On a recent thread, a poster noted that he got a pretty hard bump from his trigger guard. Mac showed a link to a pad to alleviate this problem. I didn't want to steal that thread. What in the design of the rifle, or the way we hold them causes this. Haven't noticed it in my rifles, but some single actions have done it to me.
Thanks
Bfly

I am sure that you will get plenty of diagnostic help on the cause -- sort of like folks helping you with your golf slice.

In my experience, some rifles are worse than others. For example, my Heym .470 would leave my middle finger swollen and bruised. My Krieghoff .500, I have never had a problem with, same for my Chapuis .470. That suggests to me that it is not a grip problem, although I am sure others will differ in opinion.

The best thing I found that worked was a little pad that slipped on your finger (looked like a 1" wide, black ring). The pad was made of Sorbethan (sp?), had elastic on the back and works great. I cannot recall who made them but I bought one and then played hell trying to find another. Not sure if anyone currently makes them. The rubber pads that attach to the trigger guard (i) seem too hard to do any good, and (ii) are likely to scratch the trigger guard.

It's due to the way the rifle is held. A double rifle can't whack the middle finger of the shooting hand if it doesn't have a running start at it. The shooters I've observed with this problem place the middle finger knuckle of the shooting hand some distance behind the back of the trigger guard bow, which allows the gun to be driven back into the shooting hand under recoil, smacking the middle finger. Middle finger should be snug against the back of the guard bow.
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"Serious rifles have two barrels, everything else just burns gunpowder."

That trigger guard issue is the exact same thing I used to have on a shotgun. It was an Ithaca 12 ga O/U Model 500 and it was REALLY bad about that. That thing had this vicious chopping kick with heavy duck loads and a box of those left your middle finger the next day black, not blue, and hurting so bad you couldn't lift it and caused a serious concern that it was broken.

The temporary fix was to remember to hold the grip farther back away from the guard and to hold it MUCH tighter. Having long fingers I could do that, but eventually tired of having to do so. And the idea of having to wear some special device, I would not have found appealing.

The ultimate fix was to sell it (it was the only one of many shotguns I've owned like that).

Hopefully this is not common with double rifles in general, because I'm in the process of buying a 450/.400.