recoil and hunting

[LoonWulf]

Heck, they chamber handguns for 600NE.

Checks safety glasses, smacks self in face......pretty sure he knew that one was coming.....

Nastiest recoil I've ever eaten was a single shot .338 Lapua a friend of mine built. I'm 100% sure it wouldn't matter what I was shooting at I'd fell that one.....

 

[Duster340]

Heck, I'm so focused on my poa when hunting that I don't even notice the gun going off when taking deer and turkey. I do feel them Turkey loads after a few boxes when checking my pattern each season though lol.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Does anyone notice recoil less when hunting than when shooting at targets?

Toes stop feeling cold when shooting at game...,
Fingers same, don't feel the cold when shooting at game...,
And I don't notice the recoil when shooting at game..., but I do notice the bruise sometimes when I get home.

LD

 

[MCgunner]

Toes stop feeling cold when shooting at game...,
Fingers same, don't feel the cold when shooting at game...,
And I don't notice the recoil when shooting at game..., but I do notice the bruise sometimes when I get home.

LD

It's amazing how cold I can be when duck hunting on a wet, dreary, cold morning and how warm I can get when the shooting starts.

 

[readyeddy]

Maybe not recoil related but I would get bad headaches shooting at the range after maybe ten shots. This was with both plugs and muffs.

Shooting with my mouth slightly open did the trick. I think the concussion of the blast pressurized my skull and keeping my mouth open helped to equalize the pressure.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

It's amazing how cold I can be when duck hunting on a wet, dreary, cold morning and how warm I can get when the shooting starts

I KNOW, RIGHT ? !!

LD

 

[Grumulkin]

If one were shooting a group and got hit in the head by a 300 win mag it might cause a flinch but if it’s just the first kill shot that impacts your skull, it won’t matter.

I did get a scope bite from shooting a 300 Winchester Magnum at a raccoon. I only became aware of my injury when I felt blood trickling down my face. My worst scope bite was from shooting a Thompson/Center Encore in 25/06 Remington from the prone position; that cut required stitches but it didn't hurt much.

Funny thing; I've never come close to getting a scope bite from bench shooting a 375 Weatherby Magnum (no brake), a 460 Weatherby Magnum with a Pendleton brake and an unbraked 458 Lott. These just have a better stock design for handling recoil than does the Encore.

 

[sage5907]

To shoot my 338-06 featherweight correctly I need to pull the trigger with the middle finger below the trigger guard because if I hold it with the finger tucked up high behind the trigger guard the rifle snaps back quickly and hits my finger. Sometime in a hunting situation I forget and after the shot I realize my finger is hurting. The rifle is a joy to shoot but I need to pay attention.

 

[.455_Hunter]

When shooting at big game, I don't really feel the recoil and the muzzle blast is just a loud pop. Totally opposite experience on the range.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I did get a scope bite from shooting a 300 Winchester Magnum ..., My worst scope bite was from shooting a Thompson/Center Encore in 25/06 Remington...,
.

Funny historic story about scope bite...

Charles Wilson Peale was a painter, as well as an inventor, who did a lot of portraits of the Founding Fathers... which is why he's famous...,

So he's recorded as trying to put a scope on a flintlock in 1776. He had a mount made for his rifle, and had a scope made with actual cross hairs (I think they used spider webbing for this). It would've looked to us like the early tube scopes with where the mounts themselves had adjustment screws and moved the scope tube instead of moving the internal cross hairs, to adjust point of impact...

So..., they hadn't developed eye relief yet in optics. This meant that his right eye was right up near the rear lens, a fraction of an inch from the back of the actual scope. THUS when he tried firing his invention, it smacked him in the eye. He tried several times over a few weeks to get it to work, and shooting a .54 caliber flinter, the recoil was enough that he got a serious black eye, and luckily didn't cause more damage to his vision. (Which would suck for an artist, no?)

[1776 journal entry]
February 9, “making piece with springs to prevent the Eye being hurt by the kicking of the Gun.”

We find this funny today, as we know exactly what the problem was, and that he wasn't going to solve it while using the telescope of his day.., OUCH ! So he had the right idea but not the right technology...



LD

 

[mustanger98]

I recall hearing about 1860's aiming tubes... brass tube, external adjustments, crosswires, but no magnification. Some historical re-enactors say this is a quite accurate system. Because of no magnification, eye relief wouldn't be a problem.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

When shooting at big game, I don't really feel the recoil and the muzzle blast is just a loud pop. Totally opposite experience on the range.

There's the "Germanic School of Thought" in Alpine regions. A rather large or hard hitting caliber, and a very light rifle. I live in a very cosmopolitan area, and we get immigrants (the proper type) all the time. So I had a Remington Model 7 with a 18.5 inch "pencil" barrel in .308 Win. I hung a 4x Pentax scope on it. Tough to sight in as after two shots you had to wait 30-40 minutes for the barrel to cool back to true. Kicked like a mule since it was only about 6 lbs. loaded and with the glass mounted...and in low light that short barrel gave you a good fireball . Well, along came kid #2 and there were bills to pay so it was offered up for sale..., and a fellow from Southern Germany who had recently become a citizen jumped at it. He'd been looking for such a rifle for a couple years (well "used" was more in his price range), and his only lament was that it wasn't in a "larger" caliber. He was used to very light rifles that one carried all day in very mountainous terrain...., as for the recoil...
"Yu only need shoot zis one time fur de deer!"

LD

 

[Arkansas Paul]

Usually, I don't notice it very much. Once I had to take a shot off my left shoulder, and I'd never even practiced it before. The deer dropped in its tracks, but the butt of the '06 was on my left bicep. I felt that one.

 

[Jessesky]

Of course. It’s not even a question.

Do you notice pain as much when you’re in a fight, or get injured playing a sport?

It’s adrenaline and your focus.

 

[Jessesky]

Well, no need to exaggerate. I'd shoot that thing, though, just to be able to say I did. Of course, I might have to have the lenses replaced in my eyes the doc installed to replace my cataracts. I could see 'em flying out of my eyes as I pulled the trigger.

Actually, I'm sure it's bareable. Friend had a .375 I fired half expecting my shoulder to fly off. It wasn't that bad. Glad it was a heavy rifle. I'm quite sure, too, that if you fired that .470 at a charging cape buffalo, it'd probably feel like a Benjamin air rifle.

I have a 375 in a sako “fiberclass” (Sako teamed up with McMillan in the 90s) I really like the recoil impulse. It’s a long but stout push. I’m sure stock design and rifle weight also have to do with it

 

[MCgunner]

There's the "Germanic School of Thought" in Alpine regions. A rather large or hard hitting caliber, and a very light rifle. I live in a very cosmopolitan area, and we get immigrants (the proper type) all the time. So I had a Remington Model 7 with a 18.5 inch "pencil" barrel in .308 Win. I hung a 4x Pentax scope on it. Tough to sight in as after two shots you had to wait 30-40 minutes for the barrel to cool back to true. Kicked like a mule since it was only about 6 lbs. loaded and with the glass mounted...and in low light that short barrel gave you a good fireball . Well, along came kid #2 and there were bills to pay so it was offered up for sale..., and a fellow from Southern Germany who had recently become a citizen jumped at it. He'd been looking for such a rifle for a couple years (well "used" was more in his price range), and his only lament was that it wasn't in a "larger" caliber. He was used to very light rifles that one carried all day in very mountainous terrain...., as for the recoil...
"Yu only need shoot zis one time fur de deer!"

LD

Hmm, well, I can tell you, my stainless M7 in .308 will hold 5 shots into 3/4" at 100 yards without letting the barrel cool. Love that thing. Mine, being the stainless model, does have a 20" barrel.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Mine was bought more than 30 years ago.., pencil thin barrel...on the third shot it always started to "string" up and to the right. No doubt that Remington has modified this configuration.

LD

 

[MCgunner]

Well, I got mine used 20 years ago, so..... But, while the barrel is thin, it's a different barrel than those on the 18" guns. I won a Remington M700 in .25-06. Pretty gun and nice, but at the time, I had a jones for a M7 and especially in stainless. I found mine on consignment at a LGS and he traded me 70 bucks plus the M700 for the M7. I didn't need a .25-06 anyway, not when I had my .257 Roberts which I handload to its potential. If the gun had been a 7-08, I woulda still made the swap, but I really kinda wanted it in .308.

 

[foxmeadow]

I have a Husqvarna Featherweight in .30-06 that has taken a lot of deer without perceived recoil, but shooting from a bench required the use of a PAST recoil pad so I wouldn't develop a flinch..

 

[Varminterror]

Toes stop feeling cold when shooting at game...,
Fingers same, don't feel the cold when shooting at game...,
And I don't notice the recoil when shooting at game..., but I do notice the bruise sometimes when I get home.

LD

Not picking on this, just using it to illustrate the real problem...

What else are you missing when in "buck fever," adrenaline high mode? Under any other circumstance, if someone lost sensation all over their body, they'd call a doctor.

Feel the recoil, feel your fingers, feel your feet. Control your emotions. Bad shots get taken when guys can't feel their fingers, but still put them on the trigger. Bad things happen when guys get tunnel vision in the moment and fail to notice changes behind their target, or fail to realize game has passed away from the anticipated range.

 

[MCgunner]

Well, the gun didn't hurt me anymore than normal, but the other day I was shooting over my chronograph with my 7 mag developing a load. Now, my shoulder has turned kinda yellow, not black or blue, but yellow. Weird. I guess I don't hold up to it like I did when I was younger. Won't stop me from shooting, though. I ain't no quitter...

 

[mustanger98]

Regarding post #37, it's like my Daddy says in favor of short lightweight deer rifles... we carry 'em a lot more than we shoot 'em. I like to enjoy shooting. I like some cartridges such as .30-06 and 8x57JS, but in a short 6-7lb rifle, y'all see where that goes.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Not picking on this, just using it to illustrate the real problem...

What else are you missing when in "buck fever," adrenaline high mode? Under any other circumstance, if someone lost sensation all over their body, they'd call a doctor.

Feel the recoil, feel your fingers, feel your feet. Control your emotions. Bad shots get taken when guys can't feel their fingers, but still put them on the trigger. Bad things happen when guys get tunnel vision in the moment and fail to notice changes behind their target, or fail to realize game has passed away from the anticipated range .

Thank you for your concern, you are quite right, but we aren't talking about buck fever.

Nobody has mentioned a total loss of sensation, or total loss of hearing replaced by a "rushing sound" due to a highly elevated heart beat and blood pressure. We also did not mention the quivering from a heavy dose of adrenalin nor that all senses but sight being excluded from perception. Simply that toes and fingers are no longer cold, and recoil is ignored. NOT the same thing since I have experienced "buck fever".

What we are discussing is the results of the physiological change from being completely at rest in a cold environment. The body normally then, shuts down capillaries at the farthest extremities...fingers and toes. Which is why in a deer stand or blind, or in a duck/goose blind those get coldest, first. (Note when walking while hunting for upland birds in very cold weather, you don't notice this because the heart rate doesn't drop to the "at rest" state)

When game comes into sight, such as birds on the wing closing toward the blind, or you spot a deer at a distance walking in your direction, your heart rate increases from complete, wakeful rest, pushes out blood to the toes and fingers and they stop hurting. When the deer looks as though it's approaching enough that it's going to present a shot, your concentration on the sights (or the reticle) exclude your attention to the recoil when you slowly squeeze the trigger, allowing it to surprise you. You don't feel the impact of the shot as you do on the range is all. Sometimes that's also because you didn't practice with the thick hunting clothes you're wearing that day.

LD

 

[Varminterror]

@Loyalist Dave - Sure seems that we're talking about loss of perception during the hunting shot... Maybe you mis-perceived that to be referring to cold-driven numbness, but it doesn't that your medical dissertation on human thermal preservation had much to do with the OP's opening statement...

Does anyone notice recoil less when hunting than when shooting at targets?

I don't care what you want to call it, whether you think it's just the excitement of the opportunity for a shot distracting you from cold fingers, or full on adrenaline rush and buck fever - any shot taken with decreased perception is an increase in risk. Cold, numb hands don't suddenly become warmed and revived by the sight of a buck, the shooter is just suddenly distracted from the numbness. Indeed, any adrenaline spike from this distracting excitement further reduces sensitivity in the extremities. Rifles don't kick less just because you're too excited to notice the recoil in the moment.

You're statements about excitement improving circulation and extremity sensitivity are contradictory to known medical science, and mental distraction doesn't improve extremity sensation.

So I stand by it - any hunter so distracted by the sight of game as to neglect recoil, the report of the shot, or numbness in the extremities is impaired to a point they're really not safe to be shooting. Numb AND distracted is more dangerous than just numb, and numb is dangerous enough.

 

[MCgunner]

Personally, I relate to what Dave is saying. The only case of Buck fever I remember getting is shooting a big swamp rabbit with my .22 caliber pellet rifle when I was 7 years old. I had to reload and shook pellets all over the place when I unscrewed the lid off the can. That was 60 years ago.....seems like yesterday. I've shot a lot of game since then.

I do not feel recoil near as bad shooting at game. It's the concentration on the shot, not adrenalin. I'm totally concentrated on sight alignment, breath control, and trigger pressure and just ignore recoil. If you are worried about and anticipate recoil, that's less controllable than buck fever IMHO.