| Bullet Weight: | 570 | (gr) |
| Bullet Velocity: | 2150 | (fps) |
| Powder Charge Weight: | 90 | (gr) |
| Firearm Weight: | 8.75 | (lbs) |
| | |
| Recoil Impulse | 7.44 | (lbs.sec) |
| Recoil Velocity | 27.36 | (fps) |
| Recoil Energy | 101.75 | (ft.lbf) |
That's the description of the rifle I used for thick skinned dangerous game on three hunts in Africa. 10 years before my first hunt, I had never shot anything more powerful than a .30-'06. In those 10 years time, I trained myself to the point that when I shot my first elephant, after shooting three shots in rapid succession, I was unaware of having felt any recoil al all.
The previous year, while studying in Germany, I had the opportunity to go on a wild boar hunt in Bulgaria with a group of German hunters. In preparation for this experience, I bought a BRNO 602 in .375 H&H Magnum. One of the gun clubs I belonged to had a 50 yard running boar target, and I took advantage of every opportunity to practice with it. I had been shooting International Skeet at the same club for several months at that point and was quite familiar with the mechanics of gun mounting and rapid target acquisition. On the hunt, I hit and killed the only "Wildschwein" I shot at.
The cartridge I used in Africa was one of my own design. Some years earlier, in sighting in rifles of heavy recoil, such as my .458 WM and .375 Chatfield Taylor, I had designed and built a device to allow me to shoot from the bench when sighting in. My design was based on a device called a "Preuss Gerät" in use at the Krieghoff factory in Germany. My device served the same purpose, which was to reduce the recoil to a manageable level while shooting from the bench. Once the rifle was sighted in, all my practicing was done with reduced loads and cast lead bullets. I used the same techniques I had learned on the skeet field to shoulder the rifle so as to be looking throuogh the sights and to deliver well aimed shots rapidly. In Africa, I confirmed my sight setting by shooting over the hood of the Toyota Land Cruiser we used as a hunting car, with a folded towel padding my jacket at the shoulder.
In the course of three trips to Africa I used that rifle to kill one rhino, three elephants, and six Cape buffalo. When shooting at game, I never noticed any recoil and in fact was able on more than one occasion deliver a string of aimed shots in rapid sequence.
My belief is that injury from heavy recoil is caused by anticipating the recoil and stiffening the body to resist it. If the body is not stiffened, then it retains enough flexibility to absorb the recoil without injury. Whether this is the case is beside the point, since the facts are these: I repeatedly shot a rifle with the performance reflected in the chart above and never received an injury of any kind as a result, not even a bruise. My rifle does not even have a recoil pad.
I get the impression that it is not unusual for a hunter to arrive in Africa with on rifle of any kind, or at least of no rifle suited for dangerous game. I suppose it is theoretically possible to learn to shoot such a rifle while on a hunting trip, but that seems highly unlikely. Shooting a powerful rifle such as one required by game laws for dangerous game is something that needs to be learned in an unhurried manner with repetition until the shooter "gets it right". The fact that theoretically a professional hunter is there as a back up should not be taken into consideration. I can remember several situations when my professional hunter was not near enough to the scene of the action to have made a contribution to the outcome. The old adage, "Practice makes perfect," applies in such situations as well as anywhere else.
When I got my first really powerful rifle, my .458 Winchester Magnum, it was some time before I ever fired a full power load through it. I was more than a little frightened of what I had read and had been told was the fearsone recoil I would have to deal with. How accurate that information had been was brought home to me when my .458 WM double rifle experienced a "double". When a double rifle "doubles", the recoil energy is not doubled, but four times as great. The rifle weighs the same, but the projectile now weighs twice as much as does the powder. The recoil velocity is doubled also, and the recoil energy is a function of the square of the velocity.
When this event occurred, I was pushed backwards two paces, my feet got tangled up, and I sat down suddenly, but only my dignity was harmed. The rifle action was stripped and cleaned and from that day in 1970 to this it has never happened again. (The two bullets hit the target only a bit more than an inch apart.) Nothing else I have shot, before or since, has handled me so roughly, but I emerged unscathed.
