WB
Five guns in my collecting have hurt me.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 08:02

When I was a kid I borrowed my Uncle's 1974 Contender 8-3/4" with hot shot choke/brake in .44 Magnum. I sheered off the 3X Lobo (which grazed my head at considerable velocity) and the screws left flush with the barrel. It stung my hand so bad with the wooden saw grip I had to lay it down after ever shot and fan my hand.

Of all things a Remington M788 in .308 actually blooded me and left a scar for a good while. Shooting off a truck hood I got loose on it and she bucked and the $25 Bushnell 3X9 made that crescent moon above my eyebrow. It looked like I was going to bleed to death for a while.

I'll lump these two together. I had a 1858 Remington SILE clone C&B .44 once. Christmas when I was 15. Out my bedroom back door was a Black-Jack Oak tree about 10 yds. distant. I once shot the fork of it and was repaid with a .44 ball to the leg almost instantly. It hit the glass door behind me and I was worried I broke it. Then I pondered did it go through my leg? Just a bruise. Another was a 1880's S&W Top Brake .38 S&W. I cut off some.38 Special cases and filled them with Pyrodex, topped with a 9mm 124 gr. cast bullet, they chambered OK. The old gun did not index but would lock in proper time if you manually rotated it. I stepped off about 10 paces from a target taped to a 3/4" sheet of damp plywood. BOOM! Fire, smoke, whack! Right in my chest, the slug bounced off the wood and then me too!

Of late I tested a Ruger LCR .38 Special. It was loaded with some +P 158 gr. JHP carry loads. 5 was about 3 more than I could stand. I'd not care to shoot one ever again. No thanks. Maybe a .32 or .22 WMR version.

Another rifle, a beautiful Ruger MKII Magnum in .416 Rigby. It was absolutely gorgeous. But then you picked it up and handled it. The thing was long, about an inch too long pull for me. Had all the handling character of a tomato stake. No recoil pad just a thin hard rubber pad. It just plain didn't fit me, I thought the stock design was too straight (the way recoil was imparted too). It had all the lines of a classic African hunting rifle in a fantastic caliber. The 400 gr. slug was running almost 2500 fps, with a somewhat sedate load in that huge case. I think the high velocity and not being able to hold it well is what hurt me so bad. I have no doubts you couldn't work up a safe loading with slow powders to near 3000 fps in that rig. But I'd be long dead from cerebral detachment. Instant headache. I sold the gun for a like caliber BRNO that fit perfectly, and had both a brake and proper recoil pad. I'd shoot about any big thing if it fit me proper and had an actual recoil pad, no Nayati's though.

Guns should be fun, not hurtful. I will take responsibility for most of the objections but they had to go.