I have a 300 Win. Mag. I have hunted with it a bunch and been at the range with it often. On the bench, it is not waht I'd refer to as fun as far as sitting down for round after round. By the time I get to 100 shots or so, the fun factor starts to evaporate and precision shooting begins to take on a "work" factor. If you could find one for the guy to try out at the range, probably would not be a bad idea.

To answer your question, comparison to say a 2 3/4" , 12 ga. shotshell medium load as far as recoil, I'd say about the same.