A question to everyone out there. Shooting big calibres from a benchrest is no fun for me. After a bit of research I bought a Caldwell DFT lead sled. For a review see: http://www.chuckhawks.com/caldwell_lead_sled_DFT.htm

It is a great piece of kit for sighting stuff in and reduces recoil unbelieavably. Firing 12 bore slugs from a bench is a pain, with this thing it is no problem at all. It is fully adjustable and a joy to use. Note that it does not stop the gun recoiling, in theory I think it merely "artificially" adds weight to the gun. The author of the review above only ever uses a max of 2 bags of lead shot on the tray i.e. 50lbs total lead and shoots his bolt action .458 Mag rifle off it.For interest a .45-70 weighing 10lbs shooting a 500 grain bullet at 1750 FPS has free recoil of approx 37ft.lbs, with 2 bags of lead the free recoil drops to 4.42 ft lbs, about the same as a .223 ! NOW comes the question, I have heard that people have suffered broken stocks using recoil tamers but I suspect that is because the rifle wasn't allowed to recoil at all. I think I saw something on this forum regarding a broken stock and sandbags. When my .470 O/U arrives I am going to try it and see what the results are. I know groups off a bench probably won't be good but I would be very interested to hear from anyone with direct experience. By the way, I thoroughly reccomend the Guns and Shooting Online site (www.chuckhawks.com), no onnection, just a happy viewer
best
Mike