Clay Target Q&A
With Russell Mark, Olympic gold and silver medallist
Questions: russell@corporateshootingstars.com.au
Q I have been looking at buying a secondhand Miroku shotgun to shoot clay targets and to hunt with, but several people have warned me not to purchase this particular firearm because the wood in the stock has a couple of ‘knots’ in it instead of the normal long ‘stripe’ grain that you see in many guns. I was told that these knots will make the gun kick me in the face and will definitely recoil more than a stock that has the grain flowing parallel to the barrel. Can a knot in the wood affect recoil?
Robbie Collins, Vic
A This answer will no doubt get the blood pressure up on some diehard ‘purists’, but I think the people telling you about your knotted stock recoiling hard would also lead you to believe that John Howard goes pig shooting each weekend now that he is retired from office. It is an old wives’ tale and I would challenge anybody to prove otherwise. The last time I checked, ‘actual’ recoil in shotguns was measured with three variable components:
1. The weight of the shotgun
2. The weight of the shot charge
3. The speed the payload of shot (and wad), which is discharged from the shotgun.
I can’t find mention in any physics book that the cosmetic appearance or composition of the grain in the wood is a factor in the recoil equation.
This is where the age-old debate about ‘actual’ versus ‘perceived’ recoil begins. Actual recoil is measurable, while perceived recoil is subjective or felt. Here are the facts: If you shoot a gun weighing 8lb and increase the weight by 12.5 per cent to 9lb, you will decrease the actual recoil by about 12.5 per cent. However, if you shoot a shotshell with 1oz of shot in it and then shoot another shotshell using the same gun with 1.125oz of shot (12.5 per cent more), you will increase the actual recoil by around 25 per cent, which is twice as much! The same happens with velocity; increase the shot speed by 10 per cent and get ‘kicked’ about 20 per cent more.
Just about everything known to man has been claimed to help perceived recoil in shotgun shooting. A gas-operated self-loading shotgun actually recoils the same as a fixed breech gun of the same weight, but the perception is totally different due to the recoil ‘pulse’ or ‘shock’ being broken down into longer sections because of the nature of the mechanism.
That given, I won’t give in to the notion that a firearm with a knot in its stock, when fired, will somehow make the recoil travel down through the breech and mechanism of the gun, down the neck of the stock and through the pistol grip, then get caught up in a circular knot beneath the comb and is somehow magically transferred at right angles up into your face to fracture your jaw instead of travelling down along the length of the gun and comfortably into your shoulder.
Robbie, the best thing I know that helps recoil perception is a correctly fitted shotgun, particularly in the areas of stock length and ‘pitch’ (the angle the pad of the gun sits on your shoulder). Get a reasonably thick (more than 15mm if possible) good-quality flat recoil pad fitted and don’t hesitate on buying the gun if you think it can be altered enough to fit you properly. If the stock looks good, then that’s an added bonus, but if the reality is a knot-infested fence plank, if weighted the same, it wouldn’t actually recoil or kick any more or less than the prettiest piece of parallel-grained Turkish walnut.