Shooting Traditional Firearms and Weapons > General Interest

recoil

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Wyoming Mike:
I agree pretty much what everyone else said.  The recoil starts when the powder is ignited.   I found this out years ago when I got a bronze brush stuck in my barrel.  The whole end had come apart so there was nothing to get ahold of.  I was still pretty green and had no clue how to get the thing out of there.

I decided to blow it out.  I went to the range and put in about five grains of 4F and touched it off.  The brush didn't come out but I felt a little bit of recoil that told me that the brush had moved a little. If followed that up with a ten grain load and popped the brush out.

A gun is just a simple heat engine.  When the powder goes off it is accelerating the ball from rest to 1000+ feet per second in the space of your barrel length.  That is the action.  The reaction is that acceleration working in the other direction, recoil.  The reaction is going to happen as long as the ball is accelerating in the barrel.

Rifling affects recoil in that it is adding angular momentum to the linear momentum of the ball.  This adds a little bit to the linear recoil and adds a little bit of torque.  It not much in a slow twist rifle but the effect can be felt when you are shooting magnum pistols.  These have a fast twist and a lot of velocity and you can feel the pistol try to twist in your hand.

Captchee:
Basically what everyone else has said . Recoil starts at the time of ignition , be it  muzzleloader or other . Its caused by the  force needed to move the  projectile  which is in constant resistance  even once its moving .
 This is why rifling also plays a roll . The faster the rifling , the more resistance is imparted to the projectile .  When the projectile leaves the barrel  there is no more back pressure being imparted

oomcurt:
My thanks to all who replied....finally I understand it.

Uncle Russ:

--- Quote from: "Captchee" ---Basically what everyone else has said . Recoil starts at the time of ignition , be it  muzzleloader or other . Its caused by the  force needed to move the  projectile  which is in constant resistance  even once its moving .
 This is why rifling also plays a roll . The faster the rifling , the more resistance is imparted to the projectile .  When the projectile leaves the barrel  there is no more back pressure being imparted
--- End quote ---

I agree with Charlie on this. The rate of twist does make a difference in recoil, just as he explained.....

I will add that many folks often say only added weight, with the charge and all else being equal, will make the recoil stronger.  

However, what they forget is that once you have a round ball that weighs "x", then you must extend the length in order to add weight, extending the length extends the bearing surface, and the longer the projectile, the tighter / faster the twist required to stablize it, and the tighter the twist, the longer the dwell time (due to increased resistance), and all this amounts to more felt recoil.

(General Julian Hatcher has some wonderful notes on this in Hatcher's Notebook. If you are like me, you may have to read it a half-dozen times to get the grasp of it, but this book is one of the greatest ever written on the subject of ballistics for sportsmen.)

Uncle Russ...

Kermit:
So then can one posit that given all other variables being controlled and equal, a smoothbore would impart the least recoil?  

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