I have a pair of Super Redhawk 454's and I just got a 12" Encore barrel,All wear 4x Leupold scopes. I do not find the 454 "brutal" at all. None of these guns are ported or braked either and my preferred load of a 325gr RNFP from a Lyman mold over 30grs of WW 296 is hardly a snoozer. In fact on my first 454 I destroyed a Tasco in short order,the recoil actually bent the scope,I replaced that with a Swift 4x scope that lasted just over 250 rounds only to have the reticule disappear. I then went to the 4x Leupold scopes and have been trouble free for about 1k rounds and counting.
The 454 is powerful and the unscoped SRH will get your attention but with the addition of same it can be controlled easily.
Now recoil in my soon to be delivered OTT 458 Win Mag will be tamed a bit with an OTT brake,though I still expect some the grin from watching targets being obliterated will help a bit.
45nut