Some days..........

[Matt]

Got the itch to get the big rifles out and shoot some cast in the “African” rifles.
Whitworth .375, M70 .458, Ruger .416 Rigby.
Decided to recover some brass and shot my last four factory .458 rounds



and 16 reloads with 400 grain jacketed bullets at about 2300 FPS. WOW. Knocked the crap out of me and reminded me why I quit shooting anything but moderate cast in them. Then I adjusted the 1x4 Leupold on the .416 the wrong way and did this to my bullet trap. I built it in 2013 and after tens of thousands of rounds finally damaged it.
Then fired a total of about moderate 80 cast loads. Still have a recoil headache; getting old is tough.

 

[Ian]

Something about theblook of a magnum -action safari rifle has always appealed to me. Ramp front sight, express rear, sling mount on the barrel, aggressive checkering etc. look good to me and are highly functional.

By the way, NICE bullet trap. Is it made of abrasion-resistent steel, boiler plate, mild steel, or what?

 

[Matt]

Mild steel scrap, the round snail portion is an old oxygen tank, the wings are half inch thick, a bunch of 1/4” pieces laminated together. It’s stopped stuff up to .300 Magnum jacketed but they leave little nicks on the wings inside. I limit it to lead bullets and jacketed stuff under 2000 FPS.

 

[popper]

ouch

 

[Brad]

I find the 375 H&H to be quite easy to handle. The 416 Rigby isn’t too bad in a heavy rifle. Never fired a 458 Win and am OKwith that.
I find that bullet weight drives recoil far more than velocity.

 

[fiver]

only 458 I ever fired was in a handgun.
not too bad actually.

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

The 375 was a breeze in a proper rifle. The 458 just a bit more. The 458 LOTT, 460 & 416 Rem kicked alot more.
Worse I have fired was a Ruger no1 re chambered to 378 Weatherby. Not pleasant & left a funny taste.
CW

 

[Rick H]

I fired a Weatherby Mk 5 in 378 Weatherby, from the bench. It was decidedly painful. I think the most unpleasant to shoot from a bench was my Mossberg 500 3" 12ga. patterning 1 3/4 and 2 oz. turkey loads. Something about the drop of that stock and the lightweight gun kicked the daylights out of me.