Despite recoil, Magnum rifles deliver potency and velocity

With some trepidation, I settled down behind the big rifle set on the benchrest used for sighting in. It was a brand-new rifle/scope combination that had been bore-sighted. My aiming point was an orange bull's-eye stuck to a 4-x-4-foot piece of cardboard.

The first shot hit several inches left and nearly a foot high. With first-shot jitters over, I shot another to confirm the first. Dang, I thought, as I looked through the spotting scope and couldn't find the second hole.

Walking down to the 100-yard line to see if I could find where the shot had hit, I was surprised to find the second shot had just barely opened the first hole. Normally I would have made the scope correction to the bull's-eye at that point, but with such a good group going, I figured I would see what the rifle did on the third shot. It barely opened up the group, and now I had three shots in under a half-inch.

For hunting rifles, I usually shoot three-shot groups because it's rare that one would shoot more than three times in succession on a hunt. But this was a bit different given the nature of hunting rifle accuracy at the time (the early 1980s) being rather dismal in out-of-the box guns, and I wanted to see if it would hold up through five shots. The other noteworthy aspect is the rifle was chambered for the world's most powerful sporting cartridge, the .460 Weatherby Magnum.

Weatherby line delivers hyper-velocity

The rifle didn't belong to me. A hunter I knew was headed to Africa to hunt elephant and Cape buffalo, and he had bought the big gun as an upgrade to the .458 Winchester he usually took. But he hurt his shoulder and didn't want to do more damage to it before the trip, so he asked me to get the rifle zeroed.

Of course, I gladly agreed. I love Magnum rifles and have always been fond of the Weatherby line of cartridges that started a long line of Magnum rounds introduced by major arms companies to compete with the hyper-velocity creations of Roy Weatherby.

The vehement reaction of some hunters when the subject of Magnum rifles is brought up surprises me a bit. The litany of complaints includes too much kick, too heavy, a barrel too long, inefficient. And, of course, that you don't need one.

Generally speaking, cartridges carrying the Magnum label do produce more recoil than other cartridges in the same caliber/bullet weight. Recoil is a function of bullet weight, bullet velocity, and weight of the gun that fires it. The .30-06 Springfield firing a 180-grain bullet at 2,700 feet per second and weighing eight pounds, produces around 20 foot pounds of recoil. The .300 Weatherby Magnum firing a 180-grain bullet at 3,200 feet per second, weighing 9 pounds, produces around 30 foot pounds of recoil.

A favorite cartridge for Alaska hunters, the .338 Winchester Magnum, firing a 250-grain bullet at 2,700 feet per second, in a 9-pound rifle, generates around 35 foot pounds of recoil. The heavier the bullet, the more pronounced increases in velocity affect recoil. The standard .45/70 load shooting a 405 grain bullet at 1,300 feet per second in a 7.5-pound rifle generates around 18 foot pounds of recoil. A modern load firing a 350 grain bullet at 1,900 feet per second, in a 7.5-pound rifle generates around 35 foot pounds of recoil. A .458 Winchester Magnum firing a 500-grain bullet at 2,100 feet per second, weighing 9 pounds produces around 60 foot pounds, a .460 Weatherby with the same bullet at 2,700 feet per second, in an 11-pound rifle, increases the recoil to 100 foot pounds.

As a frame of reference, the typical 20-gauge field load shooting an ounce of shot at 1,200 feet per second, in a 6.5-pound gun, produces around 20 foot pounds. The commonly used 12-gauge, 3-inch Magnum waterfowl load with a 1 1/4 ounce shot charge at 1,400 feet per second, in an 8-pound shotgun, will belt you with around 45 foot pounds. There isn't a lot of conclusive science on the subject, but in general terms, a hard punch delivered from a 180-pound human is believed to produce somewhere between 150 and 200 foot pounds.

Differing reactions to recoil

Individuals perceive recoil very differently. Larger-caliber rifles such as the .375 H&H (that produces around 50 foot pounds in a 9-pound rifle) seem to have a slower recoil impulse, and the perceived recoil is often less than in lesser-caliber Magnums that seem much faster in their recoil impulse. Some shoot heavy recoiling guns with no trouble, others do not, and knowing what you shoot well factors into your choice of cartridges.

Efficiency is not a Magnum strong point. It takes roughly 55 grains of powder to drive a 180-grain bullet to 2,700 feet per second in the .30-06 Springfield. To get that 3,200 feet per second figure out of the .300 Weatherby with the same bullet requires an 80-85 grain dose of slow-burning gunpowder. To reach those high velocities, a longer barrel is required — usually 26 inches compared to a 22-inch barrel doing the job for most standard chambering.

That's obviously not what you want if you hunt in heavy brush. By virtue of the larger case and the need to control recoil, Magnums tend to be heavier. But there are manufacturers making Magnum rifles nearly as light as their standard counterparts, and if you can handle the recoil, they work quite well.

Yes, Magnum rounds can burn up barrels more rapidly than standard rounds. But seriously, ask yourself when you last fired more than 1,000 rounds (about the minimum to start the barrel-erosion process) through your big-game rifle. We should all be so lucky to get to shoot enough to burn up barrels.

You absolutely do not need a Magnum cartridge to hunt Alaska. Consider that rounds like the 7X57 Mauser and the .30-06 Springfield have handily taken every big game animal on the planet — evidence that bullet placement and knowing the range limitations of the cartridge are far more important to success than the "Magnum" stamp on the barrel.

But, like choosing to power the pickup you drive with a 400 horsepower V8, versus a 250 horsepower V6, you do so because it may not be necessary, but all that horsepower can be helpful when you are pulling your boat over the pass.

So I have this rather unbelievable, sub-1/2-inch group going with the big .460 and I was excited to see what it would do in five shots. The fourth shot barely opened the group at all. With the prospects of a 1/2-inch group from the big gun looming, I took extra care to press the trigger perfectly. Looking through the spotting scope, my heart sank when I saw the 500-grain solid had hit some 2 inches out of the group.

Dang, I thought, I blew it. I went to make the final adjustments to the scope and noticed a gap between the fore-end and the barrel that had not been there before. Upon picking up the beautiful rifle to examine it, I found the stock had split from the trigger guard all the way to the end of the barrel.

So it goes with Magnum rifles. They do come with issues that don't suit everyone's sensibilities. But they are fun, and in a shooting world of late that has rallied around lesser-velocity and more-efficient cartridges, we still see new entries to the Magnum world on a regular basis.

And we still buy them. It's sort of the American way, is it not?

Steve Meyer of Soldotna is lifelong Alaskan and an avid shooter. He writes every other week about guns and Alaska hunting. Contact Steve at oldduckhunter@outlook.com.