Rods and Shells Column

Rods and Shells Column
By Tom Roster
September-October 2011

“Youth Shotgunners and Recoil”

With hunting seasons arriving many of us will be putting away our fishing rods and bringing out our shotguns. Many of us also have children or the children of relatives/friends that we will be taking bird hunting. And this brings up an important shotgunning consideration: what are appropriate loads and shotguns for youth shooters? And by that I don’t mean what are effective loads and guns for the hunting situation at hand. Rather the issue is: for youth hunters what gun and load choices are appropriate to keep recoil at acceptable levels?
First we have to understand recoil. Then we have to appreciate the huge negative recoil is to the small-bodied hunter or shooter. Recoil is caused by the reaction of the shot charge being accelerated out of the shotgun. So the recoil comes from the shell itself. But, that recoil force has to pass through the gun to get to the shooter’s shoulder. So there are three things interacting in the recoil equation: the weight and velocity of the shot charge, the weight of the gun, and the weight of the shooter.
There are only three ways to reduce actual recoil. One is to increase gun weight; the second is to install a spring effect between the gun and the shoulder, i.e., a recoil pad, other compressible device, and/or gas-operated autoloading actions; the third is to reduce the actual recoil created by the shotshell load itself. If the weight of a load is increased, recoil increases. If the velocity of a load increases, recoil increases. Of the two, load weight has more influence on increasing recoil than velocity.
Knowing all of this, now we come to the youth shotgunner. The principal problem with young shotgunners insofar as recoil is concerned is that they have light bodies. Light bodies are much more sensitive to recoil than heavy bodies for the simple reason that any existing recoil force knocks backward a light body more significantly than a heavy body. Then there’s gun weight. Young hunters cannot carry and swing well the typical 7½ pound or heavier shotgun being used by their adult mentors. So by necessity youth hunters need lighter shotguns. The problem is lighter guns transfer more recoil to the shooter than heavy guns. So because of the light body/light gun situation, mentors have to be very careful about load selection for youth shotgunners to keep recoil at bay.
As an example, let’s look at a kid being introduced to waterfowling by an adult mentor. The mentor has elected to equip this youngster with a light 6½ pound 12 gauge autoloader or fixed-breech youth shotgun with a nice, thick recoil pad. But he is going to supply our young hunter with one-ounce steel loads at 1375 fps. The gun was a good choice, but ooh boy, Mentor Person, you’ve messed up on load choice. According to the recoil formula, that kid will be dealing with about 31.65 ft./lbs. of free recoil, nearly twice the recoil level that body size can comfortably handle! Our young waterfowler will be flinching and/or closing his or her eyes at every pull of the trigger. That’s spelled “pain.” Youngsters wishing to be macho usually won’t admit this openly, but trust me that’s what they’re experiencing. Result: they will quickly fade away from the game.
With a more informed eye to the fact that 150-pound or less bodies can’t handle much more than about 17 ft./lbs. of free recoil, a much better choice of ammunition for our beginning waterfowler would have been a light, little 3/4 ounce 2-3/4” 20 gauge steel load. This load in a 6-1/2 pound youth gun would be generating about 18 ft./lbs. of free recoil. You would be even smarter to purchase the same load in the inexpensive Winchester Xpert Game and Target steel line as it travels only 1325 fps, plenty fast enough. And this is an excellent load for clay target practice.
Incidentally all the above recoil calculations apply equally to HEVI-Shot or any other tungsten-alloy nontoxic load or lead loads with similar shot charge weights and velocity levels.
One more myth which needs to be dispelled is that with heavy clothing on anybody can handle more recoil. Not true; not true at all. The instant the gun butt is shouldered all that thick, fluffy clothing is compressed to something approaching nothingness. So when the gun goes off there’s virtually no padding effect left in the clothing. Psychologically thick clothing might help, but from a physics standpoint it accomplishes almost nothing. So, don’t fool yourself that the kid you’re taking shooting will be able to handle the recoil of the 12 gauge loads you’ve picked simply because he’s going to have on a heavy hunting coat.
Once again, and at the expense of reiteration, if you want to keep youth shooters shooting and hunting you’ve got to be very careful to equip them with a light gun that they can carry and swing easily. Then, that gun must be loaded with light loads to keep recoil at a minimum. The most readily available youth-type shotguns come in 20 gauge and 20 gauge is also the gauge to gravitate to for light youth-type loads. A 3/4-ounce 20 gauge steel load in 6’s or 4’s will get the job done nicely on all ducks and pheasants out to 30 or 35 yards. If you’re upland bird hunting with lead loads, a 7/8 ounce and better yet 3/4 ounce 20 gauge lead load in the right pellet sizes will get the job done nicely on doves, quail, grouse and squirrels to that same 30 to 35 yard distance increment.
In short, recoil is bad; less recoil is always better for all shooters. This is especially true for youth shotgunners. The choice is usually yours rather than theirs; so choose wisely.

Tom Roster enjoys answering questions from fishermen and hunters. He builds custom rods of all types for anglers. Contact him with your questions or rod needs at 541-884-2974 or tomroster@charter.net.
 

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