurate rifle I ever have shot. For those who think one can’t shoot something like that accurately because of the purportedly-insane levels of recoil, the following all are 100 yds 3-shot groups from it with the hot CorBon loads:

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

One moose liked sleeping with it.

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]