Are you one of those tough guys (or gals) who doesn’t shy away from recoil?
I despise recoil. Each spring I cringe at the thought of firing my lightweight pump shotgun with a 3 1/2-inch turkey load; that’s why I stuff it with 2 3/4-inch shells. And not a single turkey inside of 30 yards (my self-imposed max range with that pump) has ever lived to complain about the gun’s killing power.
Not counting having my ass handed to me by lightweight shotguns and heavy turkey loads (sometimes on writer's hunts I have to use specific guns/ammo), the heaviest-recoiling gun I ever fired was a .416 Rigby bolt action. Thank God it had open sights so I didn’t have to worry about a scope kiss.
In this week's "Killing Time" video below, you’re watching some unsuspecting sucker pull the trigger on a .577 T-rex for the first time. What’s a T-rex?
According to Wikipedia, which is correct most of the time, the .577 Tyrannosaur (T-rex) is a cartridge developed by A-Square in 1993 for professional guides that escort clients hunting dangerous game. T-rex sends a 750-grain monolithic solid (i.e. bullet) downrange at 2,460 fps and produces 10,180 foot-pounds of muzzle energy (fpe). This cartridge has the distinction of possessing the heaviest free recoil of all commercially available, shoulder-fired firearms at 220 foot-pounds of energy (fpe).
As a point of reference, a .30-06 loaded with a 165-grain bullet taps your shoulder with only 20 fpe. The .416 Rigby that scared me to death produces free recoil of 58 fpe.
Note: You can visit this YouTube channel to watch many more videos of persons firing T-rex for the first time. But I warn you: You’ll see guys dropping the rifle (not cool, nor safe) as well as guys dropping the F-bomb, among other things.
The reason I featured the video below is the shooter doesn’t drop the gun, and he swears in a foreign tongue.
Until next time ...