I forgot, I've never actually fired a hotloaded 1895.... Sheesh, zip up...
Point is, I don't "take a beating" just firing a guide gun. Agreeably, the big loops are more comfortable, but in my personal experience, the benefit in comfort isn't upon recoil, but big loops with a leather wrap are dang sure nicer when you're running one fast and smacking that lever open over and over in quick succession. Pushing a few boxes of hot loads out of an 1895 for CAS practice for "buffalo bore" side matches (use the same load for whitetails), nah, my knuckles weren't aching, it's when I was running the dang 1894's pup match loads that you smack open running the same 10rnd series in 7-8sec over and over again at practice that really wears on my knuckles.