I grew up shooting magnum rifles, everything up to 338 win mag is not a problem for me as far as recoil goes. Then i fell into the big magnum craze and at one point i bought a 340 weatherby Mark V stainless synthetic with a skinny factory 26" barrel, promptly loaded up some hot 250 gr speer grand slams that chrono'd at over 3000 fps. That was a whole new level of recoil for me. I sold that rifle and then a while later i unexpectedly aquired a rem 700 stainless synthetic in 338 RUM with a 26" factory medium contour barrel, what'd i do with that you ask?... i loaded up some 250 gr sierra game kings at max levels. Havent chrono'd them yet but the recoil is reminiscent of the weatherby i had, anyway i've finally come to the realization that i dont much care for all this recoil. Yeah i can be a tough guy and shoot them but i dont enjoy it all that much so i've decided to go with a smaller type of rifle. The dilemma i have is that i've fallen in love with the ruger hawkeye alaskan with the 20" barrel and i have to decide between the 375 ruger cartridge which probably kicks as much as the others i had, or the 338 rcm which everyone seems to think wont be around for long,.. if only ruger would offer that rifle in either 30-06 or 338 win mag i wouldnt have this problem. So the question is, does anyone have a ruger hawkeye alaskan in 375 ruger, or the mkII hawkeye compact magnum in 338 rcm and if so how do you think the recoil compares to the cartridges i've mentioned?