I talk to many who dread heavy recoil, and thought I might give a few tips which I've gained through experiance.
The most common advise is to hold the gun tightly against the shoulder. Just snug is better, so the gun can't get a run, but too tight adds pressure we don't need.
Guns with heavy recoil, normally aren't long range tack drivers, but are for close in dangerous game, and the worst kickers are the nicest to carry because they are light weight. - To add weight, grip the gun with both hands as if you had a mad bear by the ears and his open mouth in your face. Harden all arm, shouluder and neck muscles the same way. This adds the weight of your arms to the guns weight, and prevents hands from sliding on the stock and getting cut on various hardware. If you want to shoot heavy kickers a lot, harden your arms with excercise like push ups and pull ups, (the latter increases grip dramatically), and the key to making this advise work is enough grip to make the arms and whole upper body part of the guns weight and moving as one unit from the recoil. To illustrate the weight increase I'm talking about, I laid my forarm on a scale and got 10 pounds, which doesn't count the upper arm or shoulder muscles which will also have to be moved by the gun if you have them hard and tight. In other words, both my hands/forarms alone add 20 pounds to the guns weight. Count in the upper arms and shoulder muscles which should all be tightened, and a 10 pound rifle might have 70 pounds or more of recoil resistence! This causes the whole upper body including head and neck to move back gently instead of just one shoulder getting the whole severe twisting jab.
I learned this trick shooting an iron sighted 458 win mag in Ruger #1, with 525 gr cast bullets at 2200 fps. My knuckles were bleeding and ear muffs getting jerked off. -- When I followed a friends advice to grip hard, my knuckles quit getting skinned, the muffs stayed in place and recoil was almost pleasant, and definately without pain.
It works quite well on the bench also. The gun will definately shoot to a different point than when held loosely, but heavy kickers should be habitually shot with a tight grip like you'll use it in the field, setting the sights accordingly.
Strong coffee is a good pain reducer also, but don't go too heavy or the shakes will hurt your accuracy. Also, an advil taken with coffee, will keep pain down and muscles relaxed if you want to go that far for practice secessions. Also, knock all sweets, out of your diet at least the day of your shooting session. It causes sensitiviity and causes rapid muscle weakening. High protien from red meat does the opposite.
With revolvers that climb high enough to split your forhead, the same rock hard two hand grip is mandatory. Also, I've found the most common bench shooting advise of resting the wrists on a pad to be all wrong, causing pain and sight settings that won't work for offhand field shooting. - The reason. Under recoil, the rear of the gun and hands come down and back, muzzle up and back. Which means the wrists can't move like when shooting freehand, and will also get a pounding from their rest. The guns rearward motion must be the same under all shooting situations or the sight settings will not be right. - I hold the whole guns weight in my hands the same as for freehand and touch the tip of the barrel LIGHTLY on any object, hard or soft. Let the barrel touch with just enough pressure to stop the wobble and it will shoot to the same POI as if held freehand. When shighted in this way, one can grab a fence, fencepost, rock or limb rest in the field and be assured of much more accurate bullet placement than freehand, or shoot freehand without changing POI. - A pistol sighted in by a heavy armed strong man with a firm grip will shoot way high in light hands/arms, with loose grip, or when shot with just one hand, because the gun rolls far more with the latter.
