More on Rifles-- Less Recoil

From Deer & Deer Hunting Forum

jyeomans

Hi thankyou for the info, actually I have the rem 7400& 7600 pump both with 18/12" barrels with that OK out west for elk or are the barrels to short. I shoot 180gr core locs, if I change to 150gr bullets would I get a reduction in recoil. Thankyou. JOHN

Yes. 150 grainers will probably give a reduction in recoil over 180's, as long as bunch of other things are kept equal. It's the basic Force= Mass X Acceleration equation going both directions--towards your shoulder and out the barrel. If you lower the mass of the bullet and keep the acceleration the same, the force is lowered.

Here's a program to download

POINTBLANK

It's free. It has a calculator for recoil. Use the data from the Remington website or the back of your ammo box to put in what you need to calculate recoil. If you don't know how many grains of powder, you can guess at a number like 50 grains-- it's not as critical as other parts of the calculation.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

The Remington Managed Recoil loads, are just taking advantage of what reloaders have known for a long time: you can reduce pressure considerably without sacrificing too much velocity. A medium burning powder like Hodgdon H4895 or IMR 4895, BL-C(2), or Varget reduced slightly, can deliver a reasonable velocity and a reasonable a KE downrange.

Normally rifle ammo is always sold by it's velocity and kinetic energy. Everyone wants to squeeze those last few FPS and ft/lbs out of a cartridge without blowing up the rifle. This is true with a lot of reloaders as well. If you go the other way, and maximize for recoil, you can make a nice round that is not pushing the envelope, but still delivers a kill. It also can give you a more consistent, more accurate, and cheaper round.

Also remember that most of these hotter than hot loads people talk about only begin to show their differences out past 200 or 300 yards or more. I bet you do most of your hunting for whitetail inside 100 yards, right? Inside 200 yards, most whitetail cartridges are still quite deadly even if you take 10% of the powder out of them. The rest is overkill and it manifests itself to you as recoil without any benefit.

No, I'm not trying to say a full house 300 Win Mag or a 300 WSM load is stupid for deer. However, I am saying a 300 Savage will kill them just as dead at normal ranges. Of course I'm talking in broad generalities here. The trick is to start plugging in real data and looking at the differences. I think you'll be surprised. It will certainly make you think twice before you go blowing big bucks on Ultra-Extreme-Super-Duper shoulder-crunching loads for deer that are going to be shot at 50 yards out of a treestand.

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