That thing is gorgeous Jeff.

I've always liked Sean Bean and he seems to appreciate the history of these weapons.

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I would not think of sheep in context of Africa , hunting, and big 5

lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo


The bragging rights for shooting those animals in my opinion are non existing.
use a frigging camera if you wanna shoot those cause you sure ain't shooting them to fill yer freezer.

Heaviest i shot was a .50 cal bolt gun sans muzzle break.
But i was prone and no way was I going to try that thing standing up

I think that has more to do with the weight and poor balance of those rifles than the recoil they generate. Most of them run at least 30-35 pounds, if not more, effectively precluding off hand shooting anyway.

While such rifles are a little out of my tax bracket, I've had the "pleasure" of firing several traditional British doubles, the largest of which was a Holland and Holland in .577 Nitro Express. I believe it weighed about 17 pounds. There is no way I would consider shooting such a rifle prone. They are very much meant to be shot standing, which is far and a way the best way to deal with that level of recoil. Prone, we absorb every last bit of it. Standing, we roll with it. As a point of reference, a normal hunting rifle in .30-'06 generates about 20 ft lbs of recoil. A .458 Winchester Magnum manages about 60 ft lbs. The .577 Nitro gets about 125 ft lbs... :eek:

I doubt they would be fun shooting them standing up even if they were balanced better :D

I'm sure some of the NE rounds have heavier pills, but none have the amount of go-powder behind em that 50 bmg has :D
18000 Joules or more. that's 2.5 x a 557 NE :eek:

Yes, the muzzle energy of the .50 BMG is very impressive. The ones that I have fired (all some version of the Barrett) do a fantastic job of reducing the felt recoil. Sheer weight plus an effective muzzle brake really help. I would put their recoil at about 12 gauge 3" mag or .375 H&H levels. Nowhere near my Ruger #1 in .458 Winchester Mag, and certainly not even close to the .577 NE. The latter will absolutely change one's perspective on "recoil"...

I often wonder about the guys buying the latter for their "big hunt". The last guy I met at my club with one was absolutely terrified of it. He wanted to check its zero, which in and of itself is a waste of time - you shoot the ammo supplied with it, with which it was regulated. There is little question whether it's zeroed or not. At any rate, he hemmed and hawed so much I finally just said I'd shoot it for him. Boy, was he ever grateful. I put four rounds through it, a pair of "right and lefts", offhand at 50 yards. That was, by the way, $360 worth of ammo - $80 apiece. What a horrible rip-off, but that's another story. I can reload them for a few bucks each...

we were in Norway for that, friend of mine is a Target rifle shooter, also had a go.
dude just went at it to relaxed, didn't lock up well enough and got a massive scope eye out of it..

Norway was a blast tho.. 1800 meters out
didn't have anything myself that went that far, but took one shot with the sako trg 300winmag at 1375 meters at man sized plate.. and nailed it with one shot (must admit , the range master did give me wind corrections).. I packed it up after that shot, there's no way I was going to improve on that group :P

the 50 bmg was just a local gun, at 500 yds, i hit the big rock, eg the backstop, didn't even bother aiming.. was to careful not to look to close :P