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

20 12 guage sabot 1 oz slugs leaving the muzzle at around 2000fps, from a bench.

Enough for the day...

The worst one I've ever seen, was when a client mistakenly put a .270 cartridge in 7mm Remington magnum. Suffice to say, that was pretty ugly.

A 10 gauge single shot with 3.5" turkey loads and a Ruger #3 45-70 with stout reloads kicked like mules.

Yep, I've made that mistake! I have a heavy 10 ga double, and I found I couldn't do a sit up with it on my chest. Only fired it once from that position, but even as slow to learn as I am, it taught me not to do it again.

I believe that it was Colonel Charles Askins talking about the .460 that said "even in the face of a charging buffalo, I always thought about the recoil and how much it was going to hurt before pulling the trigger".

Memorable events:

- When my 5#14oz sidelock 20 ga doubled with one ounce field loads. I got the pheasant!
- Sighting in the Williams peep sight I put on an 870 to use as a back-up gun when bowhunting on Kodiak. Those 3" prior mentioned Federal slugs just about won out. I gave the gun to my buddy years ago! Brutal and a headache plus bruised shouolder from shooting it.
- Shooting 200 rounds in one day out of a Browning 12 ga sporting clays OU that bit my cheek every shot. It was gone shortly too. My 391 is great!
- Shooting more than a cylinder full of full power loads from my S&W 329. My palm goes numb. The 500 grips helped, and I really enjoy it with 1,000 fps cast bullet loads. Wish I could use it as a backup while bowhunting here in BC. Somehow bear spray doesn't feel near as good in the tent at night with grizzly sign all over the mountain.
- Sighting in a .270 Remington M721 from prone. It had the "crooked" factory stock with a metal butt plate, and was not fun!

Me too..............
Only a sample of one, the tang safety 77 in .338 Win mag had some recoil but not painful or excessive.

500 Jefferey loaded with a 525gn pill.

I was about 12 and we went out to the pit at a town called West Linn . A guy out there talked me into shooting his .300 Weatherby from prone.

Yup, it kicked.

A client once, who emptied his 7mm Remington magnum on a grizzly bear and didn't have any other shells in his pocket, so I handed him my .375 H&H magnum. He fired one shot and then handed it back to me, saying; "You go ahead and finish him, I think I just broke my thumb".

When I first started turkey hunting (mid 1990's) I owned a lightweight 12 gauge M1300-XTR Winchester with plastic buttplate, Mad Max .655 turkey tube, 2 ounce, 12 GA, 3" magnum turkey load. Wow - had no idea what I was getting into - my control was much better on the second round!

9.3x62

My friend is 6'-4" so he has a sako that is set up for 6-4. I am 5-5. I was offered to shoot this rifle and jumped at the chance. Despite grabbing tighter and tighter and concerning myself with accuracy less and less it scoped me between the eyes on 4 consecutive shots in just as many minutes. Luckily I was wearing eye pro cuz it probably would have split me open otherwise. I was left with a nice lump between the eyes and a new appreciation for well fitting rifles.

3 1/2 12 ga turkey loads
300 RUM

both were nasty, but probably the worst and most humbling
was getting tagged in the eyebrow from an improperly mounted scope on a 308

Shooting my Dad's Savage 12 ga. double gun as a youngster. Of course, I had to use full powered, high brass loads.

DF

I have two. A .450 Marlin guide gun with a 1-4x Leupold on it from a low bench position. I crept the stock a little and thought I went blind in my left eye until I realized it was my newly relocated nose in the way.

An older SxS 12 ga. with narrow steel butt that doubled with buckshot.

A close third was my 1886 extra-lightweight with some Elmer Keith approved 425 gr. loads at around 1850 or so. Learned not to wrap my thumb over the stock with that one.

Winchester .458 mag with 500gr bullets.

Not real pleasant to shoot.

10 gauge Browning BPS and a S&W 357PD with full power loads......both had me questioning why?????

45-70 in a marlin lever action.......WITHP 405 gr BUFFALO BORE bullets. JUDAS!!!!! It fixed any ED problems one would ever have as it would knock your d*ck stiff!!! AND would keep your dentist in business as it was a mule kickin sob.

oh.. yeah.... just remember handguns too. S&W 329 PD.... not bad at all with .44 special, but a ball buster SOB that makes your hand hurt for a week wtih full house 44 mag loads!!!

At one point I was going to buy a single shot 10 ga 3" for duck hunting. Asked the seller if I could shoot it first.
Seller said Okay ...if I paid for the ammo. So I got to fire 2 rds.
Gave the seller the rest of the 10 ga. ammo box...and passed on the shotgun.

I was in middle school and borrowed my Dads 54 cal TC Hawken. Got a shot at a huge buck in the snow. I missed and the hammer bloodied my mouth and nose. I was way to little for that thing!