Taming heavy recoil of hot loaded S&W 25

Iron Worker

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S&W 25-5 45 long Colt 6" BBL Lately I've been shooting 21grs of H110 behind a 270gr Cast bullet. MV is a hair over 1,000 FPS. Its the grips! Ive used Hogue rubber and Pachmayr decelerator grips.Those grips aren't helping, that fine hand gun really snaps in my hands. I have fairly big hands. I shoot a Colt Anaconda with some Wood grips from Eagle grips.I load a much heavier load in that one and kicks hard also. But feels a little bit better. I'm hearing Bill Jordan grips made by Herritt stock in ID are good others say their to big. Any ideas?
 
I own a Tauras Raging Bull in 454. I have also shot a Rugar Super Red Hawk in 454, a S&W 500 and a Tauras 500. I further own a Rugar Super Black Hawk in 44 Mag. Both Tauras' are factory equiped and are very comfortable to shoot. The Red hawk was absolutly horrorable. The original graps did not fill my hand and it was not ported. The grips stung my hand so bad that it was numb after only three shots and the muzzle jump was excessive. The S&W 500 was even worse. Although, because of the muzzle break, the muzzle jump was not all that bad. Again the factor grips were a joke. They did not fill my hand, no palm swell, and they stung my hand severly. The Black Hawk has an unported 7 1/2" barrel and factory grips. The muzzle wipe is rather fierce causing the pistol to pivot in my hand allowing the hammer spur to dig in to my hand a set of hogue grips has stopped the pivoting. Below are some suggestions for solving your problem.

A good set of grips go a long way to controlling the slipage in your hand and reducing some of the felt recoil but to do this the grips must fill your hand, (a generous palm swell). I perfer hogue soft rubber grips. Porting or a muzzle break control the muzzle flop and reduces the felt recoil by as much as 30%. Another trick to reduce the felt recoil is to grip your pistol less tightly. When you grip the pistol tightly you flatten out your skin and the recoil is transmitted to your bones. By increasing the depth of the skin, your skin acts as a shock absorber. The adverse result of this way of gripping the weapon is a higher but consistant bullet impact. Relax and allow your joints, (wrists, elbows and shoulders) to move under the recoil thus speading the recoil over a larger area.

You stated load is a bit hot. Most loads for a 250 grain bullet produce volicities of between 800 and 900 FPS. A heavier bullet pushed even faster will obviously increase recoil. I have owned a 45LC and I loved it. It was fun to shoot and reasonably accurate but it has its limitations. Realisticly it is a 50 yard gun. At that range the bullet has enough inertia and bullet diameter to be an effective killer. Bullets used in large cailber pistol bullets have the bullet coefficiency, (the ability to move throught air), of a brick and therefore slow very quickly. Even if you launch your bullet at 1000 FPS it will quickly slow below the volicity necessary for any kind of bullet expansion.

I submit the following as only suggestions for you to consider. Put the Hogue grips back on, reduce your load, use a lighter grip on the weapon and relax. Only if this does not produce the desired results would I go to the expense of porting.
 
That was very help full ,Barrel porting increases noise factor to an unacceptable level.I think I'll implement all that you mentioned especially reduce the load.Do you think a 270gr Kieth style cast bullet at 900 FPS would deter a Black bear?Or a Mtn Lion?
 
Wow - that does seem to be a pretty stout load for a S&W 25.

Yeah - I think a 250 or a 270 at 900 fps would be fine medicine for a modest range encounter with a black bear or a mountain lion. That's a big ol' bullet.

Concur with the above; try different grips, reduce the velocity a bit and perhaps even consider shooting gloves. My two stout-recoil handguns are a 5" .44 629 Classic and a 8 3/8" S&W 500. I like 'em both just the way the factory built them, but the grips fit my hands pretty well.

Regards, Guy
 
The 270 at 900 FPS will do nicely. The weight of the bullet will give good penatration. The bullet diameter will do the rest. Bears usually drop on the first hit but they don't stay down. Stand your ground and pump him full. Even the big boys, (454, 460, 480 and 500) may not keep him down on the first shot. Cats go down easy and the 45LC is plenty. I find Hogue grips to be about the best.
 
If you have to shoot a bear DON'T SHOOT IT IN THE HEAD. Their head is hard as steel. Shoot them in the neck or behind the front shoulder or high in the chest then in the front shoulders to break it and as long as he is still moving keep pumping lead. I would try 9.4 grs Unique with a 300 gr. Hornady XTP. This will do 850 fps from a 7 1/2 inch barrel and is a max load for a S&W 25.
 
Guy M mentioned shooting gloves. Although I have never used them I know others that have and by all accounts they do affort some cusion to reduce the felt recoil.

Some 48 years ago, (I was 15 at the time), my father and I were out dear hunting, with matching 308 lever guns, when we came upon a medium sized Black Bear. It was standing on its hind legs trying to get at a wild bee hive in a tree. My dad took the first shot that caught the bear in the chest just behind to right shoulder. Fur flew, blood sprayed and the bear went down. It was obviously a fatal wound but some one forgot to tell the bear that. He trashed about on the ground, growling and biting at his wound for a split second and began to run away from us. If I was a bit more experienced I would have just let the bear run off and expire however the only thought in my mind was to stop him and I gave him a snapped shot in the rump. Down he went only to come back up, facing us, on his hind legs. This got him two rounds in the chest. Down he went only to come back up charging straight at us. I want to tell you that a bear can realy move. Five more rounds and the bear finally went down for keeps some 10-12 feet in front of me. I sure could have used some toilet tissue about then.
 
That was certainly a father and son bounding experience ! Do you recall what bullet? Back then they didn't have the science of bullet performance like today. However the Bear I shot 3 times were all with Nosler 200 gr Accubonds out of a 300 RUM. So even with these modern design and extreme high velocity bullets it still took 3 rounds in the boiler room to get the job done.
 
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Sorry that was nearly 50 years ago and I was inexperienced. You are right about the newer bullet tech. We have far better bullets to use now-a-days. When he charged us I am not sure if all rounds hit him. I was working that lever gun as fast as I could and not really worrying too much about good sight alignment.
 
If I was in your shoes that leaver gun would have sounded like a M-60. gun)I remember reading a story about Bob Milek hog hunting with a Ruger single action in if I remember right 357 mag. He shot a boar and it ran into some deep bush and he thought it was dead and crawled in after it. He soon found out it was not dead and it came after him. His hunting partner said that was the first time he had ever heard a single action go full auto.:D
 
Yes Bob Milek found out real fast that a 357 mag is not the caliber to go after boar or bear. I use to read everything I could get my hands on that Bob wrote and I remember a story about him black bear hunting with a 357 mag. They were using dogs and they ran this bear into a small cave. Bob went into the cave a little and shot the bear between the eyes and it did almost nothing. He shot it 2 more times between the eyes and the bear charged after him. He ran out and the dogs jumped the bear and as the bear came past him he almost stuck the pistol into it's ear and that shot killed it. He was shooting 158 gr. hard cast bullets. Upon skinning the bear out he found the his bullets had hit right between the eyes on the forehead and then skidded between the skull and hide and were found at the base of the back of it's head. All those almost point plank shots did was give the bear a king size headache. The shot through the ear canal got into the brain. So like I said earlier in this thread the head is not the place to shoot a bear unless you could place your shot exactly in the ear canal or under its chin strait up through the head and in that case the bear probably is on top of you mauling you.
 
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