Thread: How to manage recoil?

ok enough years have past,its time to share this tale...
as a teen I shot many animals with brothers open sighted 30/30.....I got very good with it... then pighunting mate wanted to swap it for his winchester model 70 push fed 270...I asked brother and got the nod...
my first couple of shots with new rifle went into target then they walked 2 feet away...10 shots later and many adjustments had me back where started and beginnings of major flinch were creeping in...you see ammunition was 150 grn Norma..arguably one of the hottest factory loadings of the time,a lightweight rifle,a hard red rubber but plate and a trigger of about 15lb...I shit you not....I had to locate animal,dif post hole,ram home the post,wire rifle firmy to post ,then go get D7 and hook on winch rope to trigger,when dozed was at full rev winch was activated and trigger would budge enough to fire rifle!!!!!
well Ok that might be SLIGHT eggzaguration...but not by much
so rifle went away to someone who know how and trigger brought down to 3lb
PMC ammunition was purchased,and winchester silvertips both in 130grn
and I never looked back. later I fitted a bisley shotgun recoil pad,deliberately left over size..still didnt like shooting paper and when I started reloading,I kept loads
down in low power levels...many year later I fitted suppressor and loads crept back up in power levels.
still not overly happy shooting lots of loads at paper but fine to check zero when needed.
3 of us were shooting 270s on range and mates new ruger had terrible trigger...like mine was,maybe 15lb...I got flinch so bad I could not physically fire that rifle with round in chamber...trigger would drop on empty chamber but I literally could not make myself pull trigger on loaded round...that MADE ME aware how bad the flinch had got me...i knew it would boot ,I knew it would be loud....
suppressors have been game changer....the 243 was often the cartridge of choice for new ,slightly built or young shooters because of low recoil..... now,pretty much any cartridge can be tamed down to that level or lower.