Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What is the sharpest kicking round - my vote is -

Rem 700 ADL open sights hard butt plate 7mm Rem mag.

YOUCH.

BMT

2 1/4 oz turkey loads out of my Browning 10 gauge pump. When I first got it I rushed out to pop some caps. Made it thru 5 rounds and I looked like I made it thru 5 rounds with a good Golden Glove boxer. That high hard comb was whacking me in the cheek like a hard left bareknukle jab not to mention what the tire tread butt plate was doing to my shoulder. Had it Magna-Ported and that pretty much did away with the muzzle jump but the recoil is still there. Every time I shoot it I get a headache. Son inherited that one early. He's bigger, younger and heals faster.

50-90 Shiloh Sharps with a curved Buttplate! Ouch!

There is no free lunch with the 338 Ultra Mag. pushing 250 grain hand loads.
HD

Among the sharpest I have felt would be a 7.82 Warbird. I have now shot 6 or 7 of these, and the Sako was the most wicked. Custom built rifles from RMR were not bad to shoot, but the Sako has a bite. One day I was tasked with shooting a 7.82 Warbird, two 30-378 Wbys, and a 38-378 Wby from the bench. The Warbird was the sharpest of the four.

378 Wby non-braked. Fired it and it rung my bell pretty good. Sad thing was I fired it a second and third time. Learned my lesson.

On one occasion I was asked to develop a load for a 270 WSM built on a Borden action. It was a wicked little gun. The customer had requested a twenty inch fluted barrel with a muzzle brake. It had an ultralight stock that was quite straight. Despite having a limbsaver pad on it, each time I shot off the bench the rifle would kick up. I broke two sets of ear muffs with that critter. It wasn't hard to shoot, but it sure did twist and snort whenever it was torched off. It wasn't the sharpest kicking round, but it may well have been the most wicked rifle I ever shot, except for a model 70 chambered in 7 x 57... but that is another story.

I'll go with this one. The .378 unbraked is rude, closely followed by the .338/378 also unbraked then teh .458 in an open sighted 8.5 pound model 70.

JW

Although you wouldn't think it to be a hard kicker I had a Mod. 24 Savage O/U 22 LR/ 20 gauge shotgun. The gun was stocked to allow a scope to be used so the comb was high. Every time I fired the shot gun it cracked my cheek bone like you wouldn't believe. Sold it shortly thereafter!
My Mod. 870 12 gauge deer gun loaded with home cast 525 grain slugs over a max. load of 4756 powder. At the bench it is suggestive of a .458 Win. In order to hunt with it the powder charge was dropped 2.5 grains below max. It still is not much fun to sight in!

300 win.. pure evil.....

woofer

I had a Warbird in a Sako for a couple of years. It was certainly fast coming back. It would get my vote too, topping my 460 WBY.

the worst gun i ever shot was a rem 870 12g turkey gun with a rifled choke tube firing 3 1/2" lightfield slugs. thankfully, i was standing up when i shot it. don't know what kind of recoil it generated, but i was knocked back a few steps. had a s@#t-eating grin, though. second worst gun was a savage 110 synthetic in 30/06. gun recoiled and broke my nose! pretty crazy, considering i own a rem 700 classic in 375 that only weighs 8 1/2 pounds with a scope! that gun is nothing compared to the savage!-keith

I shot a Police 870 Remmy 3 inch 12 GA with police loads, off of a bench, once. I do not intend to do it again.
R.

I have a couple of the most listed combos.

Mossberg 835 with 3.5 turkey loads, worst recoil I have experienced, mostly because it hits my cheek from the bench.

Two Savage 110's in 270, the Monte Carlo stocks hurt me.

Savage 99 in 308, steel plate, high comb.

"Sharpest" is my bud's Tikka T3 Lite in 338 Mag. It gives me a headache. I feel the recoil in my back, my neck, up the back of my head to my eyes.

Oops! Forgot about my .458 Lott.
Basically, I don't fire it unless in anger!

Sako TRGS 338 Lapua. Not bad in the field, not fun at the bench.

One of the worst I ever got involved with was a custom ultra light in .308 Winchester. I wouldn't have believed it it if I hadn't shot it. I would rather shoot my .458.

If you think a 3.5 is bad in an 835, try a 535 that weighs about 1.5 lbs less. I saw a friend of mine get knocked right off his stool last year while shooting at a turkey, he missed, too. Every one that i sold last year wants to trade them off on something else. An evil little gun. My daughters have shot several turkeys with 2.75 inch field loads of 4 shot all the way out to 45 yards. Smacks them right down. You want tight chokes out of any shotgun, find one of those cheapy star dot chokes they used to sell at wally world. Tightest thing I have ever seen.

I had a 20" custom barrel built by Bullberry Barrelworks of Hurricane Utah for my T/C Contender Carbine in 45/70. I used to lob 400 gr Speer cannonballs out the end of it. I don't know exactly what this little combo weighed but I suppose in the neighborhood of 6 lbs. I killed an elk with it and kinda enjoyed shooting it in what someone else called "a twisted sort of way." The key with this rifle was to make sure you had alot of clearance between your head and the scope. I have two semicircular scars between my brows....

Finally sold it. Don't miss it.

sabot slugs from my 12-ga. shotgun