Not having a lot of experience with anything bigger than the .338Wby/RUM I am curious how felt recoil compares. I shoot 12ga. sabots, I think 385 grains at 1900FPS from an H&R single shot light contour rifled barrel. The gun weighs about 6 lbs. or a shade under and it gives up a pretty good whallup when you pull the trigger. Just wondering how something like a .416 Rem in a 9 pound rifle would compare.

Quintus, Good question. My favorite topic.

A 9-10 lb. 416 rem or Rigby in a modern style bolt action rifle ( not too much drop at the stock.) is going to be much easier to shoot than your H&R as you describe it. I have hunted and played around with a 416 Rigby. It's not hard to shoot if you keep relaxed. I could shoot 20, full power, rounds with it off the shooting sticks easily in one session. It feel like about 15-20% more that a 338 mag.

By comparison I would not want to shoot 5 rounds from the sticks with your little H&R loaded the way have it loaded. ( It is a very muzzle light gun with lots of drop in the stock. I bet it would make a believer out of you if you shot if off the bench!

I have an H&R Handi rifle converted to .577 NE. It weighs 14+ pounds, has a 27 inch barrel and has a very straight stock resulting in minimal muzzle rise. I have shot 20 medium powdered rounds ( 700 grain bullet at 1700 fps) off the sticks with it. (Weight is your friend.) It was not that bad to do although I was happy to stop. ( There is a guy who used to post here, srose. I'm told that he would fired 80 rounds out of 577NE Heym in one sesion!)

I would not be surprised if your light little H&R feels like it kicks almost as much as my heavy .577 NE.

The 338 mag gives a hard sharp kick but i'll bet your hot loaded little Handi rifle feels like it kicks harder. ( "Feels like it..." is the key. Felt Recoil is about more than the math.). It helps to not fight the kicki, fearfully, but enjoy it. Sounds crazy but it really does make a difference .

Sorry, I got carried away into my "know it all' mode here. You asked a good question and I am just trying to be helpful. Cheers, Brian

Until a fairly recent roping injury to my hand I could shoot about any big bore off the bench all day long..I did find the 458 Lott and 505 Gibbs a bit much but could shoot them quite a bit off the bench..Can't shoot them at all these days. I felt like the 12 gage with slugs on the only one I sighted it for a friend was pretty gruesome off a bench..Its just not stocked for recoil and the average gent. More felt recoil than any rifle IMO, but recoil is a individual thing.

Ya' Those light shotguns with slugs kick like a rented mule, especially if they have a bit of a choke. Brian

I shoot the Lyman Sabot Shocker cast slug in my 12 gauges. Out of 20:1 alloy it casts about 530gr. That is equivalent to a 1 1/8th ounce trap load. In the Savage bolt 12 gauge, I have juiced it up to 1900 +/-fps. That's about a 2moa accuracy level with my 6X scope. It is deadly, and the recoil is not bad.

Your rig is not designed to handle recoil like that comfortably.

You ca weight your NEF to about 11 lbs and

shoot our 12ga From Hell loads in 3.5" ok.

That and a double thick pad. Even port the muzzle.

730 gr at 1900 in 3.5" plastic. Ed

Hard to say. Experience is totally different

But, how you handle recoil is largely in the stock design and in your head.

If you have decided to do it, and the scope can't cut you, a 416 should be well within your tolerances.

Dissect a slug load and weigh the powder charge and then weigh the combined weight of other ejecta, the projectile plus sabot, cards, wads, etc.

Lacking that, consider these hypotheticals:

For 2-3/4" 12ga slug load:
A 385-grain "bullet" plus sabot/card/wad/etc. totals about 1 ounce or 437.5 grains.
50 grains of Hodgdon Longshot powder.
1900 fps MV.
12 gauge shotgun, 6.0 pounds gun weight.

For .416 RemMag rifle:
A 400-grain bullet.
77 grains of RL-15 powder.
2400 fps MV.
Rifle weight of 9.0 pounds.

Shotgun recoil: 60.2 ft-lbs @ 25.4 fps
Rifle recoil: 61.6 ft-lbs @ 21.0 fps

I bet the shotgun recoil is more noticeable than the rifle recoil for this hypothetical.
A few fps faster recoil velocity is often more noticeable than a few more ft-lbs is.
Hypothetically speaking here,
but I do have a 12ga-3.5" Pardner SB1 "Turkey" model (NEF/H&R 1871) that is a smoothbore, fixed full choke, with rifle sights on the 23" barrel, and it weighs only 5.0 pounds dry (plastic stock).
A 1.75-ounce handload of 7-1/2 shot in 3.5" plastic hull makes this "the squirrel gun from hell."

I have used a 12ga while "training" for big bores. A 1oz. slug at 1600fps in a Rem 870 got me tuned up. If you can handle the 338 RUM I think you are in good shape anyway. I find that cal's recoil particularly obnoxious.

A big factor with recoil is how you use the rifle.

Two good pairs as examples:

300 Win and 375 H&H

378 Wby and 458 Win.

Because of their ballistics the keen reloader will chase the last foot per second in the 300 and 378. The trajectory also means chasing accuracy in a big way. The chase for accuracy is also increased because you will be looking at a narrower range of bullets because of ballistic coefficient.

375 and 458 are totally different and those differences usually mean a lot less shooting.

Even fun shooting is different. With the 375 and 458 you might shoot some rocks, trees or big cans of water and probably offhand shooting.

So we repeatedly see people post that they find a 300 Win worse than the 375 and the 378 much worse than the 458.

Michael is right on. I was loading the 338rum for group and max velocity and shooting off the bench. I have not shot the 505 from a rest since zeroing.

Thank you all. It is really just a curiosity thing, thinking if those elephant guns kick much beyond my slug gun I would have little interest. I am now thinking a .416 Rigby may be a welcomed addition to the collection.