doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 2 3/4 inch to reduce pressure or not

The primary reason for reduced chamber pressures and reduced payload, assuming a gun is safe to shoot full pressure loads, is to keep stress down on old wood. L.C. Smiths are renown for cracks behind the locks. Remington 1894&1900 are known for cracks in the head of the stock which lead to a split. The cost to repair or replace a stock may well exceed the total value of a double. Heavy loads can cause old stocks to crack or a gun to go off face. Barrel failures are dramatic events but thankfully a rare one as well.

One factor Thomas didn't mention is that while the shot charge was the same, the powder charge was not. Assuming the faster burning powder charge weighed less than the slower, that might have also had some impact. It's the total weight of the ejecta rather than just the shot charge that has to be factored into the formula. Obviously, shot makes up most of the weight, but it's not the only component contained in the hull.

Any additional powder mass would probably be lost in the variation of shot charge. I don't believe that can account for much. But it would be nice to see recoil actually quantified instead of being left to observer perception. Seems very odd that they would choose such a subjective "measure" as their dependent variable.

Brent: I am of the opinion that there are WAY too many variables for "felt recoil" to be quantified.

Interesting thread, with a contribution from Neil Winston and a link to an academic attempt to do so
https://www.trapshooters.com/threads/an-improved-detailed-analysis-of-shotgun-recoil.526009/

And this, from Sporting Guns and Gunpowders: Comprising a Selection from Reports of Experiments, and Other Articles Published in the “Field” Newspaper, Relative to Firearms and Explosives, Volumes 1-2, 1897
https://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA254
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 time 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 ideas—superstitions one might almost call them—than 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=PA266
“judging 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…”