Guns: Dealing with Recoil

This post at James' place got me thinking about the deleterious effects of recoil. Bigger and bigger magnum calibers have rapidly outpaced the ability of the average shooter to tolerate their recoil. Whereas Grandpa's old .30-06 used to be enough for anything in the lower 48, now we have short magnums and superduper short magnums, all in the name of squeezing as much power into as short an action and as light a gun as possible. These guns, as most will attest, are pretty hard on your shoulders.

I have worn a shoulder-mounted recoil pad in the past. Many shooting vests and jackets integrate these pads into their shoulders. They make shooting hard-kicking rifle calibers a bit more tolerable, but no recoil pad will cheat the laws of physics. When you're sending something downrange that packs several times the power of a standard rifle caliber, you just can't expect to sit there all day at the shooting bench.

The same trend evinces itself in the handgun market. Revolvers get smaller and lighter, while pocket guns that used to be chambered in .32 and .380 are now polymer-framed 9mms and .40S&Ws. Purchasing a recoil-absorbing grip is a stopgap solution. So is owning a gun that is "shot a little and carried a lot."

The only way to deal with recoil, as far as I know, is to avoid it. If your shoulder or hand hurts after a trip to the range, your body is telling you something. You might be forced to shoot less powerful calibers now, but your bones will thank you a few decades down the line.