General Notes on Reducing Shotgun Recoil


  1. Perceived (or “Felt”) Recoil

    Perceived recoil is the shooter's perception of how good or bad the recoil of a gun is, and is highly influenced by how well the gun fits the user. Felt recoil is totally subjective and has no units of measure, yet it is real and valuable. Felt recoil is the shooter's opinion about recoil in one test scenario vs another (like the comparison of recoil between two guns, or recoil before and after adding a new butt pad). Scientific or not, it is the shooters opinion that ultimately matters.

    1. Correct and Consistent Gun Mount:

      • Is crucial for hitting targets.
      • Is a key element of perceived gun recoil.
      • Is required to determine proper gun fit.
      • Is beyond the scope of this document. See a shooting coach about how to mount the gun. You can usually find shooting coaches at your local gun clubs.

    2. Gun Fit

      People have many different shapes and sizes, so one gun does not fit all people. You may get lucky and find a gun that fits you well, but most people will need to have their gun fitted. Some people do not even know gun fitting is needed or available - they just take a gun off the rack and adapt themselves to the gun with varying levels of success. This however, is rarely optimal.

      1. You have gun fit problems if:

        • Your trigger hand is hitting you in the face when you fire the gun.
        • The trigger guard is hitting your finger.
        • The gun is slapping you in the face (or where ever).
        • You mount the gun and your dominant eye is not looking directly down the rib or barrel of the gun.
        • Your gun is canted (could be a gun mount problem).
        • Your head is cocked over.
        • Or many other things...

      2. Proper gun fit will go a long way to mitigate recoil problems.

      3. Gun fit is also beyond the scope of this document. See your gunsmith about gun fit or visit

    3. Installing a better butt pad or similar spring like recoil reduction devices. Some of these devices absolutely do work to reduce the felt recoil. I think most everyone would agree that spreading a recoil load over a bigger area feels like less recoil than the same amount of recoil load concentrated in a smaller area.

    4. Speed of powder burn

      1. Fast burst “pop”
      2. Longer, slower “push”
      3. Yes, this is a very controversial topic.

    5. Conclusion – to reduce perceived recoil:

      1. Have a proper gun mount.
      2. Have a proper gun fit.
      3. Use as large a butt pad as you can without compromising gun fit with the possible addition of some shock absorbing spring like system. Ballistic foam is quite effective at this. For example, Recoil Systems makes a high quality ISIS product.
      4. Possibly use a slower burning powder.

  2. Real Recoil

    Real recoil is rarely discussed and can be very complex. But the topic can be constrained and still produce fairly indicative results. Real recoil is independent from gun fit or the area of your butt pad that touches your body. It is the force that is directed into your shoulder from firing the shotgun.

    1. Real Recoil is linear momentum (p=mv) which is a vector quantity and has a relationship to F=ma. See Wikipedia for a fuller explanation.

    2. Real Recoil force is dominated by only 3 factors (see CleverInsite for equations):

      1. Mass of the ejecta (shot + wad weight)
      2. Speed of the ejecta (let's use muzzle velocity)
      3. Mass (weight) of the gun

    3. Other ways to absorb recoil energy

      1. Use the recoil energy to perform some other work – like ejecting and loading a new shell (ie: a semi automatic shotgun)
      2. Use an energy transducer to damp inertia – that is, convert recoil energy into another form (see our ARD g1 at Calibrated Tech.)

    4. Conclusion – to reduce real recoil

      1. Reduce the shot weight that you are shooting.
      2. Reduce the projectile speed (the muzzle velocity of that shot).
      3. Increase the weight of the gun.
      4. Convert kinetic recoil energy to another form or vector.


  3. Overall Conclusions

    Once you can correctly mount a shotgun that fits you, given a baseline of shooting 1 & 1/8 oz, 1200 fps (3 dram) shells from an 8 lb gun, to reduce real recoil, you might try some combination of:

    • Shooting a shell with a lighter amount of shot, like a 1 oz load instead of a 1 & 1/8 oz load.
    • Shooting a shell with a slower muzzle velocity, like 1150 fps instead of a 1200 fps.
    • Increasing the weight of your gun.
    • Use an inertia damping device (like our ARD g1).


  4. Shameless Plug For Our Product

    Given the same baseline as above (8lb gun shooting a 1 & 1/8 oz. load at 1200 fps) our ARD g1 gives a 17% reduction in real recoil. That is better than:

    • changing from a 1 & 1/8 oz. load to a 1 oz. load or
    • changing from a 1200 fps muzzle velocity to 1150 fps or
    • adding a little over 1.5 lbs of weight to your gun.