Recoil

Complex subject, and Chris has a big post on it. With lots of technical data on it, well worth reading. Especially since he's had the chance to fire a bunch of stuff I've never been able to.

Worst handgun I ever fired in this respect was a Taurus Total Titanium Tracker in .41 Magnum. Now, I like the .41 Mag, and hope to own one someday; but I'd always fired it in steel-frame S&W revolvers. This think kicked the crap out of my hands. I don't care how good the grip is, that was just too much cartridge for that light a pistol.

My Benelli Nova shotgun is a fine firearm, but I did put one of the recoil absorbers in the butt, because buckshot and slug loads kicked me something fierce. Both the Taurus and it bring something up: the lighter and handier a firearm is, the worse(generally speaking) it'll kick when chambered in powerful cartridges. For home defense this was easy to solve, use the reduced or low-recoil loads: add those to the absorber and they're downright pleasant to fire.

Worst rifle, hands down, was a Marlin Guide Gun in .45-70*, light rifle with no recoil pad and heavy hunting loads. Beat my shoulder up worse in four rounds than forty-some-odd 7.62x54r out of a Mosin Nagant had done. Impressive rifle, at fifty yards put all four into a 1.5" group, but if I had one it'd have the best recoil pad I can find mounted.

I can fire an M1 Garand for many shots with no problem, including prone where you can't shift with it. But a 1903 or '03-A3 Springfield in the same cartridge is a whole 'nother story. Partly the Garand action takes up some of the felt recoil, partly the stock is a better design.

I haven't fired any of the semi-auto pistols that have a padded grip in the back, so I can't comment on how they feel. I'd think it would be a good thing, but that's just a guess.

On pistols, because the arthritis I have makes me a bit more sensitive to it than I used to be, I don't shoot heavy loads very much anymore. I can, no problem, but after about 30-50 rounds(depending on cartridge/load) my accuracy suffers. Which is one reason I handload, I can put together practice loads that I can shoot a bunch of, and use enough of the full-house defense or hunting loads to keep my hand in with them.

Had a chance to fire a Kel-Tech P3At in .380 a while back. The recoil wasn't bad at all: the way the sharply-checkered grips bit your hand as it flipped up wasn't pleasant after a magazine or two.

It's a very subjective thing.

Additional: when my son was about 11, just about his favorite rifle to fire was a #4 Mk1 Enfield. He took my rear shooting rest(filled with dried beans) and stuck it between his shoulder and the butt for a little padding, and if allowed to would have bankrupted me.


*Update: in the time since I have a new 'worst rifle': a beautiful bolt-action chambered in .416 Rigby.  That weighed seven pounds...  Lord, it was bad.