THE EFFECT OF RECOIL UPON SHOOTING. 321 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



THE EFFECT OF RECOIL UPON SHOOTING. 



IN the days of heavy long barrels with light bullets 

 and moderate charges of powder, the days of muzzle- 

 loaders, the recoil, or " kick," of the rifle was so slight 

 as to have little or no effect upon the direction of the 

 ball. But in these days of short light barrels with 

 long heavy balls and often heavy charges of powder, 

 the effect of recoil upon the direction of the ball is so 

 decided that scarcely any point about shooting is 

 more important than this sometimes is. 



The true theory of the recoil of a gun I believe to 

 be this: The backward pressure of the gas upon the 

 breech of the gun begins at the same instant with the 

 forward pressure upon the ball. In each case the 

 powder is acting against inertia or weight. But the 

 inertia or weight of the gun, being one hundred or 

 more times the inertia of the bullet, will resist the 

 pressure much longer before yielding to it than the 

 vastly lighter bullet can resist. So that the inertia of 

 the ball is overcome and changed into motion in a 

 trifling fraction of the time in which the inertia or 

 weight of the gun is overcome and changed into 

 motion. And this great difference in the time of 

 yielding, or in the conversion of force into motion, 

 makes an immense difference in the relative speed of 

 the two motions. 



