Good fit & good form is the best answer to your first question.
+1
My guns fit me well: Few of my rifles have recoil pads. The recoil of .300 magnums does not bother me. i have one gun that sometimes gets to me. It's a lightened Thai Mauser in .375 Alaskan Improved that has a straight grain butternut stock. That gun weighs 6.5 pounds without scope.
Many guys spend too much time shooting heavy recoiling guns from a bench. Take a rimfire rifle to the range. Fire your big gun a few times. While it's cooling shoot off 20 rimfire rounds. This helps control flinching too.
Years ago there was a skinny old gun writer named Col. Charles Askins who was impervious to recoil.