This last fall I took a young German interning where I work to an indoor shooting range. He thought a full sized auto in 9mm was comfortable, a full sized auto .45acp was too much and a .357mag Colt Python more than he could tolerate. He'd never fired a gun in his life.
A comment in Cold Range below says - .44 Magnum double action revolvers can be downright painful, since the grip doesn't roll in the hand.
Yes, sometimes. I once shot a Contender, with grips that didn't fit me. The painful description was about right.
In handguns, finding the right one that fits the shooters hand is extremely important. The right fit promotes accuracy as well as comfort. For instance, I have small hands so few of todays models fit me very well. Guns designed decades ago when the average man had smaller hands fit me a lot better than the latest designs. I can shoot a Glock if I hold it with both hands and slide my hand around to reach the trigger, but the comfort level is low. On the other hand the Browning Hi-Power fits great, and a 1911with slim grips and short trigger is comfortable even with one hand.
Like the fit, the shooters recoil comfort and tolerance level is also unique. The young German mentioned above needed two hands for the .45acp, where I find one handed shooting easy. He thought the .357 was way too much recoil, while to me it's mild.
The .44mag launches 240 grain bullet at about 1500f/s depending on barrel length and the particular load. I occasionally shoot a 300 grain bullet at 1600f/s with little discomfort out of my Super Redhawk 454Casull. It has a big push, but well within my comfort range. Now the 240 grain load at 1800f/s is a different story. I never shoot more than 25 rounds of those in an afternoon or my hand starts to swell. That one slaps the hand like a hammer. That pushes my tolerance to the limit.
The recoil that an individual can tolerate, or be comfortable with, depends greatly on the individual and the fit of the gun.
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1 comment:
And experience. There's a thin line there, though, as the only way to gain experience is through repetition. That's also how one learns to flinch, and if one keeps it up, they eventually try to learn to shoot the flinch. A shooter can become an average shot doing that, but they'll never really be good. Its a method to stay at a plateau.
I did find that after shooting shotguns for years, I don't bruise anymore even with 3" magnums, which used to turn my shoulder green and yellow.
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