Law of Inverse Recoil: Difference between revisions

** Note one exception to the "anti-tank explosive weapon = no recoil" rule: the British PIAT system. This was a shoulder-fired spigot mortar that used a heavy spring to launch its anti-tank bomb. The spring delivered a punishing kick to the operator's shoulder, which was just one of the reasons the PIAT was disliked by British troops.

*** Another reason was that the projectile was held in the tube by gravity. That's right: if you aimed it so the muzzle wasn't at least horizontal, the projectile would slide out of the tube.

* In the "Ammo" episode of the History series "Lock 'n Load", [[R Lee Ermey]] points out the effects of recoil when shooting a Barret .50 cal sniper rifle - he hadn't allowed for it properly, and the scope hit him in the face and cut him on the bridge of his nose.

** This, or the black eye mentioned above, frequently accompanied by a nasty arc-shaped cut right below the eyebrow, was a common injury suffered by first-time big-game hunters on safari in Kenya "back in the day", due to using big-bore, hard-recoiling bolt-action rifles like the .375 Holland & Holland or .458 Winchester Model 70 African with a telescopic sight with insufficient "eye relief" (the distance between your eye and the eyepiece when you are "locked in" to the 'scope and have the correct field of view through it). According to the late Col. Jeff Cooper, the professional hunters who led the safaris referred to this as "Kaibab eye", and few people who ended up needing stitches for the cut made the same mistake twice (most often, they took the 'scope off and used the rifle's iron sights exclusively after such an experience). The professional hunters, by comparison, rarely bothered with telescopic sights on their "working rifles" in these heavy calibers, as they would (a) usually only shoot to "finish off" an animal that had only been wounded, not killed, by the client's shot and (b) most shooting at heavy game such as rhino, Cape buffalo, etc., was done at ranges under 50 yards, where a telescopic sight was more of a hindrance than a help anyway.

** This was one of the major advances in [[WW 1]], the development of recoil-compensation mechanisms for artillery allowed for fast, accurate fire, greatly improving the effectiveness of artillery.

* The AA-12 automatic shotgun was specifically designed to absorb most of its own recoil. Given the amount of recoil a shotgun produces from only one shot, this was necessary to begin with just to make it a practical weapon, but it would be a welcome feature on any gun, much less one as scary-powerful as this one.

* While not 100% this trope, there's a bit of this in handguns. Small, low caliber guns can often have more felt recoil than bigger, larger caliber guns even though you're dealing with more energy in the latter case. This is because the less mass also means less inertia to overcome and therefore more energy transmitted to the shooter. This fact is often a surprise to new shooters who assume that a smaller pistol will be easier to handle.

** This often leads to tragedy when parents give their children 'low power' pistol as starter guns. What begins as a well intentioned attempt to teach their children respect and safety in regards to firearms can quickly lead to sever injuries or, in some cases, the death of the firing individual.

[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]

[[Category:Guns Do Not Work That Way]]