The Big Bore Dilemma

[VertigoBE]

My current dilemma. Do I top out at [emoji640][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]NE or keep climbing this ridiculous ladder and buy a [emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]].[emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]] of some sort?....just because.

This is really the wrong group of people to ask…

Of course you go for a .[emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]!

 

[oscar1975]

I have to say, reading that made me smile. I await the post that says the .404 is all the gun a hunter will ever need but on the other hand I've just ordered a .500...

That's how I work anyway. I buy something thinking it is as big as I'll ever need, but then I want more. I wanted a .40+ calibre over a .375 and put a lot of effort into getting one, I ended up with a .416 Rigby. I couldn't shoot it to start with so don't let that worry you if you find yourself in a similar position. Get and shoot it, things will work out.

A year later I'm shooting my .416 pretty well but can't help staring longingly at the CZ550 in .505 Gibbs. Do I need it? No. Should I buy one anyway? Probably not. Does that mean I'll never buy one? Never say never!

There is a saying: "If you know how many rifles you have, you don't have enough rifles."

 

[375Ruger416]

There is a saying: "If you know how many rifles you have, you don't have enough rifles."

I’m almost there!

 

[Hagler.450Ex]

Recoil! Someone please explain why numerous videos of hunters, including light weight ladies and PH shooting large bore doubles do not seem to suffer from recoil. The guns don’t seem to rise and their bodies remain stationary as if shooting a small bore. I know skill is required but just don’t see it in the videos. Why?

It has a lot to do with how large the individual is. I've seen it too many times first-hand. I top out at 155-160 lbs. and that's after dinner, and I'm only 5' 9". I was raised in the South, pellet guns at age 7, .22's at 9, and a .30-30 at 11, free venturing for miles through swamp bottoms. Shot every day. So, experience from a young age is another factor, but body weight is also. A prime example comes to mind, and all of those I have witnessed are much the exact same as this one: I invited a friend over to shoot. He had never fired a .458. In this case it was a Ruger RSM .458 Lott with handloads that reached 2330 with 500's. If memory serves, that came to 6020 ft.-pds. energy, but don't trust my shoddy memory. I emptied the magazine on some water filled gallon bottles at 50 meters in quick succession. A stroll in the park, much like the old .30-30 I started with all those many years ago; it just naturally has to do its thing, given that it's far larger, so it's going to move more. Reloaded and handed him the rifle. This guy weighed at least 225-250, so a good 100 lbs. more than myself. One shot, he hands the rifle over and says, "no more", sits down with a distraught face, and that was it. I have witnessed this same 'exact' phenomenon more times than I can count, and I always chalked it up to be about a person's weight. A larger individual is going to soak up twice the amount of recoil as a smaller person. It's physics. I'm sure that little Osa Johnson would say the same.

 

[grand veneur]

Recoil! Someone please explain why numerous videos of hunters, including light weight ladies and PH shooting large bore doubles do not seem to suffer from recoil. The guns don’t seem to rise and their bodies remain stationary as if shooting a small bore. I know skill is required but just don’t see it in the videos. Why?

Videos on YouTube should always be viewed critically. If someone shoots a big bore rifle and barely any recoil is visible, that is very suspicious. I still have four big bore rifles in use and have shot with a lot of different rifles of big calibers, so that I am able to judge such things. I let several rifles experienced women of varying ages shoot my rifle caliber 460 Weatherby Magnum. Their reaction to the recoil was huge. In one case, I had to catch the rifle before it could fly across the shooting range. I assume a lot of it is staged on this videos and that people are shooting reduced loads.

 

[grand veneur]

In general, a lot is said and written about shooting big bore rifles, especially on Forums, but when you read the endless discussions about the optimal weight of such rifles or how to reduce their recoil, it seems that it is not all that easy for all people. Many also don't shoot the original loads of such cartridges, but load more recoil-friendly cartridges. Shooting big bore rifles often remains hard work and this is clearly visible in no staged videos, whether a woman or a man is shooting.

 

[Hagler.450Ex]

In general, a lot is said and written about shooting big bore rifles, especially on Forums, but when you read the endless discussions about the optimal weight of such rifles or how to reduce their recoil, it seems that it is not all that easy for all people. Many also don't shoot the original loads of such cartridges, but load more recoil-friendly cartridges. Shooting big bore rifles often remains hard work and this is clearly visible in no staged videos, whether a woman or a man is shooting.

I've seen quite a few that were definitely staged. It was extremely obvious. They make those videos so they can get views and Youtube pay them. More views, more money. I'm sure we've seen the same ones. They are very annoying as well, with the idiotic theatrics.

 

[Frederik]

Lets push Big Bore into the Olympics its the only sport I would actually be good at.

 

[DWB]

Well.... I am currently at 282lb....

I simply cannot roll with the recoil, I just don't know how...

All I can do is man up and take it....

So I'd be pretty damn upset if anyone tells me I'm shooting puff loads

But they are very welcome to find out for themselves.

I also believe big guys take more punishment...

As I like to say: Thick trees don't bend!

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Well.... I am currently at 282lb....

I simply cannot roll with the recoil, I just don't know how...

All I can do is man up and take it....

So I'd be pretty damn upset if anyone tells me I'm shooting puff loads

But they are very welcome to find out for themselves.

I also believe big guys take more punishment...

As I like to say: Thick trees don't bend!

Thick short trees bend even less. I'm just over 6' tall now (formerly taller in my younger days) and just slid back below 190 lbs (thanks to stomach surgery last month) and my 404J with 400 gr @ 2200 fps is all I can handle at the range. And I shoot a LOT of recoiling guns, particularly 12 gauge 3" that I use exclusively in the field and at the trap/skeet/clays range. Even trap loads out of my heavy A5 auto will push me back a step shooting second targets of pairs on skeet #1 and #2. Light (well, relatively light for a North American age 73 [in two weeks]) and tall is not a good combo for recoil absorption. Which might make for an interesting thread of its own: does a lighter/thinner/taller person "shed" recoil better than a shorter stout shooter? It would seem the latter would "soak up" more recoil whereas the lighter/taller guy would "bend" easier, releasing that energy into the atmosphere. I'm sure there must be a way of measuring energy absorption per shooter's mass and height? Of course, conditioning would need to be factored into the equation. A fat flabby person might still be less likely to be abused from heavy recoil than the thin guy with a long neck and no muscle over his shoulder. Judging recoil effect on different individuals is a lot more complicated than just evaluating the gun and ammo.

 

[grand veneur]

Everyone should shoot with what they mastered and not try to force things by any means necessary. Unfortunately, this faction of shooters does not seem to be that rare. There is no shame in having problems with a rifle with strong recoil, there are enough rifles of smaller calibers nowadays that do the job well. In my opinion some professional hunters in the past had problems with it too. One member of the Forum called that a stupid claim on my part, but professional hunters were also human people back then. Unfortunately, they had no choice and had to continue to use their double rifles caliber 577 Nitro Express. It is no coincidence that cartridges like the 416 Rigby, as well as the 404 Jeffery and 425 Westley Richards, gained interest after they came onto the market.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Everyone should shoot with what they mastered and not try to force things by any means necessary. Unfortunately, this faction of shooters does not seem to be that rare. There is no shame in having problems with a rifle with strong recoil, there are enough rifles of smaller calibers nowadays that do the job well. In my opinion some professional hunters in the past had problems with it too. One member of the Forum called that a stupid claim on my part, but professional hunters were also human people back then. Unfortunately, they had no choice and had to continue to use their double rifles caliber 577 Nitro Express. It is no coincidence that cartridges like the 416 Rigby, as well as the 404 Jeffery and 425 Westley Richards, gained interest after they came onto the market.

Right. We should not forget when Harry Selby was asked for his recommendations for client and PH DGR rifles he said 375 H&H and 416 Rigby respectively. After his big double was run over by a truck early in his career, left-handed Selby picked up a 416 Rigby right-hand Mauser action and stuck with it. Wally Johnson, Capstick's last ivory hunter, used a Model 70 in just 375. Makes me question the logic of monster double gun cartridges if those pros can make their relatively modest gun/calibers work. Guess they were not particularly interested in looking like Teddy Roosevelt (whose inability to kill game humanely was legendary) or movie star Stuart Granger. Selby and Johnson were all about the business of killing things.

 

[grand veneur]

The big bore cartridges were primarily a leftover from the black powder era. Why a cartridge 600 Nitro Express was designed at the beginn of the 20th century is a mystery. Nobody needed it. But nowadays it continues with nonsensical cartridges coming onto the market and attracting interest.

As the owner of big bore rifles, I can judge some of this fairly well. Everything I have shot with my rifle caliber 460 Weatherby Magnum, I could have easily done with a rifle caliber 416 Rigby for example. My rifle caliber 500 Schüler is a good rifle for elephant hunting, but I would not have needed it for shooting five elephants. Okay, it was a childhood dream, and I made it come true. My double rifles caliber 577 Nitro Express and 600 Nitro Express are no longer usable under today's hunting conditions and compared to the much better rifles we have available for hunting DG. Unfortunately, one cannot judge all of this until one has shot with such rifles and used some of them on the field for shooting game.

 

[steve white]

What you select is determined often by what your experiences have been....Paddy Curtis (RIP) was tossed by a buffalo. That is when he switched from a Mannlicher Schoenauer 458 to a Weatherby 460--he "wanted all the gun he could get his hands on."
Your choice to decide something of that nature before or AFTER an incident.

 

[Hagler.450Ex]

I'll admit to anyone, most of my choices have always been due to childhood dreams and the books I read as a kid. As Grand Veneur said, "childhood dream". Even now, I want a .500 Schüler, and am deciding if I should begin that project or not. I'd never use it on anything but culling boars, because I'm too old now to travel good (or at least the way I always used to) and I have to remain in the states now for my aged mother. Do I need it? No. I just want one. When I was younger and could do all these things, I chose rifles that pleased me because of history itself, nostalgia, and not because of any 'practical' standpoint. I can't carry those same rifles now, if I still had them at all (never been rich, always sold and found another, much like a car) because they would wear me out quite quickly. So, I tend to go for lighter ones now, not because of recoil, but because of weight. The .500 is not light, but I wouldn't plan to carry it much further than the truck, and the majority of its use will be simply to look at on cold nights. These are the things that please me. The same reason I still may get a second .577 one day. It's not for any practical reason at all. If I had always based everything on practicality, I would never have used anything but a 9.3x74R/9.3x62 or a 375H&H, or a .404.
But, for me, there was never any personal enjoyment in that. I was always wanting the next one over the horizon.
Do the things that make you happy. We're only here a short time.
As for one caliber being better than others, or larger is better, or smaller is better, it's largely bull$%#@, because whatever one's viewpoint is, life will find a way to turn the tables. Good men have been killed using all of them.