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Age VS Recoil

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  • birddog

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    Mar 4, 2008
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    nunya
    Hard to define by “age”. Strength and muscle mass and tone are more relevant than age.

    A buddy (86 years old) can no longer tolerate the recoil of a shotgun or rifle on his shoulder. He struggles racking the slide on his 1911 as well. He uses a revolver now.

    My dad (almost 90 and tough as nails) wouldn’t have an issue with either one.
     

    benenglish

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    Nov 22, 2011
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    Hard to define by “age”. Strength and muscle mass and tone are more relevant than age.
    Quoted for truth.

    My sister is a good example. She's in her mid-60s with overall health that can generally be characterized as "You're still alive?" Her arthritis was diagnosed in her teens and has reached a pain level of "just about unbearable." After her last extended hospital stay in 2018, her cardiac team told her flatly that she'll never be able to do much more than walk to the mailbox and back. When she tries, she has to stop and rest at least once. Additionally, her doctors have told her that her bone density and strength is so compromised that (yes, they literally told her this) she has the potential to break bones just by sitting still sitting in a chair.

    In her late 20s, she brought home lots of trophies with her favorite 7x47 with no trouble. Back then, my .30-30 pistol was the limit of what she could withstand and it left her bruised and sore for days. Nowadays, a Glock 17 is as much recoil as she wants to handle and I have a Beretta .380 with the tip-up barrel waiting for her when she decides that she needs less kick or can no longer manipulate the slide.

    Obviously, things change over time.

    I'm about to be 59 and have arthritis but it's mostly my back that suffers. One of the few times I've experienced next-day soreness after shooting a handgun was when I fired 5 or 6 rounds from a 4-inch .500 S&W using factory 700-grain ammo. That stuff is brutal and my wrist was sore for a couple of days.

    The worst-kicking handgun I've ever shot was a J-frame S&W Scandium snubby chambered in .357 Magnum, loaded with max pressure 170-grain hunting ammo intended for large frame revolvers. While it didn't produce the sort of deep-in-the-wrist next-day soreness I got from the .500 mentioned above, two shots were enough to produce bleeding injuries to my hand. I don't ever want to shoot one of those things again unless it's loaded with .38 Special 148-grain target wadcutters or ammo even milder.

    I'm interpolating here but based on my history, I'd say my days of shooting 160 full-power 240-grain .44 magnum loads during a day of competition are over.

    The worst-kicking handgun I own is a Competitor CP-1 in 7.62x39. I quit shooting it almost 10 years ago. The bad design of the pistol (bad for recoil, not in any other way) means real pain on the first shot if you don't know what you're doing. If you do know what you're doing, real pain sets in after about 20 rounds.

    My hardest-kicking rifle is a 6-pound .340 Wby. The stock design is quite good. With factory loads, I won't fire it from a bench. From standing, it's a sharp, hard smack to the shoulder that is no longer fun after 10 rounds. If I didn't wear glasses with cables, I feel sure my glasses would come off. It doesn't, however, leave me sore the next day as long as I remember to limit my shooting to 10 rounds a day with factory ammo.

    As to the OP question - I expect to be able to use 10mm pistols as long as I'm alive.
     

    karlac

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    76th year here and no big problem with recoil on a rifle, but I do notice a tendency to grab for the .38 special wadcutters when shooting my EDC J frame as I've gotten older.

    Have a friend who was cautioned against shooting anything over .22 LR due to detached retina's.
     
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