There, I said it, I admit it. I am recoil sensitive. I have been shooting this 44 SBH for about 3 years now and I can't hold a group, no matter what, with moderate to heavy loads.

It was 60 degrees yesterday and I had some stuff loaded so off I went. I have a H-110 load for my 1894 that I have been working on so I had to fire a couple in the SBH. OK, I could probably hold for the first shot on a whitetail with it but shoot a group. Forget it. I had loaded some (5) 44 Spl with a 240 gr Hornady SWC over 5.6 gr. of Universal. Stood firmly at 25 yds, off hand mind you, and put 4 inside of 2 inches with the 5th spreading it to 4 inches.

I guess now that all this load development is over I can get down to just shooting in field situations and maybe I will become a handhun hunter but the 44 may never be the caliber for me.

Hi Chief.
I have the same problem. My mod. 29 beats my hands with heavy stuff in short order. My hands are actually sore after. BUT!!..., I finally got a pair of Uncle Mikes padded shooting gloves & man what a difference. My hot(1250 - 1300fps) 300 gr loads feel like mid range 240 gr loads as far as the hand goes. Next is Magnaport.
You might give the gloves a try. I think they're less that $30.00 a pair,(maybe closer to $20.00) from Natchez Shooters Supply.
Vance in AK.

I throughly understand, my flinch goes back to preteen years and light single shot 12 ga shot guns. I tried to hunt with 44 mag in the 70's and gave it up because of the flinch. About 6 mos ago I decided to get back in the hunting pistol business and got a used Contender in 22lr,
a little at the range and great mental effort-no flinch, bought a 223 barrel, same deal several boxes and much mental
process-no flinch, bought 30-30 barrel same exercise,same result, went hog hunting with 30-30 and was successful with a small meat hog, so just had to get back into the pistol hunting. Bought a 375 Win barrel, I thought wow! this will blow my progress, surprise, first 3 at 50 would be covered by a small quarter. Because I will be hunting with all of the calibers, I wear a soft deerskin glove to shoot
this does soften things a bit and keeps from getting
fingers bit by trigger guards and such, also I believe it has some mental value, plus one generally always wears gloves in the hunting season so it seems to work for me. I also spent some office time practicing
aim at differnet objects outside and squeezing the trigger.
Some people just have more tolerance for recoil than others. I believe that if you go back and develope good practice on a small caliber, then work your way up the bore size, stop if it is painful. Good hearing protection is mandatory. I can't strss enough about the mental side of the issue, practice and practice at each move up the recoil scale developing confidence and steadiness before going higher. Just relating my experience, maybe some bits and pieces will be helpful to a brother flincher.

Chief, First you have to ask the question "why am I afraid of the recoil?"
Are you afraid of being hurt? Afraid of the noise or both?
Handling recoil is in the mind and that is it especially when it come to the 454 Casull and on down. Very little strength is required.
With training the mind the recoil or a 44 Mag is nothing. But is the mind that needs to be trained not trying to muscle the gun.

MePlat Wrote

Quote:

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"With training the mind the recoil or a 44 Mag is nothing. But is the mind that needs to be trained not trying to muscle the gun."

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MePlat, what sort of training did you use and would you recommend to rid yourself of recoil sensitivity? I am very interested in reading your thoughts on this, as nothing kicks quite so bad to me as a 44mag 10" Octagonal barreld TC Contender with open sights

i hate big kickers! that is, if they have a rifle stock attached. i think some people call them rifles.

handgun recoil does not bother me much at all. as long as it's not bustin me in the head or someting. i totally block all thoughts, and concentrate on the trigger, target, and crosshairs. let it recoil naturally, and not try to control it, or hold it down. we may just see how i do with a 300win mag 16 1/2"-17" handgun barrel. possibly my next encore adventure.

I think mine is related to noise. I have no pain, after 3 years of shooting the SBH my grip is good and my sight picture is established. The gun I shoot is a 5.5 inch barrel and it is not very forgiving past 25 yds. I think it is just the difference when you go to a hot loads. I have a medium Blue Dot load that is OK for hunting but I am still in search of an everyday load that will be effective on a whitetail with a hard cast bullet. Next powder I buy may get me closer to what I am looking for. From the research I have done so far a 1100 fps in a 240 hard cast is going to be the ticket. Hey, nothing says that a 900 fps load with a 240 gr hard cast at 25 yds won't be heap big medicine for a close incounter with a whitetail.

I wear good ear protectoion but I think I will try some plugs and muffs just to see next time out. If I am mostly decible sinsitive this should help.

Have a friend load your gun with .44 spicials skipping a few chambers randomly. Concentrate on squeezing the trigger every time. When you get this down pat have your friend load the gun with .44 specials and .44 magnums randomly. Concentrate on the trigger pull and before long you will have it down pat. Making sure your gun is empty, dry firing it in the house while your watching TV is also good practice.
Ed

I kind of agree with MePlat. I've just gotten myself trained to concentrate ONLY on the sight picture and trigger control. Along with good trigger controls comes a moderately firm, but not a strangling grip. Not quite sure how I got myself to ignore recoil...maybe just determination that the gun was NOT going to get the better of me!

BTW...I always were plugs and muffs. This helps tame noise tremendously!

There has been a lot of really good advise list already, so I am not sure I can add anything new. I would have to agree that most people that are new to handguns flinch due to noise more than recoil. Even shooting .22 LR handguns at our local indoor shooting range, many or our league shooters use plugs inside of their muffs to better control the noise and distraction from other shooters.

The one thing I can think of that has not been adressed is GRIPS. Handguns are truly grip sensative and not only how you hold the gun when firing different loads will effect accuracy, but the grips themselves also.

My cousin is a prime example of this. When he first bought his first Ruger Bisley he started out shooting Target Loads. Once he graduated to heavier loads he noticed that there was a ridge on the front of the grips that bothered him. He said with the low recoil target loads he didn't notice it, but when he got to the heavier recoiling loads it became imediately apparent. No it wasn't causing pain, but rather limiting his control of the gun with the heavier loads. After altering the grips a little the problem was gone.

I too have used different powders to help better control recoil for several shooters shooting Big Bore Revolvers. Some of my favorite powders for loading the .44 Magnum are Unique, Blue Dot & W-296. In a 5" S&W 629 Classic by switching from W-296 to Blue Dot I found I only gave up about 100 FPS, but the shootability of the load was so much better I could actually shoot it more accurately under hunting type conditions.

LArry

I like the talk about how to deal with recoil and it is all good advice.

I have another issue that I'd like to surface here. My wrist, right wrist, I'm right handed, really starts to hurt after 30 to 40 shots with all of my heavier recoiling pistols. I wear padded shooting gloves, but that doesn't help my wrist. It is usually swollen after a day at the range and doesn't go down or stop hurting for several days.

Thought you guys might have some feedback to help this recoil condition. Oh yeah, I shoot Encores with the TC rubber grip.
Any help?

Chief, I agree with many others with regard to your hearing protection being a big part of the issue. If you check your local shooting supply house you will find that you can purchase the muff type protectors that are rated for different decibal levels. You might want to check them out.

However, your choice of gun may be as big of a part of the problem. My wife bought me a Contender for Christmas back in 1977. It was a .44 mag (with what I believe was called a hot shot barrel) it had a vent rib, a screw in choke and I believe it was 10" long. This particular contender had the original grip design, and this gun down-right HURT to shoot. I gave up on this gun in short order and traded it for a Ruger super blackhawk with a 7.5" barrel. I loved shooting the Ruger and became proficient in its use. I even hunted with it for a couple of years. Regretably I sold off all my handguns and only recently began rebuilding my collection. I started with a 6" .44 mag Colt Anaconda, then added a Contender in 7-30 Waters. Last year I was out shooting with my son and brother-in-law, who brought his .41 mag three screw blackhawk. I actually found the .44 Anaconda to be more comfortable than the .41 blackhawk, when shooting both with full power loads. I believe the barrel design with the extra weight up front helps to tame the recoil. I haven't had an opportunity to shoot the S&W 629 but I would think it might handle the recoil just like the Anaconda, plus you could get the ported version which might help reduce the recoil even further.

After my initial experience with the Contender, I was really skeptical of trying another, but I kept reading about the Contender in 7-30 Waters having mild recoil. I decided to go with the 14" barrel, and must admit this is a pure joy to shoot. The long barrel coupled with the pachmayer decelerater grips really keeps the recoil to a minimum.

Maybe a change in guns could help the situation. If possible try as many different sytles as you can get access to.

I guess I could agree with MePlat in some cases, but with my 8&3/8 29-4(not full lug) & 300 grain loads @ 1300 fps I quickly develop bruises on my hand, mostly in the web area, with Smith target, Pachmyer gripper, or Hogue grips(Hogue being the most comfortable). That's not mental!(I may be but that's not ) It was bruising that effected other things I do also. When I can I intend to get it ported.
Having said that, I am "noise sensetive", but used to shoot IPSC indoors(and out), & practiced in an old warehouse, so I'm used to noise & wear muffs & plugs. I've owned & shot handguns up to a Contender 45-70 I had that was a reamed out 10" .45 Colt. Talk about a handful with hot handloads! Never had any hand problems with stuff in the old days, although I fired about 10 rounds in a row thru the the 45-70 in the roll-over prone position once. Couldn't hardly move my strong side elbow for about a month.
Vance in AK.
PS, I like the new format.

Huh...I've never had bruised hands or sore wrists. About the only thing I get is a bruised right elbow if I forget to place a soft sandbag under it before shooting big bores. I try not to let my wrist whip and keep my forearm/wrist in line while letting my elbow bend and absorb recoil...that's with Contenders. The only wheelguns I shoot are RBH's so the grip just rolls in my hand without the hand/wrist even moving.

Vance in AK brings up a point I had totally forgotten about. Ah yes the right elbow when shooting prone or from the bench. To help out with this I learned to wear an elbow pad on my stong hand elbow. You'd be surprised at how much it helps

Larry

larry did that elbow thing one time learned to keep
my elbow off the bench never thought about a pad.
good idea.thanks have to remmeber that.
larry

One must remember that one must convince himself that the recoil from most handguns isn't too bad. Especially a 44 Mag with even 320 gr bullets.
Using ones mind to convince himself of that is the key.
Remember the mind controls everything including the tendency to flinch.
Another thing anyone that shoots enough to cause pain, swelling and problems that takes several days to heal has a screw loose somewhere. Extreme recoiling guns are for people that can already shoot well. Then a person only needs to shoot enough to stay use to the recoil
Before anyone takes offence to what I said I have been an idiot too by shooting too many rounds at a time. I am a big idiot too but I have learned a valuable lesson.
Shoot a controlled amount of hard kicking ammo ONLY. It is alot easier on you.

There sure seems to be a lot of activity around this post, I guess I'm bit surprised I did not realize that it was that big of a problem. I am sure glad that I have pampered myself and not let it become an issue with me. I have always used ear protection and a shooting glove so I have not been hurt or startled. I also have a problem with gun writers who tell horror stories about this big bad caliber and that bad kicking beast. I personally have been underwhelmed so far. I find my .375-06JDJ to be no problem and my .500 S&W with 440's at full throttle to be the same. I guess I do not like writers instilling fear in the readers. Most times they have spent more time in a single day than most people do in the course of a few months with a heavy hammer in their hands, no wonder they get fatigued. I still feel that mild recoiling handguns are boring. Anyway, enough of this soapbox stuff. I guess a positive suggestion that I could give is that good shooting form and technique are paramount. I find that it helps to concentrate on what happens to the sight picture after the shot. Think more about calling the shot by trying to follow the sight or crosshairs and figure where the shot ended up than how much it might recoil. If you wear the right ear protection and proper hand protection recoil will cease to be an issue.

I can sympathize with all of you. I have been blessed with being able to tame and disregard recoil. I still dislike big magnum rilfes, and If it weren't for the extremely efficient accubrake on my 30-378 weatherby, I wouldn't own it. Noise can be lessened with plugs and muffs. The pain in the shoulder and consequent head jolt couldn't. I love playing with the 30-378 and I shoot it in a tee shirt. My Custom 35 Whelen and 250 gr Elk loads will give a person a headache in 1/2 box or less. It downright hurts and my shooting is over for teh day. As far as handguns go, recoil has never bothered me until lately. I picked up a S&W M629 TrailBoss marketed by RSR and the 2 1/2 ported barrel, that does nothing except slap you hand back into your wrist. My thumb joint and hand web actually gets sore and tired from trying to hold onto it. It is relegated to light 44 special loads. It is 10 times worse than my S&W.M500 which is an absolute joy to shoot compared to the Boss! . The brake is efficient, and with scope etc, it weighs 3 tons. I say don't give up and keep practicing, but only you know your limitations and pain endurance.

Thanks for the kind advice MePlat. I must say, I believe this is the first time my inteligence has been called into question on this forum.
As far as my shooting ability, I'm no superstar, but have always been able to hold my own in most forms of handgun competion. As far as the quantity of rounds expended, I end up with pain in the hand after just 2 or 3 cylinders of heavy loads without the glove. With the glove I'm good for the day. I do most of my practice with 240 grain bullets & 5 gr. of Clays. Not exactly a brutal load, & doesn't bother my hand.
I guess I just don't have the mental capacity to convince myself that the pain isn't real. Maybe someday I'll have the mental capacity to go to the dentist & not need novacane(I know I spelled it wrong ), but I doubt I'll ever get that far. In the mean time I'd recomend a good lightly padded shooting glove to anyone that shoots heavy loads & is "recoil sensitive", and or mentally challanged like myself. Besides, it's a great fashion statement .
Bull Elk Hunter, it's good to know someone else is shooting a .35 Whelen. I have a Ruger mod 77 with the ugly synthetic stock, & I hate to admit it, but with heavy 250 gr loads I too am "recoil sensitive". I'd rather shoot the mod. 29 with the 325 gr. loads. The Whelen is bear medicine only for me.
Vance in AK.

I too have had good results with W-296. I tried 2400 and That was not all that accurate for ME. Like Larry said grips can help out a ton.

This is an 8 year old thread! Wow!

Mike.44 is digging up graves ;-)

simple, if the recoil hurts, get a shooting glove. it's rare that i've seen anyone not shoot better with one on. when hunting ya just get in the frame of mind you're only gonna do it once but when practicing i've seen more flinching, even just subtle flinches that are accuracy killers at 100 yards, when not wearing a glove.

Man I was still in college then :-)

Meplat and I have gone round and round many times but I have to agree with him here.
Recoil does not change if you flinch, it is still exactly the same.
It is a mental problem only.
Many say start with small guns but it doesn't work as stated. As soon as you get a thumper in your hand, all you learned goes away.
The .44 is a pussy cat so if you go on to larger like the .475, etc, and tame them, when you go back to the .44 you will see just how pleasant it is to shoot.
Too let a SA "roll" is 100% wrong too as is a very high hold.
If the lowly .44 hurts you, you are holding the gun wrong.

I didnt know what a SP was :). Man I had a lot more money then.

The grip is your connection to the gun and if it hurt your hand you will not shoot well.Every one has a different shaped hands and one size does not fit all. Either sand or cut off any projection that hurts or get different grips that work for you.
Pachmayr and Hogue are good. as are several other brands. Shooting gloves help me and so do muzzle brakes,and I use both, as well as good muffs and plugs. Limit the amount you shoot with the hard recoiler's be they .357 mag or 500 Smith ,if they hurt your hands or wrists don't shoot a bunch at one time..Only (You) know your pain threshold,we don't. This is supposed to be a fun and relaxing sport and its not if it hurts.

For shooting my 45-.70, 14" Contender (braked) I bought a pair of weight lifters gloves at WalMart. They have a padded palm and a wide cuff that wraps around the wrist several times and secures with velcro so you can snug it up as much as you like.
I think it protects the wrist quite well. Their a little stiff when new but should soften with some range time.

Very little strength is required? If I am understanding you correctly, I disagree. Hand and arm strength is very important in keeping the big single action hard kickers from coming back to connect with your noggin.

Technique and form and practice, et al, is also obviously important, but do not underestimate strength.

BTW: Ladies as well as gents can aquire the needed amount; with proper exercise and practice.

I always try to simulate hunting conditions when practicing with anything I hunt with. Northern Indiana deer hunting requires gloves, since I lost one of my fingers in an accident years ago, it's cold. So I take my gloves to the range whenever I practice. The same gloves that I will be hunting with.

A firm grip & strong forearms are a great help in shooting any of the big bores. Recoil is definitely a mental thing, a shooter should be thinking about sights, breathing & trigger squeeze, if he's dialed in on the upcoming recoil he will get a lot of vertical stringing. Good hearing protection is an absolute must.
I have a friend who took up handgunning a few years back & he's since became a very accomplished shooter up to & including heavy loads in his Ruger 45 Bisley. When he first started out he would flinch from the recoil of my staple gun! Concentrate on the sights & put slow, steady pressure on the trigger, if the sights drift off the target, don't squeeze, when they come back on then apply steady, even pressure..........BANG!

Dick

Another oldy!
As Meplat said way back then I'm just mentally challenged (and my wife will tell you it hasn't improved).I can't deny it!
I would MUCH rather shoot my 480 SRH with 420gr bullets at 1200fos that that old mod 29 with 320s at 1340fps. Hurts MUCH less. One thing I didn't realize 8 yrs ago was how much arthritis I was developing in my right hand. It's become very evident now as the fingers don't open all the way, I have little control over little finger, can't pull fingers together (side to side), etc. I have no doubt that's where a large part of the pain comes from. Even clapping hard produces pain in the hand.
My 480 has the Hogues with the sorbathane insert & it doesn't bother me much. Nice big shove rather than a slap.

Hello Vance .
Have missed you on here. It is good to see an old post brought up . It usually means a new member wanting information who is taking time to read the old post. Most of the information is still just as good now as when written. Arthritis is a concern
for a lot of us ,and any tip shared can help a lot of people.
Hogue or Pachmayr grips help tremendously as does a shooting glove and a brake when needed. But it is still only you who can say what your recoil tolerances are. Now if we can just convince one or the other to produce a grip for the Bisley we will be set!