Sporting Guns and Gunpowders: Comprising a Selection from Reports of Experiments, and Other Articles Published in the Field Newspaper, Relative to Firearms and Explosives,
1897https://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA197Some Notes on Recoil
https://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA254It has been asserted that this or that powder gives absolutely no recoil. If one were to believe all that has been written on that point, there are various powders that possess this inestimable quality; but unfortunatelythese statements are absolutely untrue.
It is a fundamental principle that action and re-action are equal and opposite; therefore, at the moment when the shot leaves the muzzle of the gun, the momentum (or weight x velocity) of the shot will be equal to the momentum of the gun. This is strictly true from the tune the shot first commences to move until it finally leaves the muzzle, but only up to that instant.
On no subject in connection with gunnery are there more erroneous ideassuperstitions one might almost call themthan on recoil. Many men will tell you that certain guns, with precisely the same ammunition, will give much more recoil than other guns of exactly the same weight. It will generally be found that these men are either novices in the art of shooting, or else they do not hold their guns properly up to the shoulder. Once and for all, it may be laid down that the recoil of guns, rifles, and arms of every description, from the smallest pistol to the heaviest piece of ordnance, proceeds from the same causes and depends upon the same elements.
https://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA266judging of the weight and nature of recoil by the feeling alone one is apt to be misled; for according to the state of bodily health at the time, so will be the sensation produced by a normal recoil
