Whether or not the gun "kicks" you badly, includes psychological and physiological factors not subject to easy calculation.
Good post Greg,
I might add that in addition to psychology it might also include straight physics that are not subject to easy calculation.
Some people think that peak force has as much to do with how much a load "hurts" than total recoil energy.
As seen above it is a straight forward procedure to calculate free recoil energy expressed as foot-pound.
Two gun/ load combinations might produce identical foot-pound recoil (as per the above calculation.) But produce quite different peak force.
No good way to calculate peak force, it would have to be measured...
