RE: recoil
Bambi,
I can shoot all day at the bench and it doesn't bother me cause I use the head cover off my driver as a recoil pad between my rifle and my shoulder.
Shooting at the range is not a test of how much punishment the shooter can take.
I would say for me the difference would be at the 25-06 to .280 jump.
25-06 I can shoot without even thinking about the recoil, when I go to the .280 I start to notice it, mainly because I pay close attention to keeping the scope away from my eye as I got busted there pretty good with a 7mag and don't ever want to have that happen again.
Took me a long time to get over the resulting flinch!
Shooting in the field I normally hunt with my .300 win mag and I never notice the recoil in the field.
You can lessen your recoil by using lighter bullets at slower velocity and choosing a powder that requires less grains of powder to reach your desired velocity in your loads, also using a heavier rifle and a good recoil pad help a lot.