There is very little difference in recoil between the 375H&H and the 338 Win Mag. The 416 Rem Mag steps up the recoil quite a bit however. While shooting the 416 off the Bench is really no fun at all,(I have done it a good bit), Shooting it off hand or while hunting is not so bad. I am not a fan of recoil and my shoulder is now shot to H#*l but I could stand a few shots even now. The 45-70 while it can be loaded to kick pretty hard, is nowhere near the recoil of most of the Magnums. The load that wiped out the buffalo was a 500 grain bullet with as much black powder as they could stuff in the case. This load was trucking along at about 1300 FPS. However when you get the 500 grain bullet traveling, it does not stop easily. I can't get 70 grains of Black powder behind a 500 grain bullet without compressing the heck out of it. Thats using a 30 inch drop tube and a compression die with 2F Goex. I only shoot these loads out of the single shots as I don't like gumming up a Lever with Black powder fouling. A nice mild load in the 45-70 is 13.0 grains of Unique behind a 405 grain bullet with a WW Mag primer. No fill is needed and it shoots pretty well at around 1150-1250 fps. This load shoots well in the No.l , No.3 and the NEF's.