Thread: Managing recoil for a rookie shooter

Get someone to video you shooting. That will show you a huge amount of what is happening with your rifle.

Firstly, it must fit you - the scope height must match the distance between your cheekweld onto the stock and the centreline of the scope. A lot of scopes are far too high, leading to you having to perch over the stock without a comfortable repeatable cheek weld.

2nd - the length of pull must fit your body size. Typically you use the distance from the bent trigger finger to the inside of your elbow with your elbow at a 90deg bend, this is the distance from the butt to the trigger.

3rd, the shape of the butt. It needs to have a good comfortable and soft butt pad, that directs the recoil back into your shoulder in as straight a line as possible (modern sporting rifle anyone - now banned obviously haha). Check out the Weatherby butt stock design for one I found to be a right bitch, good for cheek slap. Another are the beautiful curved hogsback stocks, can bring the recoil straight back into the cheek. Nice.

A lesser extent is sharp edges in general, that will hurt when shoved back into you i.e. scope eyepieces hitting you in the eye socket or nose bridge. Everything needs to fit you and have sufficient clearance when you fire...

The muzzle blast thing is something that you can minimise your reaction too, but - and it's a bloody big but - your body naturally reacts as unprotected muzzle blast is causing your ears damage. The level of impulse sound energy your ears receive is above the safe threshold so your body reacts - simple as that. To a lesser extent the sound impulse hitting your face and eyes causes a reaction as well, you can't do much for this obviously but the more you shoot the less you can react. Even high-time operators will react to the force of the sound impulse hitting them. Using ear protection, and a suppressor (which slows and spreads the release of sound energy and gas pressure from the muzzle) helps with this. Shooting from a poor position, or with an injury or a poor fitting rifle cn cause you to develop a flinch (a flinch is a subconscious response to the impending exposure to the energy of firing a rifle - linked into the action of pulling the firearm's trigger).

The other thing is the physics of firing the rifle - E=MC2 in other words thanks Einstein. For us, the heavier the pill and bigger the case combined with the lighter the rifle the more recoil we feel. Or, the lighter and slower the pill with a heavy rifle - the less recoil we feel. Increasing the weight of the firearm reduces the recoil, all other things being equal.