I have a 45/70 kodiak double and the recoil with factory 405gr loads is about none. My wife who is very recoil sensitive. shoots it fine. But thats because its heavy! I also have an imported sharps calvary carbine. It is not nearly as tame. But not nearly as heavy and a steel but plate dont help.
Dean

Dave,
the siamese mauser is the easist for most folks, with any reasonable level of load. After that, they are large drop in the stock singles, doubles, and leverguns.

45/70, under 1500fps, is VERY easy to shoot, at 1800, with 405's, things are exciting... when in a ruger and loaded UP things get painful.

a winchester, with a little weight added, and a correct LOP, can be fun to shoot at 1800... it needs to weigh 8.5 to 9 lbs.

jeffe

I like my marlin loaded to 1800 fps with the 400 gr weights..and I am looking forwards to getting my repro winnie 1886 as well but the stell buttplate may have to go

I just finished up a Siamese Mauser that weighs in at 9 1/2 lbs and have so far fired loads with 400gr cast bullets with velocities ranging between 1300 and 1800fps. As Jeffe mentioned, it starts to get your attention @ 1800fps with 400gr bullets. I do plan on testing some hotter loads. I have loaded some 550 grainers over 40grs and 45grs of BLC2 but have not had a chance to test them out yet. Should be interesting. Factory Rem 405 loads are a piece of cake to shoot in this rifle, very mild, actually.