Thread: How to manage recoil?

Originally Posted by sheep

Hi, my current long range rifle is a 308 Tikka T3x superlite with a muzzle brake.

The recoil is too much for my shoulder to handle. Is a matter of time it will be dislocated. What can I do to manage the recoil?

Thanks.

Recoil is essentially the backward moving motion of your rifle, it is the reaction to the force created by the explosion which pushes out your bullet. Several things affect this:

1. amount of powder and weight of the bullet. More of each means stronger explosion and stronger forward push, which in turn means stronger backward force and more recoil. Solution - use lighter bullet and/or less powder (for example, subsonic 308). Solution 2, get a smaller caliber like (in order of descending recoil) 7mm08, 6.5 Creedmoor, 243, 223.

2. the weight of the rifle. The heavier the rifle, the less it moves when being pushed by the same amount of force. A 8kg rifle would in theory have 50% recoil of a 4kg rifle. People love super light rifles for easy carry. Your rifle is one such product that caters this market. Solution - get heavier rifle - longer and thicker barrel, wood or chassis stock, big scopes (most 5-25 are about 1kg, vs 3-9 are about 300g). etc.

3. length of the barrel. Recoil push does not happen until bullet leaves muzzle. Recoil is the backward push by the escaping gas, therefore the more that the gas expands inside the barrel the less the sudden push when it gets out, and the less recoil. Solution - get longer barrel. 28 inch should have less recoil than 24, which has less recoil than 20, which has less recoil than 16.

4. muzzle device. Muzzle brake controls the direction which the gas escapes, while suppressor controls the speed which the gas expands. They both help reduce recoil, but muzzle brake does a better job, at the cost of louder bang. Solution - get a good muzzle break.

Since you already have the gun, your cheapest solution is to use light or subsonic rounds, and add a muzzle device.

For your next rifle you should consider a thick and long barreled 223. cheap to shoot and you can enjoy shooting.

Originally Posted by Ultimitsu

3. length of the barrel. Recoil push does not happen until bullet leaves muzzle. Recoil is the backward push by the escaping gas, therefore the more that the gas expands inside the barrel the less the sudden push when it gets out, and the less recoil.

While much of this is accurate I'm not sure about point 3. Longer barrelled rifles experience less recoil simply because they are heavier. Recoil is Newton's Third Law of Motion - the 'action' of both the bullet and weight of the gases and unburnt powder moving forwards causes an equal and opposite 'reaction' moving backwards.

Although the sound quality is crap there's an interesting comparison between a suppressor and a T2 muzzle brake here. Conclusion: the muzzle brake on test makes a substantial difference to measured recoil whereas the suppressor makes very little difference. The recoil perceived with the suppressor may be less because of the reduced noise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE6ivKUyTiM

Many decades ago as a schoolboy I used to shoot 3, 6 and 900 yards at Tai Tapu with a brass butt plated .303 service rifle. Being all of an eight stone string bean my shoulder definitely felt it but thankfully I never developed a flinch. Good training or good luck, I don't know?

Originally Posted by on2it

While much of this is accurate I'm not sure about point 3. Longer barrelled rifles experience less recoil simply because they are heavier. Recoil is Newton's Third Law of Motion - the 'action' of both the bullet and weight of the gases and unburnt powder moving forwards causes an equal and opposite 'reaction' moving backwards.

It would seem that you are sort of correct, and I was not.

I looked this up and what others report is that the longer the barrel the faster the bullet therefore MORE recoil, but the extra weight on the gun cancels out that, resulting in more or less the same overall recoil. That is quite interesting.

What is also interesting is that people "feel" more recoil when the gun is louder. Shorter barrel definitely results in a louder bang, which is probably why i always felt shorter barrels produce more recoil. It seems that shorter barrel only produces more felt recoil, not actual recoil.