Dealing With Recoil, Part I…………. Rifles

Back in the 70's, I remember an old gunsmith friend of mine telling me that "RECOIL" is just the price you have to pay for stopping power.  And it's basically true.  You can shoot whistle-pigs and rabbits all day long with a 22, and not hurt your shoulder NOR your wallet.

If you're going to Montana to hunt grizzlies, you aren't going to do it with a 22.  The larger the game, the more pounding it's gonna take to put 'em down......and the more pounding YOU'RE gonna take at YOUR end of it to make that happen.  It's just one of those "facts of life."

Many hunters go out there in the fall "over-gunned",  It doesn't take a 378 Weatherby Magnum to knock down a mule deer.  Believe it or not, the stats still show that even TODAY, the old 30-30 lever action carbines (like the one pictured here), still account for more deer in this country than any other caliber.  (NOT so much here in Idaho where long-range shooting is often required, but on a  national average).

The 30.06, 270, 7mm and 243 seem to most-often round out the "top-five" in popularity.  But there's lots of different calibers out there today, and the larger the cartridge case, the more powder they burn.  The more powder they burn, the more power they generate.  The more power they generate, the more RECOIL (or "kick"), they're capable of........but SOME of that depends on the rifle itself............and YOU.

Caliber is our first factor.  here are a pair of lever action Marlins.  The scoped rifle on top is our "deer buddy", the 30-30.  The one beneath it is a 45-70, a "known-kicker."  The larger the caliber, the heavier the weapon has to be built, to withstand the additional chamber pressure.  The added weight also helps a little with recoil.  EXAMPLE..............

This is a Remington 700, chambered in 30.06.  A factory-loaded cartridge with a 150-grain bullet generates around 26 foot pounds of free recoil on its own.  If the rifle weighs 8 pounds, its weight will absorb the first 8 pounds, and YOU catch the remaining 18 in your shoulder.  If you opt for one of these 5 or 6-lb "featherweights" for field-carry, that's all your rifle will absorb before YOU catch about 20 lbs of recoil now!

And a strange thing begins to happen here.........as the calibers and powder charges go UP, the rifle weights don't rise at the same pace.

My Model 70 African weighs-in around 9 & 1/2 lbs, not a whole lot more than that 30.06 we just looked at, but with a 500-grain bullet seated in its 458 Magnum case, it generates nearly 90 lbs of recoil, minus 9 to 10 that the gun soaks up first........ you're STILL catching around EIGHTY pounds in the shoulder!  OUCH!  This thing will kick the snot out of you!

The difference in cartridge capacity is noticeable.  Compared here are are 30-30 deer cartridge, and our "African-rated" 458.  But there ARE better recoil pads out there than the ones these guns COME from the factory with, like this "Decelerator" from Pachmyer, and there's also a good one justly called the "Limb-saver."

These pads are made with special-blend rubber composites with air chambers.  I've had them mounted on a couple of my "heavy-hitters."  If you opt for a big rifle, they're worth their weight in gold!

I have a "Decelerator" on my 45-70, and you can barely see the hard plastic one on my 30-30.........(the factories go to no great lengths with the ORIGINAL butts, as you can see).  of course, a 30-30 isn't a brutal kicker so you'll rarely ever see a special pad on one of those).

Rifle TYPE helps determine recoil too.  The old M-1 Garand and our Remington BOTH shoot the 30.06.  With the scope on the Remington, their weights are fairly close........but the Garand is a semi-automatic (as many sporting rifles are), and the Remington is a bolt-action, and there WILL be a difference in recoil!

ALL semi-auto rifles (like our Garand here) have pretty beefy recoil springs that cycle everything, eject & reload the chamber between shots so you don't have to do it manually, so in two rifles of the same caliber & weight (roughly), the SEMI-auto will have a lighter recoil because that big spring is absorbing some of it as it "cycles."

As with most things in life though, there ARE "trade-offs.".........With identical calibers and loads, the BOLT action gun will OUT-PERFORM the semi-auto.  Because it is a positive-locking system, a bolt-action rifle uses every bit of that burning powder to propel its bullet.  No expanding gas is "tapped-off' to "cycle" anything.  It all goes out the front!  You DO lose a little muzzle velocity in the semi-auto by comparison

It's been argued, (and probably rightfully), that a mule deer doesn't know the difference between 2700 feet per second and 2900.  However, if I had to make a LONG shot, I'd rather HAVE that extra speed in the bolt-action, so the bullet would fly a bit flatter and faster.

That's just ME though.

OK.....we've decided what we want to hunt, how much gun, style, caliber and weight, maybe a scope, maybe not, and possibly an after-market recoil pad........(especially if it has that magic name "Magnum" stamped on it somewhere).  That FINAL "recoil frontier" now is YOU........

It is absolutely ESSENTIAL to snug that rifle butt FIRMLY into your shoulder, especially if it's scoped, so you don't get "eyebrow-gashed."  "Newbies" have this habit of holding the rifle too lightly against their shoulder.....afraid of the "bounce."

Well.........guess what?.......that rifle is coming BACK on you as soon as that firing pin hits the primer.  There's nothing you can do to stop it.   All guns recoil while the bullet is still in the barrel....and the weapon recoils REARWARD and UP.  The idea is that when it goes off----------YOU, the RIFLE, and the SCOPE (if there IS one)------all THREE rock back together.

The left hand as you see here, grips the fore-stock FIRMLY, but not in a "white-knuckled death-grip", which usually causes you to vibrate off the target, and that butt is FIRMLY planted into your shoulder.

If the butt is NOT snug in your shoulder, and your grip is not firm on the fore-stock, a hard-kicking rifle will come back and SLAP you------then STILL push you rearward!

Scoped or un-scoped, the procedure is the same, deep in the shoulder and firm up front.  Rifles like this 45-70 WILL "get your attention" when you squeeze one off.  (Notice the muzzle-rise after the shot).

Some of the old Winchesters, like this 1946 Model 94 in 30-30, left the factory with STEEL buttplates, and in the collector world, it's considered somewhat "sacreligious" to tamper with them.  (Most, fortunately are 30-30 or 32 Special, so recoil isn't all that much of an issue)..........but in the final analysis, it's YOUR gun and YOUR shoulder.........so ya "spends your money and ya takes your pick" as they say.

But like the man said, "recoil is just the price you have to pay for stopping power"........and if ya get charged by a BEAR out there somewhere-------NO cartridge is TOO big!

You'll also find that when you're "on the hunt"......and the adrenalin is pumping, you don't "feel recoil" like you do at the bench when you're sighting it in.