Has anyone measured actual felt recoil (in pounds) at the human shoulder from the butt stock when the weapon has been fired ? Of any semi or bolt action shoulder fired weapon. …other than kicks like a mule. :rolleyes:
We’ve all seen those goofy videos of people getting knocked down or the weapon flying out of their hands…
I’ve seen it done using both load cells and accelerometers but I don’t have any of the data available to me.
The government method is a pendulum. There are improved methods in the works.
Felt recoil isn’t measured in foot/lbs. That’s free recoil. You can have a rifle with more free recoil yet have a more pleasant felt recoil than a rifle with less free recoil. You can do a search and find formulas that will let you figure out the free recoil (ft/lbs) a rifle will generate. Felt recoil is rather subjective and varies from rifle to rifle and shooter to shooter
Felt recoil is subjective and there are a lot of factors to consider.
I use the RemShoot software to calculate free recoil. When comparing different loads, it gives you some indication of what may be above your comfort zone and what is not.
Anything I load at 13 ft-lbs. of free recoil or less is within my comfort zone. Anything below 10 ft-lbs. of free recoil is downright comfortable for me. A few people I shoot with like lower numbers. What you can or are willing to tolerate and maintain a good shooting position is what you want to determine.
http://www.chuckhawks.com/recoil_table.htm
http://www.chuckhawks.com/handgun_recoil_table.htm
Here’s what I use as rough guesstimates.
This data strikes me as sticky-worthy.
Thanks. That gives me a great heads up for what I was looking for. Simple to go off of and don’t need an engineering degree to figure it out. :o
I agree. This would be a good one for the sticky section. 
It does not take an engineering degree to plug a few numbers into a math formula