Gary
Recoil is a product of one thing, "for every action, there is a opposite and equal reaction".
To negate this "opposite and equal" reaction, you either have to cut down on the originol "action", or figure out a way to absorb the "reaction" so your shoulder doesn't notice it so much.
The easiest solution in your case is to have a recoil pad installed, this will cut down on what you feel, even though the Rifle will be coming back just as violently.
The second is to simply go to a lighter bullet load. The recoil of a Rifle is directly related to bullet weight more than anything. You would be surprised at the difference of a 150 grn load and a 180 grn load as far as felt recoil goes. Choose some of the lighterbullet loads in the Loading Manual, I dought a deer at 100 yards would know the difference between a 130 grn bullet at 2650, or a 180.
Years ago, when I first came out of the Army, a friend wanted to go deer hunting. I went to the local Pawn Shop, and they had a Rem Mohawk in 350 Remington Mag. I even bought a box of Remington ammo with it, about a 250 grn load as I remember. Ugly green box.
We went to the range to sight it in, (the old "Ponderosa Rifle Range and Ice House),
, and decided to sight it in, at night. Well, the first shot darned near knocked me off the bench, and the ball of fire darned near blinded me. We got it sighted in, but I never took it hunting, sold it to someother unsuspecting fool. That thing was atrocious.
Since I am old enough to remember when Remington brought these out, I am also old enough to remember when you could hardly give one away. The puplic fell out of love with the 600-660 series pretty quickly, (ugly was the general consensus) that is, untill an entire new generation came along and re-discovered them. The things now have what can be described as an almost "cult like" following, much like the 788. Through the '70's, you couldn't sell one for $75. Now, they demand as much as $700 at Gun Shows.
They are really nice Rifles, the action is just a shortened 700, (or a early Model-7), but got a bad rap because Remington offered it as a rather cheap alternative to the 700 series. Since they were cheap to buy, and did look cheap, shooters equated this with "quality", when, in reality, it was assembled with the same basic design parts as the most expensive 700BDL.
It surprises shooters when you tell them you could take a barrel out of the most expensive 700 BDL, and screw it right into a 600, and aside from a few manufacturing tolerances, it would shoot just fine...........jackie