why is there so much more recoil in revolvers then pistols?

Ozzieman, this comes up a lot, and I answer it the same way - if such performance were even close to normal, a lot fewer of us would have heard of Jerry Miculek.

Speaking of which, I missed a show, one weekend. Jerry M reportedly showed up at a LGS/range near one of my duty stations, and held a clinic on how to improve Sigma triggers. Apparently, he agreed to put on some speed demos. I am told he was frighteningly fast (and accurate) with the FN Five-Seven. (Report said he let the audience select the gun from the LGS offerings.)
 
I shot a model B Coonan a few days ago and the recoil was extremely soft for a 357 magnum. Id compair it to shooting 38+p through a heavy revolver.

Thinking about buying one of the new guns for some range fun.
 
why is there so much more recoil in revolvers then pistols?
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There's recoil and there's what you experience when the bullet comes free of the case...

FWIW - The most unpleasnt handgun I ever fired was a .380 Walther PPK/s.

As a side note to that, I shoot full boogie .44mag loads out of my 4" barrel S&W model 29 w/the stock oversized wood target grips.
Recoil is severe - but - not as unpleasant as the PPK/s was.
 
I have shot a S&W 625 and a 1911 side by side. What it felt like to me, is that the 1911 seemed more snappy and flippy, where as the 625 recoil seemed to come straight back into my hand, almost like a push. Sure the 625 had muzzle flip, but it didnt seem anywhere near as bad as the 1911.
 
MLeake I agree with what you say about performance and that Jerry is a god of guns. But the statement that was made was that auto’s were made for rapidity of fire. His video just shows that revolvers can be just as fast as autos.
The advantage of autos is the increased number of rounds not how fast you can shoot one. I can shoot an N frame S&W 21 or my race gun in 44 special built on a 28 frame faster than any of my autos and that’s with all rounds hitting center mass.
But getting back to the original thread.
Recoil in a hand gun has never bothered me in only two guns and both were becouse of fit. One, a S&W 6 inch 19. The reason was not the 357 mag, the reason was the poor fit of the grip to my hand.
The worst auto I have ever shot was a Detonics 1911. Purchased it in the early 80’s and never put more than a couple of boxes through it, it just hurt that bad. I now have a similar gun that is lighter but a little larger and the one I sold the detonics to get, a Kimber royal carry. It fits my hand better.
 
The point was made earlier that mechanically if the recoil force for revolvers and semis is measured side by side with the same ammo that it will be the same for guns of the same weight. But how the felt recoil is transmitted is different. True in handguns and long guns.

Most shooters of both wheelguns and semis (like bolt action rifles and self loading rifles) will say that the kick from the revolver is harder on the hand than that of the semi because the straight back recoil action of the slide dissipates the energy. Whereas with the revolver it is all transferred to and absorbed by the hand.

Howeverthere are shooters who prefer revolvers because they find the action of the slide distracting, odd, noisy and too violent. There is nothing that can be done for such folk. Like folk who live on houseboats in anticipation of the day that the sea swallows the land, they hold to their own opinions no matter the evidence contrary to their beliefs. Nothing can be done for them or with them. Listen to what they say politely, smile and nod.

tipoc
 
The point was made earlier that mechanically if the recoil force for revolvers and semis is measured side by side with the same ammo that it will be the same for guns of the same weight.
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The recoil momentum will be the same, the recoil force will not.

Force is momentum divided time. So, stopping a given amount of momentum in a given amount of time applies a force. Increasing the time it takes to bring that momentum to zero reduces the amount of force it applies. This is why stopping a car from 60mph using the brakes over a matter of seconds doesn't injure someone while stopping the same car from 60mph by hitting a bridge abutment is catastrophic to the occupants. It's the same momentum, but stopping it over a longer time means that the occupants are subjected to much lower forces.

Since the same recoil momentum is applied to the hand over a longer time period in a semi-auto, the recoil force will be less in the semi-auto even though the total recoil momentum is the same.
 
Revolvers recoil more but even so, if you think about it the energy that is eaten up cycling the auto pistol, it has to go somewhere so it would be divided between recoil energy entering your hand and the energy pushing the bullet out of the barrel. Equal and opposite reaction. So theoretically you'd get something like .0000000255 higher velocity from the revolver assuming everything else equal.
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Not true. Just because you are feeling less of the energy from each shot with an auto vs a revolver does not mean the bullet coming out of the revolver has more energy. True, the action of the slide and recoil springs is eating up some of that energy so it is not transferred back to you, but the energy is still there regardless of how much of it you feel. Throw in the cylinder gap on a revolver and that alone equals a lower velocity from a revolver vs an auto shooting the same round with same barrel length.
 
A large part of it is the subjective feelings of the shooter. Notice how many compare the recoil of a 625 to that of a 1911. Same load, both pistols are close to the same weight, and my chronograph tells me that my Colt 1917 and my 1911 clone are firing the same 230 grain bullet at 840 FPS, the S&W 625, just a tad bit slower.

Yet, I would rate the Colt as the hardest kicking, the S&W second, and the 1911 a distant 3rd. Other shooters might rank them differently, putting the 1911 at the top, for example.

Might be interesting to line up a 1000 shooters, and keep tract of their reactions.
 
My Coonan Classic feels like it has much less recoil than any of my 357 magnum revolvers using the same load.

I was shooting rounds about 1800 fps (125 grain) and the recoil did not feel bad at all... of course I am use to shooting my 45/70 BFR so that may be part of it.
 
drail said:
In a semi auto most of what you feel when you fire it is the slide slamming into the frame and then returning forward. If you could lock the action closed so it did not cycle you would be amazed at the lack of "recoil". I have seen people hold the slide shut with just their offhand thumb and fire the gun with no problem.
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I didn’t see anybody respond to this so…

The only person I ever saw with their thumb behind the slide ended up with a torn and bloody thumb. I’d recommend nobody try this.
 
Why?

Very simple explanation.

With a revolver or any fixed-breech arm, the recoil impulse is transmitted directly to the frame, and to your hand. The "gun" is the barrel and recoil shield...or the barrel and the bolt in a bolt-action rifle.

With a self-loader, the "gun is the barrel and slide assembly. The frame is essentially the gun mount...and there's no solid connection between the gun and the mount.

You don't really feel any recoil from firing the cartridge the way you do in a revolver because the "gun" is connected to the mount through a spring.

As the spring starts to compress, it becomes a force vector between the gun and the gun mount...pushing forward on the slide and backward on the frame. Essentially, a separate action/reaction system.

95% of what you detect as recoil...muzzle flip...occurs when the slide impacts the frame. By the time that happens, the actual ballistic recoil is long since over.
 
With the same bullet mass and the same velocity, the recoil will be the same. The difference is that with an autoloading pistol, the recoil is spread out over a longer period of time and so feels "softer." But believe me, when you add it all up, the laws of physics still apply; there is no such thing as a free lunch or a no-recoil gun.

Jim
 
When you spread momentum reduction out over time, it not only feels like it applies less force, it actually DOES apply less force.

Even though the recoil is the same, the applied force will be less if one platform causes the momentum to be brought to a halt over a longer period of time.

http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae462.cfm

"If an object hits me with a certain amount of momentum, how much force does it hit me with? Note that due to Newton's 3rd Law, this can be calculated the same way. If a thrown egg hits your hand with a momentum of 5 kg m/s, the force it applies to your hand depends on the time it takes for your hand to absorb the momentum. If you hold your hand very stiffly (and try to make the egg stop in a very short period of time) the ball exerts a high force on your hand, e.g. 100 N for 1/20th of a second. However as anyone who has ever played in an egg toss knows, if you let your hand 'give' and extend the amount of time it takes to absorb the momentum, the egg exerts a smaller force on your hand, e.g. 10 N for 1/2 a second."​

Since the autopistol spreads the recoil out over time in various ways, the same amount of recoil ends up applying less force to the shooter's hand.
 
drail posted:
In a semi auto most of what you feel when you fire it is the slide slamming into the frame and then returning forward. If you could lock the action closed so it did not cycle you would be amazed at the lack of "recoil".
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For the most part, the slide moving to the rear is what makes a semi-auto have LESS perceived recoil, not more. If the action were locked shut on a semi-auto, the recoil would be felt all at once instead of being drawn out by the slide movement; most people would feel it as more recoil, not less.
 
re:

Since the autopistol spreads the recoil out over time in various ways, the same amount of recoil ends up applying less force to the shooter's hand.
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This.

Let's construct a hypothetical pistol with the slide way out on the end of 30-foot frame rails and no recoil/action spring. Let's run this slide on ball bearings to eliminate as much friction as we can. Let's fire it electronically to eliminate the hammer and mainspring. Everything else works normally.

You could fire this pistol and feel nothing in the way of recoil unless and until the slide hit the impact abutment in the frame...because there is no connection between the gun and the gun mount.
 
This.

Let's construct a hypothetical pistol with the slide way out on the end of 30-foot frame rails and no recoil/action spring. Let's run this slide on ball bearings to eliminate as much friction as we can. Let's fire it electronically to eliminate the hammer and mainspring. Everything else works normally.

You could fire this pistol and feel nothing in the way of recoil unless and until the slide hit the impact abutment in the frame...because there is no connection between the gun and the gun mount.
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Some recoil-less air rifles meant for serious target competition work on that principle. The action and barrel is supported by a rail and is free to jerk back and forward as the piston accelerates and then stops without transfering the vibration to the stock.
Also the rubber mounted Harley Davidson engine vibrates like they always have, it just isn't transferred to the frame.
 
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