Understanding recoil: 9mm+ versus 40 S&W

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Originally Posted by petecamp

May I offer an old-school suggestion? Beg or borrow a .44 mag revolver and get 4 50 round boxes of the hottest loads you can find. Go shoot them all in less than one hour. I guarantee recoil will never bother you again.

Maybe some of the more modern types could borrow a .500 S&W mag and do the same thing. I won't guarantee the outcome though. :image035:

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In self defense siuations I imagine the new micro-9s are the real snappy dogs. I can't see these full size, locked breech types, being that earth shattering. I got an S&W airlight 38, and it's got a trigger finger bite. In a real self defense situation you won't notice.

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Originally Posted by Ljutic

Sometimes data can be misleading. Other times it's right on the money. I had a similar question so I decided to run some tests and see what I could learn with high speed video. I learned quite a bit. I really feel that recoil is more about the design of the grip and it's fit in your hand than a pure physical measurement. This was an early test, but it does have the PM9 and PM40 in a side by side comparison. I learned the .40 not only has vertical lift but also much more axial spin to the left than the 9mm. Not sure what causes that, but it's worthy of deeper investigation and explains why time between shots is longer with the 40 vs the 9mm.

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Very neat video! :smile:

To me, the physics part of this debate is very interesting academically - but as a defensive shooter, it's much more the subjective "felt/perceived recoil" that concerns me, as it governs how fast I can run the gun and get shots on-target.

Towards that end, Ljutic, I believe that "spin" you're seeing is a path-of-least resistance phenomenon: look at how your support hand comes off the gun. Then watch these often-cited reference videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVhTA-n0ivE <--- Travis Haley's great opening lesson on grip basics, via the Magpul Art of the Dynamic Handgun DVD series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O-Wedt3N4U <--- Mike Hughes of Next Level Training, takes us through his high-speed footage.

From your high-speed vid, it looks like that's happening a bit with both the Rohrbaugh and DB9 a bit, too - and I believe that the former is more due to just how small the gun is and how much harder it is to hang on to: but look closely enough at the PM9, it's doing it, too, simply because on guns this small, we as adults with even average size hands do have a problem maintaining a solid two-handed grip on them.

Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!!!

The worst recoil of any handgun I've ever shot was a S&W airweight in .357 Magnum. It also gave me the erie feeling that it might come apart under the abuse. Besides the pain it inflicted, there were two very important problems it presented. It was impossible to follow up a shot with another well placed shot in anything like a reasonable amount of time. It also blinded anyone close to it when shooting in low light.

I think Hickok45 had a very good test on his youtube channel comparing recoil of various rounds. There was not so much physical difference shown. I agree that shooter perception of recoil is something that must be overcome. For me, I've never noted much difference between 9mm and .40 in equal weight guns. Smoothly overcoming recoil is the secret. Remember: Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.