Personal attacks aside, the gun moves. Yes, the bullet hits wherever the sights were when the bullet left the barrel. Which is not always the same as when the trigger broke. My 147 experience is common and simple physics. Newton didn't say equal and opposite once the bullet is gone. Maybe it's not a lot, but it moves. Weirdest, same ammo, went to a titanium striker. POI went three inches up at 25. Less inertia that had been previously driving the gun just slightly downwards.
Thank you. I for one cannot understand why people cannot understand that there is a recoil force while the bullet is moving up the barrel. Action, reaction.
Whether this recoil force moves the gun or not or whether it's normally detectable depends mainly on...
Whether the barrel is above, below, or in line with the "pivot point" of the gun in your hand.
Whether the gun is firmly fixed to a massive object or is itself massive.
The meatiness of the hand holding the gun.
Whether the handgun is a revolver, with an external barrel firmly mounted to the frame of the gun, versus a semiauto.
The mass and velocity of the bullet compared to where and how the gun is mounted.
I assert that Mythbusters have neither the expertise nor the equipment compared to the U.S. Army Ordnance Department, or, for that matter, of Major General Hatcher, whose entire military career related to firearms and their physics.
...
Handguns (and indeed all guns) recoil slightly before the bullet leaves the barrel. Since handguns are held in a squishy plastic medium, this is why they are in fact sensitive to how they're held and the mass of the bullet. (They're also sensitive to torque recoil (left versus right-hand rifling) but this is a pretty minor effect.)
I get tired of arguing this point, so in the last fifteen years, I've been just citing the science and letting it go at that:
Hatcher's Notebook "The theory of recoil," Chapter XII, pp 293 ff, esp p295ff.
Take a centerfire revolver, lay a ruler on its sights, and you will usually see that the barrel points downward from the line of sight to compensate for this effect.
Terry, 230RN
