Managing Gun Recoil
BY Herschel Smith
9 years, 5 months ago
I not so fondly remember the kick I got out of my dad’s .20 gauge shotgun. I was just 4 years old and my macho image faded once I pulled the trigger on that old Stevens model 311. It backed me up several steps, but I held onto the gun.
Recoil comes from launching a projectile at speeds up to 3,500 feet per second in a rifle, or a shot charge of 1 and 1/2 ounces at speeds up to 1,600 feet per second. Most of the time this creates flinching, shooting with both eyes closed or jerking the trigger. All three hurt accuracy.
There are many remedies that manufacturers claim will reduce recoil. Like politicians, there is no way one can reduce recoil. When a heavy force is propelled forward, the result is the force returns reward. It is one of the oldest laws of physics.
Some companies respond by gas-operated firearms. Others claim inertia will reduce it. Still others manufacture recoil pads that do help.
Many professional shooters end up with detached retinas, which need surgery. The constant pounding shooters experience can and will take its toll. I can well remember sighting in my 12-gauge slug gun. When placed on sand bags that gun kicked really hard. I had to really concentrate to avoid flinching. As a result I dreaded checking zero on that gun before every deer season.
As I mentioned earlier, recoil pads do help. They don’t reduce recoil but they tend to cushion it. Extra weight in a firearm also helps. In other words if you are going to purchase a heavy caliber, buy the one that is the heaviest. Make sure a good recoil pad is installed. A good pad will allow the force to be distributed over a larger area. Some firearms have compensators which help direct some of the force downward or to the side. Still others build stocks that flex and tend to absorb some of the forces in that manner.
Okay. It’s a little more complex than that. Like all shooters, I’ve shot 12 gauge shotguns until my shoulder was black and blue, or high powered rifles until my shoulder hurt. There is nothing manly about recoil. It is the enemy of good shooting, no matter how experienced or good you think you are.
And even most articles on buffer springs talk about them reducing “perceived recoil.” And again, it’s more complicated than that.
For purposes of simplicity, let’s exclude muzzle brakes from the discussion because they redirect force to compensate for the recoil. It’s true that the action of the detonation and propelling the projectile out the muzzle will cause a reaction equal to the force propelling the projectile.
Without any machinery to absorb the recoil, it is directed immediately in a sharp movement of the gun. But a gun is a system, with moving parts like the bolt in an AR-15. That bolt also causes movement of the gun, but slower than if it weren’t in place.
Another way of saying it is that – and I hate to get wonkish and technical – if you were to use calculus and integrate the area under the curve of force versus time for a system that has a buffer spring versus one that doesn’t, the area would be the same, but the apex of the curve (maxima) would be reduced for the system with a buffer spring. The maxima would be higher for the system which does not, although the recoil would be complete before the gun with the spring. It’s a matter of dampening the force over time (or flattening the curve) while recognizing that the force cannot be made to go away (the area under the two curves is the same) because God created physics and physics doesn’t change.
I’m sorry for the wonkish discussion. I thought it was relevant to the life of a shooter.
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On November 12, 2014 at 1:14 pm, Archer said:
“Make sure a good recoil pad is installed. A good pad will allow the force to be distributed over a larger area.”
Kinda, but not really. A good recoil pad is more like a good buffer spring; it compresses to allow the force to be transferred to the shooter’s shoulder over a greater period of time, not just over a greater area (most of the recoil pads I’ve seen/used don’t contact any more square inch-age of the shoulder than an unpadded buttstock). By compressing over time, the shooter experiences a hard shove instead of a sharp jolt.
The “buy the heaviest gun”, from a scientific standpoint, doesn’t help quite as much as initial logic might suggest. A heavier gun does provide more inertia for the recoil force to overcome – it won’t get moving as fast as a lighter gun – but the force is still the same, and the shooter’s body still has to absorb it. It’s just in a heavier, slower package instead of a lighter, faster one. The “perceived recoil” might be slightly less, but it’s for the same reason the recoil pad or buffer spring work; it takes longer to overcome the heavier gun’s inertia (this time to stop it from moving), so again, it’s felt as more of a hard shove than a sharp jolt.
I agree it’s relevant to a shooter’s life, and personally I’d find it interesting, but I think most people would just as soon skim/skip over the dry academic discussion to get to the part about “what works best”.
On November 12, 2014 at 1:30 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Are you saying that people aren’t interested in Newtonian physics and calculus? That says something about us these days, no? And it’s a symptom of our educational system today, which, of course, sucks, except (mostly) for home schooling.
On November 12, 2014 at 1:42 pm, Archer said:
Oh, I agree 100% on the educational system. My kids will be as firmly grounded in Newtonian physics and as much mathematics as I can get into them. But they’re home-schooled, so I have a direct say in what they’ll be taught. :)
I’m simply saying that most people – not necessarily most shooters, just most people – want to know what works, and don’t give a rip about why/how. I like to know the why/how because it’s the only way you can make meaningful improvements without randomly trying stuff. Random assortments of circuits, wires, memory sticks, etc., will eventually produce an iPhone after umpteen gazillion tries, but a technician/designer who knows what they’re doing could re-create it on the first or second attempt. I prefer the latter approach.
But I can only speak for myself, not for anyone else.