Readers of my threads, "Quantify Recoil" and "Always Wanted An Elephant Gun," know that I've been intimidated by unknowns regarding recoil for this gun/caliber. It's all new territory for me.

So this afternoon, out by the barn, I shot it.

LESS recoil than I expected.

350 gr. Speer, 77 gr. Hodgdon 4895. At 77 gr it's a compressed load, and min. on the Hodgdon manual. High end load is 80 gr.

I'd been ruminating about getting bitten in the face with the end of the scope, so I removed it. Why mess around?

Standing, offhand. I got out in the soft grass just in case the gun jumped out of my hands, or it knocked me on my ass . . . Browning trap shooting vest with a gel pad in the shoulder.

Of course the rifle is well designed and a relatively heavy 9.0 lbs.

Recoil is not at all uncomfortable nor harsh, only slightly greater than shooting the No. 1 in 45/70 -- which weighs 7.25 lbs.

I fired two rds. One to figure out the "unexplored frontier," the second to confirm the findings. It's not uncomfortable to shoot -- although sighting in off a bench might be "work."

Here's a pix of the impact crater:



And about 9" past the end of the ditch, I found the bullet:

Is that the crater formed by the rearward movement of your Birkenstocks??

Bravo!

Adict yet?

Recoil is 90% mental/technique imho and in an excited situation you wont think about it.

When I had the right technique down (Thanks to friends here) my front foot did not need to come off the ground when shooting the big boomers. (keeping ballance and recovery for follow up shots being importand in real world uses for these things that I hope to be in some day)

Boomie shooting 550 Gibbs

Recoil seems at least to me be only an issue when shooting something as large as the 550 Gibbs at top "Git r done" velocities. Add a brake and no worries.

Off the bench shooting is a #@%$ but you dont do that often.

PS you should have seen the trenches Rodney made at Hogkillers place with the 550 Gibbs

Does anyone have pics of that???

Safarkids famous 4 bore

Man that looks like fun!

What a bunch of Weisenheimers!

I don't wear Birkenstocks -- Too much $$$ to pay for brand new shoes with holes in 'em.

Yeah, I'm addicted. I have a box of Hornady 500 gr. and some Speer "African Grand Slam" 500 gr. Also a box of 400 gr. Speer.

-- Along with some two lbs of 4895.

I sort of expected to get really hammered. The ol' sore/bruised shoulder, forend jumping out of my hand, front foot off the ground, getting backed up.

None of this stuff bothers me much. My concerns are being hit in the face with the scope (I have about 5" of relief.), having the gun get away from me and getting scuffed across the ground.

I used to box. Getting hit really hard don't scare me none.

............HIP HIP HOORAY .....

Congratulations ....All things being relative , the 458 isn,t very big .........
You get alot of muzzle jump from drop in the heel and toe of the stock ... getting punched in the cheek comes from too high a comb ...getting bruised on the arm ,from too long a length of pull ,,,, ,,,,, ECT...

Gumboot: Can you shave the comb to prevent face slap? Thats where my 458 pre64 mod 70 punishes me!

now go and fire a full tilt 500 grain load and feel the power.

45-70 Govt.,

Congrats on your new rifle! Big bore rifles are fun and addictive for sure. I used to think my .300 Win M700 was a handfull but know now it was a combination of improper rifle set up and my inexperience. As you, my biggest "fear" was getting "scoped" and that 300 hit my shooting glasses every round...it had to be a beast to do that, right? Wrong. Proper LOP, scope set up and stock has everything to do with a comfortable shooting rifle.

Bigger rifles DO require a different technique and mind set than the small stuff. Even after you set up your LOP right and scope for max relief you still need to remember you are shooting something that has recoil and act accordingly. Free recoil shooting and goosenecking the stock will get you wacked. Period. You must control the rifle with your hold, and IME the extent of this depends on the round/rifle. My .338 Lapua needs a steady hand but CAN'T be manhandled if accuracy is wanted! My 416 Rigby and 458 Lott need a very firm hold (with both the off and shooting hand) to be accurate and controllable. Practice and a strong desire to master the bigger bores is required. As the Boomer said it is 90% mental. You must WANT to take the recoil (which isn't bad!) and HIT the target.

My favorite ground squirrel rifle is my RSM 458 Lott wearing a Leup 1.5-5 (I'm always talking about going to a 2.5-8 or 3.5-10 scope on it!). I have shot many hundreds of rounds through it (500+) it scoped and never have gotten scoped, or more importantly don't even think about it. I KNOW if I don't do something REALLY stupid I'm good to go. I can take the recoil of pretty much whatever to the shoulder, but don't cut up my nose or brow! With proper rifle/scope set up and technique I took scope cut out of the picture and really enjoy my bigger rifles.

I shoot a .17HMR,220 Swift and 25-06 for squirrels and varmints, but love my .338 Lapua, 375 H&H, 416 Rigby and 458 Lott, especially the Lott

The bigger bores are not for everyone (I have friends that think I'm nuts ) but for me they work very well indeed.

John

quote:

Originally posted by victor1050:
now go and fire a full tilt 500 grain load and feel the power.

I loaded some 400 gr. -- only marginally heavier recoil. The calc. rate the 350 gr. at 38 ft/lbs and the 400 gr. at 41 ft/lbs.

500 gr. calc. runs about 50 ft/lbs.

But the gun fits, I'm strong, and recoil has never bothered me. (Getting whacked by the scope bothers me.)

.45-70:
First time I fired what to me was a big bore -- a Ruger No. 1 in .416 Rigby -- I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be. That said, I find recoil with black powder and heavy slugs easier to handle than the smokeless stuff.

Now that you're getting warmed up 45-70.....get in your Prius with a couple boxes of Grape Nuts and head over to Helena for the June 7 Big Bore Shoot Part Deaux. You should leave soon if you're gonna make it in the Prius.

You might get to shoot some heavy metal up there!!

Mac is right! At least the part about coming to the H-n-S II in Helena the 7th. I will even let you shoot my 550 Gibbs if you want...

Rich
DRSS
Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost...

Now that 550 Gibbs is a whole 'nother critter. I shoot 458 lott, 458 win mag and 375 H%H quite a lot but the 550 Gibbs took it to a whole new level, for me anyway!
But.....if Rich invited me ......I would most likely shoot it again

Well, I'm glad to see you were underwhelmed with the recoil. Honestly, too much is made of the subject. No one has ever gotten hurt from shooting big bores. If you simply believe you can shoot the rifle comfortably/accurately, you will do it! Don't let the numbers and your mind play tricks on you!

458 Win. is a great caliber, too.

The .458 Win is not too punishing when fired off-hand, especially with lighter bullets. You will notice a bit of an increase with 450 to 500 grainers though. Still, in a properly wieghted piece, it's still on a par with heavy 12-gauge loads.

From the bench, you may notice a bit of pain after a dozen or so. Especially in your neck.

And make sure you use a scope with enough eye relief. I took a hit from mine once, and that scope now resides on a .22, while the .458 now wears a shotgun scope that works great.

It's not a Prius.

No Birkenstocks.

No Grape-Nuts.

I own a John Deere, and it ain't no freekin' lawn mower. I should bring my cannon.

What-a-ya shootin' out o dat cannon 45-70??

What's the breech plug look like or did you drill that tube from solid stock?

quote:

I should bring my cannon.

It was all fun and games until they sank the Lusitania! (oh no, that was a torpedo)


Congrats on taming the .458. I was pretty nervous firing off the 1st shot of my .460 wby. By the 3rd shot I was hooked, and then if became a non event.

Keith

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:
What-a-ya shootin' out o dat cannon 45-70??

What's the breech plug look like or did you drill that tube from solid stock?

It's 1.00" bore "drawn over mandrel" high pressure steam pipe. A neighor of the buddy who turned it on his lathe is a mech. engineer. He gave us a formula for putting the plug in liquid nitrogen and then heating the barrel to cherry red on the BBQ.

Plug is turned to spec about 1.5" and then has a slight taper. When you drive the cold plug into the hot breech, they're tight. When it all settles down to room temp the plug is molecularly welded into the breech.

Then we ran a bead around the outer edge. I mean, science is cool, but welding is something you can see!

It shoots 1" diam. lead ball -- 3 oz. "cannon-ball" sinker. Also, rocks, nails, brads, gravel, shot, nuts/bolts, or a C-cell battery.

Most of the time I just shoot wads of toilet paper.

Black powder, Fg, 500 gr. That's a 35mm film can.

Carriage is white oak timbers salvaged locally from John Deere pallets. Hardware is from the feed store -- mostly fence hardware.

Now we have the machine shop set up to turn out trunions -- the axle studs that secure the barrel to the carriage. But I used fence hardware U bolts on a bed.

Since this is the first in a series of cannons we got into making, we left it as it first originated.

Smoke cloud about the size of a school bus. Echos down the valley about 20 seconds. The neighbors refer to me fondly as, "The nut up on the ridge with the cannon."

They're fine with it, and with shooting the 458 Win Mag in the yard. *S* We're out in the country. Everyone hunts/shoots.

Just got done "testing" some 500 gr. Hornady bullets loaded with 73 gr. H 4895.

BOOM!

I put the scope back on, plenty of eye relief.

They're all starting to hit pretty much in the same place. About 5 shots here.