Rifle Recoil

There are a number of reasons that recoil is important:
The obvious pain of a bruised shoulder. Less shooting enjoyment may lead to less practice. Flinching from anticipating the recoil can lead to misses.

Recoil can cause us to loose sight of what we shot at for an important moment. If we don't see where our shot went, we can't make corrections for a follow-up shot.

Many factors affect how we feel rifle recoil.
Two factors greatly affect the actual production of recoil:
1. The mass (weight) of the projectile (bullet) being fired.
2. The energy of the propellent (gun powder) used to push the projectile.
Increase either of these, or both, and we increase the recoil produced.

The burning rate of the propellent can have some effect, but most are not interested in a lot of ballistic information. To keep it simple forget about rifle calibers, cartridges... and think about the bullet's mass/weight.

It's easy to understand that moving a lighter 50 grain bullet would be easier than a heavier one of 500 grains. If we were to lay both on a table and thump them with a finger; the lighter one would move faster/easier.

The harder you thump (more powder/energy used) the more either bullet will move and the more you finger hurts. Thumping the heavier projectile will be less fun (more recoil).

Improvements in propellents continue to push the limits of what can be done, but there is a "law of diminishing return". Even today it's not easy to push (thump) heavy bullets past 3000 f.p.s. To do this often takes much more propellent, a longer barrel, and will produce more recoil.

In some cases the amount of recoil produced may increase greatly with only a small gain in velocity and energy. The trade-off may or may not be worth it.

The table below compares some popular common cartridges.
Note that this is my table. Some numbers are rounded, even estimated, but realistic. I gathered the information at numerous sources.

Gun weight is a factor in recoil. The gun weights varied; I estimated some in order to use a common gun weight of eight pounds. I feel this gives a better comparison of the recoil.

Eight pounds is a common weight for hunting rifles in the most popular cartridges (with scope & mount). A magnum rifle of .30 caliber or larger will often weigh nine or ten pounds. (No one would make an eight pound .460 or 50 BMG. Their numbers are just for fun; an educated guess.)

NOTE: Some of these numbers are my estimates after viewing numerous sources, they may not be accurate.

Read our page on reducing recoil for more on rifle weight,
reduced loads, and other ways to reduce gun recoil.

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