quick question regarding shotguns and recoil
 

ok here goes....

shotgun A - pumpaction
Shotgun B - Semiauto

they both have the same length of barrel and weigh the same and they use the same ammo.

will shotgun A or B have the most recoil ?

Shotgun A the pump action will have the most recoil because in many it will operated the slide which will take some of it off the shooter, but for the most part the recoil is all being transfered to the shooter.

An autoloader will bleed off some of the gas usualy, in gas piston models anyhow and thus reduce the recoil as it is used to cycle the action and bring the next round into battery.

And a bolt action or single or double, the shooter takes ALL the recoil.

The same goes for rifles, a recoil operatated and and gas operated rifle will reduced the recoil as it is used to operate the weapon, a single shot or bolt, or lever or pump action the shooter takes the recoil.

A note, most pump action shotguns <not sure about rifles as I have never fired a pump action rifle> some of the recoil will be absorbed as the recoil usualy is part of what unlocks the bolt, so the recoil is distributed to the pump and absorbed into the hand/arm making the felt recoil seem less, as well as the opening of the bolt and using the momentum to send it partialy back.

in addition to what jester said.

I think additionally the act of pumping a shotgun or reloading a bolt rifle will cause more 'recoil' because pumping or reloading the bolt will cause the gun to go 'off target' (translated into recoil for the games rules) than an automatic action which is immediate and then allowing you to get back on target.

pumping action
 

I think that the pumping is what throws the sightline off ,more than the recoil with pump actions .Maybe there is a difference between really expensive autos and pump actions but I never felt it - save for the instances where the pump action is a lot lighter than the auto.

Weight is a bigger factor than mechanics in my view .

Seems like a good excuse to post this video.

There was a video of someone doing the Mad Minute with the proper technique - middle finger on trigger and thumb and forefinger on the bolt, but YouTube says its no longer available.

This thread has given me food for thought in terms of recoil and pump action shotguns, I might talk to the creator of "The System That Shall Not Speak Its Name" about it. I have to disagree with the point about bolt actions because they cycle along the firing axis of the weapon and therefore cause little disruption to the sight picture (although you do have to use the hand with your trigger finger on it to cycle the bolt unlike pump and lever actions). The bolt action I am most familiar with personally is the Lee-Enfield SMLE and it is an excellent piece of design - easy, comfortable and fast to cycle as well as being robust and reliable. Served British Commonwealth forces very well through two world wars and skilled users can maintain a rate of fire and level of accuracy rivaling (although perhaps not exceeding) comparable weapons of the time. I seem to recall that until the 1980s the Australian Army was still using accurised, scoped, 7.62mmN converted SMLEs as sniper rifles.

I think a pump action shotgun would end up more off target per reload if it was a pistol grip weapon or was being fired from the hip. Cycling the action on a pump shotgun which has the butt stock firmly held to the shoulder would not generate much pitch or yaw along the weapon's horizontal axis.

I think I'll implement a modification to Gunmaster's recoil rules under which lever, bolt and pump action weapons will each have their own penalty to recoil for rapid fire, as that would be a situation more likely to result in violent motion along the firing axis of the weapon.

Yes a pump will throw off your aim as you cycle the action, depending on the experience and skill level of the person though it may be little more than what one gets from the muzzle rifle as a result of recoil.

Also, when shooting most shotguns <at least the ones I own> the bolt unlocks after firing and the slide is already to the rear or mostly, so the firing just needs to push the slide forward chambing a new shell and brining the weapon into battery, and all of this can be done in seconds while simultainiously bringing the weapon onto target.

We must remember, these are shotguns we are talking about, not precision weapons with pinpoint acuracy.


As for bolt action, yes, it is easy to keep on target when firing, the firing hand that works the trigger also works the bolt without moving your cheek weld or the forward supporting hand.

The same can be done and easier with a lever action. Again, you do not remove your cheekweld from the weapons stock and mess up your sight picture, but also, the hand does not move from the trigger to the bolt, it simply drops the level and the hand returns to the trigger as a result of working the action.

No, i agree with you... that was my point.

Manually pumping the shotgun = more recoil. IMO.

I think with the ROF of Bolt guns in Tw2k rules... it doesn't really matter about recoil as you can only get off 1 shot per action round.