Author Topic: 375 h&h mag recoil? (Read 2733 times)

younghunter12 · « **on:** May 22, 2006, 06:06:45 PM »

Is the 375 H&H mag recoil bearable? What can you do to reduce the recoil of a 375 H&H mag? I dream of some day owning a 375 and hunting dangerous game. Lol. Before that I need to know some way to reduce recoil a lot. Alec

CyberSniper · « **Reply #1 on:** May 22, 2006, 06:19:21 PM »

Use a muzzle break.
Makes for more noise, but helps a lot.
A Browning A-Bolt in .375 H & H with the "BOSS" brake on it feels about
like a .30-06 to me.
The majority of felt recoil is caused by the jet effect of the powder
gases leaving a barrel at high pressure and velocity.
When those gases are vented off to directions other than
straight out front, the rifle will not push to the rear nearly as much.
And, you could also install one of those mercury recoil reducers
in the butt stock.

younghunter12 · « **Reply #2 on:** May 22, 2006, 07:40:08 PM »

I didn't know muzzle brakes did that much to reduce recoil. Thanks for the info. Alec

AK Fireman · « **Reply #3 on:** May 22, 2006, 08:37:45 PM »

If you can learn to shoot without a break your better off.
I had my 5'4 110 lb wife shooting a 416rigby in just a couple of hours. She had never shot a gun before that day.

Shoot standing up, with a toe heel stance keeping the rifle tight to your shoulder and your face well planted on the stock. If there is room between your body and the stock of the gun it will hurt you.
Stay relaxed when shooting so that the energy is absorbed as slow as possible.
The best advice I can give is to not psych your self out about the recoil.
The recoil of a 375 is not bad at all.
There are all kinds of great reasons why people shoot big calibers and those benefits far outweigh the sacrifice of increased recoil.
Get your self a nice recoil pad on the rifle, I found Limbsaver to be the best at reducing felt recoil.
Ive never shot a mercury recoil reducer before but these guys say it works.
The break will drastically reduce the recoil, but will it make extremly loud to shoot without ear protection.

Demonical · « **Reply #4 on:** May 22, 2006, 08:52:55 PM »

I hate muzzle brakes and would never use one nor recommend one except perhaps in a military application, where muzzle control in high rate of fire situation really matters.

The first question I would have for someone who has never fired a .375 H&H is what calibers are you familiar with? Have you fired a .270? .30-06? 7mmRM? 12ga shotgun?

I think it could be a mistake to buy a .375 H&H without having first worked with smaller calibers and gotten used to those. FYI, I have a Remington Model 700 .338WM that weighs 7.5lbs including scope; a .45-70 Marlin Guide Gun and let me tell ya' that thing is a beast off the bench with heavy loads due to the short barrel; a .416RM and a .458 Lott.

The .416RM is a ZKK-602 that began life as a .375 H&H. The previous owner had it reamed and rebarreled to .416RM. My .458 Lott is a CZ-550 and began life as a .458WM and I just had it converted to the Lott caliber. I still have some work on the reloading bench to come up with a good hunting load for it.

Time on the range and practice are the only ways to go about learning how to tolerate recoil. But for recoil sensitive people, it is practical to use a muzzle brake on the range and then remove it while hunting. My moose hunting partner does this with his Model 70 in .338WM and he is a wonderful shot with that rifle.

IMHO if you think you have to have a muzzle brake to handle recoil then you have to wonder just how well you will be able to shoot that rifle in a hunting situation and maybe you would be better off with a lesser caliber.

If your ultimate goal is a trip to Africa (mine is) then I suggest you start with the .30-06 class calibers, then go to the .338WM. When you can handle those you will find the .375 H&H is just a pussy cat.

I will never own a rifle with a muzzle brake and that is my opinion.

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #5 on:** May 23, 2006, 01:13:43 AM »

I have a 416 Rigby and no muzzle brake. I did install a mercury recoil reducer in the stock. http://www.mercuryrecoil.com/suppressors/index.htm#top My 375 H&H Sako did not have a muzzle break either, recoil was stout but manageable. A good butt pad helps also.

victorcharlie · « **Reply #6 on:** May 23, 2006, 02:51:34 AM »

Younghunter12.......My suggestion is you learn to shoot with the .22lr......cheap, and fun....

When you start whipping out big bullets and high velocity then the recoil goes up.......

The .375 H&H is not a beginners gun....It's not the kind of gun your likely to take to the range and run 40 rounds or so through in one sitting......

Redhawk1 and others have shot the big bores for some time and have become conditioned to the recoil.

If you want to condition yourself to recoil, start with a 20 gauge shotgun and shoot clay birds......the moving target will make you focus on the target, not on the recoil.......

I kind of know where your at, and shooting a big gun won't make you a big man.......been there....done that......

One other thing......factory rounds for my .45.70 are over $1 per round......expensive to shoot........

Shoot often, and shoot alot......the key is to have fun......and this is hard to do if your worried about recoil.

Hammerspur · « **Reply #7 on:** May 23, 2006, 03:01:22 AM »

My .375 is a No. 1, a rifle reputed to be a bad kicker... seems like an exageration to me from shooting it.

When my buddy and I first tried out the Ruger No. 1 Tropicals we had just purchased, we did a coin toss at the range to decide who would try their rifle first! I guess we were a little psyched. I got the toss, fired off a shot and was surprised at the relative civility of the big grandaddy. After long load developement sessions at the bench firing high loaded .45 cal soot-burners and large bore ball shooters, the H&H was really no big deal. If your shooting a scoped rifle, don't crawl the stock though!

EsoxLucius · « **Reply #8 on:** May 23, 2006, 04:15:41 AM »

Practice is the best thing you can do to control the recoil of a 375 H&H. If you start by shooting one a lot from the bench you could sour on it real quick. Slightly reduced loads with lighter bullets while getting acclimated, shooting offhand at fun targets, a well fitting stock and a good recoil pad will help. I use the relatively inexpensive 225 grain Hornady Spire Point over 70 grains of H4895 for practice rounds.

cvrover1 · « **Reply #9 on:** May 23, 2006, 05:08:37 AM »

thought this material might shed some light on this for you......and on another website, I had one guy come back with the missing material regarding recoil velocity on the 12 ga 3" and 3.5"...... when matching the two necessary components "energy" and "velocity", you get the two issues at hand...."the push" and the "sharpness".....turns out that if you can manage a 12 gauge 3.5" mag for turkey or geese you are right in the zone of the felt recoil seen with a .458 Win Mag....not sure if this helps you, but most forget the measured comparisons of other shooting arms that we tend to just shoot and accept....

ok....think I found my answer.....went to Chuck Hawks tables for both rifle and shotgun.....here is what I found...

listings included 12 ga 3" and 10 ga 3.5".... and the rifles included a significant aray of calibers.....without a 12 ga. 3.5" listed I had to interpolate an answer based on the provided data.... recoil was identified as energy in foot pounds for both shotguns and rifles....rifle weight was also identified.....data breakdown is as follows....

12 ga. 3" was through a 8.75 lb. gun shooting "1 7/8 oz" of shot at 1210 MV ---- recoil energy is 54 ft. lbs

10 ga. 3.5" through a 10.5 lb gun shooting "2 1/4 oz" at 1210 MV, also ----- recoil energy listed as 63 lbs

I would guess that the 12 ga 3.5 would be at least toward 60 lbs, if not slightly over

now the interesting part: expressing the rifle weight and ft lbs. of energy yields some interesting comparisons

.300 Wby Mag - 150 gr @ 3400 MV through 9.25 lbs of gun weight ---- recoil energy is 24.6 lbs
.340 Wby Mag - 200 gr @3100 MV through 10 lbs of gun ----- recoil energy of 29.6 lbs
.375 H&H Mag - 270 gr @ 2690 MV through 9 lbs of gun ----- recoil energy of 36.1 lbs
.378 Wby Mag - 300 gr @ 2900 MV through 10.25 lbs of gun ------ recoil energy of 71.1 lbs
.416 Rigby - 400 gr @ 2400 MV through 10 lbs of gun ---- recoil energy of 58.1 lbs
.458 Win. Mag - 500 gr @ 2100 MV through 9 lbs of gun ---- recoil energy of 62.3 lbs
.460 Wby Mag - 500 gr @ 2600 MV through 11.25 lbs of gun ----- recoil energy of 99.6 lbs

These are very interesting data points for those who have issues with putting a heavy caliber big bore to shoulder but at the same time will put a big 12 ga. load to shoulder on a bench when we pattern our shotguns for spring turkey.....I for one put a new BPS 12 ga NWTF 3.5 to my shoulder this way a couple of weeks ago to get ready for spring gobbler....patterned the turkey full choke at 15, 25, 35 and 45 yards for two different federal 3.5" load types....had a nice case of recoil rash on the shoulder....was enough to prompt taking it to the gunsmith to have a new kickeez installed to replace the factory pad.....but all of this was instructive to me....I have never ventured past a Wby .300 Mag in centerfire....and the notion of putting a Brown Bear load up, not to mention a load for African Big Game, was something that just never held much attraction....so these comparisons are interesting and informative....hope they are to you as well

younghunter12 · « **Reply #10 on:** May 23, 2006, 05:29:12 AM »

I didn't know a 12 ga kicked that much. I shot one last summer and it didn't kick that bad. The only thing that hurt is my ears from the bang. Alec.

victorcharlie · « **Reply #11 on:** May 23, 2006, 06:33:26 AM »

He's showing you the recoil number for a hot 3" 12 round in a 8 3/4 pound gun....... A mild 2 3/4" 3 dram 1 ounce 12 gauge load isn't that bad for recoil in most guns. A high brass 2 3/4" 12 gauge load of 3 3/4 dram and 1 1/4 ounce is in the price range of $10 a box and recoil more than a standard "Field Load" or walmart $3 a box load. 3" 12 gauge shell go up in price as well as recoil.

Reduce the weight of the gun and the recoil goes up.

For one or two rounds the recoil for most rounds is some what tolerable. That's why I think a lot of the guys are of the opinion that you can learn to handle the recoil of a 7mm/08 or .260.

How big are you? Weight and height? I assume your 12.......

I was a tall skinny kid....and was under weight to join the army and had to get a waiver.......I was shooting low brass 12 guage loads fairly regularly at age 12, and was hunting with a 7X57mm Mauser at that time. That's real close to the 7mm/08. I killed my first deer with the 7X57 and a 175 grain round nose remington coreloct. This was a $27 dollar spanish Mauser 95, and no telling how many rounds were down the barrel when I bought it......(this was before the gun control act of 1968 and kids could still buy a rifle)........I shot the first round on a clean barrel straight but would start throwing sliders that got progressively worse after that......but hey....if the first one is where it needs to be then you don't need a second one.........

The biggest reason that I saved my money and bought my first .243 (or had my dad buy it for me), was that I knew a lot of farmers and they let me shoot groundhogs in the spring......The .243 is a great long range groundhog gun, as well as a deer rifle.

The key to my deer hunting at that time was groundhogs......I don't think a farmer ever turned me down when I asked to groundhog hunt.....most would tell me exactly where to look, and what time they were out.......

If you want to varmit and coyote hunt then a .243 is the ticket.......not that you can't hunt them with a larger more powerful caliber, but the .243 comes into it's own for varmits.....

CyberSniper · « **Reply #12 on:** May 23, 2006, 06:37:38 AM »

Like one of the guys said, use hearing protection whenever possible.
Muzzle break or no muzzle break.
And regarding those breaks....I realize many people don't like them.
However, they are one possible solution to the question that was
originally asked, and it so happened I had personal experience
that I could pass along on the subject.
Come to think of it, the Past Pad is another thing to consider,
especially if firing a bigger gun off a bench rest.
This is a recoil absorbing shoulder pad you wear.
Check the link below:
http://www.battenfeldtechnologies.com/past.html

jrkrk · « **Reply #13 on:** May 23, 2006, 11:38:48 AM »

Younghunter the recoil of the 375H&H is not that bad. However I don't know what other caliber your familiar shooting but like someone stated in a previous reply you have to keep the gun tight to your shoulder cause any space between you and the gun will caause momentum and the gun will hurt you especially that caliber. The best thing to do is shoot someones 375H&H from a standing position first. :grin:

jro45 · « **Reply #14 on:** May 23, 2006, 11:41:44 AM »

I use my muzzel brake when shooting on a bench. When standing I take it off. The recoil isn't that bad.

ajj · « **Reply #15 on:** May 26, 2006, 03:03:03 AM »

I have a very light commercial Mauser 3000 in .375, made to carry a lot and shoot a little. I consider myself fairly "recoil sensitive." I don't enjoy recoil. I shoot metallic silhouette (no, not with the 375) and I don't want to develop any flinches. I can fire 20 rounds standing in a session without getting sore or developing a flinch but that's about enough. From the bench it's most unpleasant.
Stock design has a lot to do with perceived recoil. Also I feel a big difference between the 270 grain and 300 grain factory loads.
It's a very enjoyable caliber, not brutal at all. As others have said, the key is to just relax, roll with it and have fun.

PDR · « **Reply #16 on:** May 29, 2006, 09:19:48 AM »

I tried my newly acquired Winchester model 70 Super Express .375 H&H yesterday at the range. The rifle is totally standard and I was using the iron sights (no scope fitted yet). Shooting was from the lying prone position (Military Range). I used two bullet weights, 270 g sp / 69 g powder and 300 g solids / 58 g powder and shot 16 rounds.

People had warned me that the rifle would kick like hell, especially lying prone and that I would be nursing a badly bruised shoulder. After the first two shots I forgot about the recoil and just got on with the shooting. To be honest the recoil was far less than I was expecting and my shoulder is perfectly fine today.

Questor · « **Reply #17 on:** June 02, 2006, 05:55:24 AM »

YoungHunter12:

The recoil of the 375 is surprisingly mild for a big bore. I don't like recoil but the 375 doesn't seem to have much more practical recoil than my .270 (arguable, but that's the way I perceive it.) It's less than the recoil of some shotguns I've fired. The key is to get one with the appropriate weight for the cartridge-- say 9 pounds without scope or ammo. Lighter 375s are going to kick quite a bit harder.

crow_feather · « **Reply #18 on:** July 01, 2006, 05:24:07 AM »

PDR,
Your first shot was at 200 yards, second shot at 210 yards, third shot at 220 yards, fourth shot at 230 yards..................................................

Prebanpaul · « **Reply #19 on:** July 15, 2006, 05:33:14 PM »

I LOVE BRAKES AND WOULD RECOMMEND THEM TO ANYONE. YOU SEE PROPER HEARING PROTECTION WILL NEGATE ANY AND ALL NOISE. THIS IS IN THE FIELD AND NOT. I SHOT OFF A BENCH AND WENT ON A HUNT IN IDAHO AT WHICH TIME I USED THEM IN DIFFRENT SITUATIONS. FOR THE 375 HH DONT HESITATE TO USE A BRAKE. WHAT IS THE DOWN SIDE TO A BRAKE NOISE AND NOISE ALONE. USE THE PROPER HEARING PROTECTION. WHAT IS THE UP SIDE TO A BRAKE. YOU WILL NOT FLINCH AS MUCH. YOU WILL NOT HURT AS BAD. YOU CAN PRACTICE MORE. ( I RELOAD, SO I SHOOT ALOT) YOU CAN USE A BIGGER BULLET WITH OUT THE PAIN FOR A MORE HUMANE KILL. YES I KNOW THE THEORY OF HAVING A BETTER PLACED SHOT WITH A SMALLER CALIBER. IF YOU PRACTICE ENOUGH YOU CAN DO IT WITH THE BIGGER ONES TO. SOMETIMES YOU JUST WANT THE EXTRA POWER AND NOT THE PAIN. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD WHO DOES NOT WANT THE 300 MILE PER HOUR CAR THAT GETS 100 MILES TO THE GALLON. AND FOR THOSE THAT NEED TO KNOW I AM A GOOD SHOT WITH OR WITH OUT THE BRAKE, BUT I SHOOT A 308 WARBIRD, SO I LIKE THE BRAKE.

crow_feather · « **Reply #20 on:** July 15, 2006, 06:32:13 PM »

Prebanpaul ,

Are you trying to say something about muzzle brakes?

I agree with all points except that everyone who hunts with you needs to wear hearing protection. The persons most likely to suffer from a blast to the ears are those standing next to you.

TCBrian · « **Reply #21 on:** July 17, 2006, 05:01:34 PM »

Lots of practice and a well fitting gun should make a .375 H&H fairly easy to shoot for anyone. Many fairly small framed women hunt in Africa with .416 rigbys, 458 win mags, even 458lotts, 460 weatherbys, etc. None are all that fun off the bench, but don't let recoil scare you, it really is not that bad. A 3.5" turkey load in some 12 gauge shotguns probably has stouter recoil than an 375 in a well balanced gun.

Good shooting,
Brian

HuntingGuy · « **Reply #22 on:** July 19, 2006, 10:24:07 AM »

Yep, from what I hear, it's not bad at all. I've got a Winchester Mod 70 Safari Express 375, havent got a chance to shoot it yet.. The only forewarning I have got is "Don't shoot off the bench". Shooting off sticks of some sort will help with the recoil. Plus it will be a little bit more practical practice for a safari. No benches in South Africa.