From reading this whole thread, I haven't been able to figure out if you're sheep hunting with this portable cannon or looking to reach out and touch mostly paper with a benchrest or tactical type configuration. This is important because from all of the replys, you're getting stories on both sides which is good. Brass seams to be a huge consideration though. At any rate, if you're looking for an out of the box answer to knocking down big game, I think you'll probably have to invest more money into the gun to counter and recoil. With that, maybe take a look, depending on how much you want to spend, at something that is set up to handle the recoil right off the bat. You'll probably find, like most have, that trying to fix something that was never created with much thought into shooting in the first place, is like trying to stop a screen door from letting water in by plugging each individual hole one at a time.