The perfect weight for such big bore rifles can be debated. If you just look at it from a recoil perspective, big bore rifles of greater weight are an advantage, but such rifles are not the best when it comes to handling it by hunting. At last, it depends on why you are buying a rifle of this caliber. I had a rifle caliber 500 Jeffery/Schüler built above all for hunting, so I don't regret that it only weighs about 9 lbs. Apart from the fact that the recoil is felt differently when hunting than at the shooting range, with increasing age it is not the recoil that cause me problems, but rather the weight of a rifle.