Show Notes:

Recoil is one of the most vivid parts of shooting and hunting for many who are beginners. It permeates people’s thinking and memory and is often little understood and not properly managed. On this episode I talk about the effect recoil has on hunting, the science behind it, and what you can do to better manage it and be a more effective hunter.

• Recoil effects accuracy, fun, shooter confidence, and health. The better you understand it the more effective of a hunter and shooter you can be.
• Recoil is a measure of action and re-action, felt recoil on the other hand accounts for the real life factors that determine how it effect us.
• Felt recoil is a function of bullet weight, powder charge, gun weight, shooter mass, and mitigating factors. Adjust any of those and you can change the felt recoil.
• There is a macho factor that goes along with heavy recoil, nothing has perhaps done more to damage our sport and dissuade children and newcomers alike than this nonsense.
• People often use more gun than they need for a hunt, which comes with more recoil than they need, which makes them a less effective marksman and a less effective hunter in many cases.
• Whether you are hunting coyotes, varmints, turkeys, whitetail deer, elk, moose, or anything in between, do the best that you can to pick a firearm and ammunition combo that is the right balance of power and recoil to do the job well and be as manageable as possible.
• There are three big things you can do to improve your accuracy and effectiveness with higher recoil firearms, they are covered in the episode.
• Some people just should not shoot certain guns, the physics of their body size and composition hinder their ability to safely and effectively use high recoil firearms.
  • There comes a point where no amount of practice or pride will improve the situation, it’s science.