Originally Posted By: sumrifleOriginally Posted By: 2muchgunIt sounds as if the gunshop owner considers the 270 and 30-06 to have similar recoil levels. They don't, IME.......
If you shot a .270 with a 150 grain bullet and a 30-06 with a 150 grain bullet at the same velocity I am guessing you could not tell any difference......
A .270 with 130 grain bullet and a 30-06 with 165 or 180 grain bullet there would be a noticeable difference. IMO.....
sumrifle,
You are right on both counts. The 150g .270/.30-06 comparison is within a fraction of a foot pound with the .30-06 being a tiny bit less.
This thread got me interested, and I'm thinking about maybe upgrading from a .243 to something a bit heavier for deer if I enjoy my first deer hunt (I expect to enjoy it and the meat a lot), so I modeled a bunch of loads in QuickLoad which also has a recoil calculation. Keeping the rifle and bullet weight the same I modeled .300 Savage, 7mm-08, .270 Winchester, .30-06 Springfield. I also modeled the 7mm Rem mag with a 130g bullet but it still has noticablly more recoil than the .30-06.
QuickLoad gives two values for recoil. The first is the recoil before the bullet exits the muzzle which is the least one could experience even with a muzzle brake which doesn't do anything till after the bullet exits. In practice the Muzzle brake isn't quite that good. The second is the recoil due to the high pressure gas exiting the muzzle and turning the barrel into a rocket headed back towards the shooter. The muzzle brake deflects this gas back toward the shooter (which is why it is so loud) and tries to rocket the barrel away from the shooter reducing recoil.
I also used QuickTarget (which is included with QuickLoad) to look at the terminal velocity and energy at 300 yards which turns out to be the approximate point blank range on deer sized targets (+/- 3" from line of sight) for most of these cartridges.
I haven't had any luck trying to import a table so I'll just type in the numbers:
Recoil values are foot pounds before bullet exit/after bullet exit. Terminal conditions are Terminal Velocity (ft/sec)/impact energy (ft-lbs) at 300 yards. This is all model data, not actual range measurements, so absolute accuracy may be off a few percent but the trends are valid. rifle weight was 8.5 lbs in all cases. Bullet weight was 150g in all cases. In each case I picked the domestic powder that gave the highest muzzle velocity out of a 26" barrel. I intended to use a 24" barrel but had been doing some analysis of magnum cartridges which seem to like longer barrels and didn't notice I hadn't changed it till I was done. Values would be a bit less from 24" or 22" barrels but not a lot.
.300 Savage Recoil 7.65/11.8 Terminal conditions 2100/1474
7mm-08 Recoil 8.27/13.36 Terminal conditions 2216/1631
.270 Win. Recoil 10.73/18.0 Terminal conditions 2281/1733
.30-06 Spr. Recoil 10.3/17.36 Terminal conditions 2211/1620
The .300 Savage looks pretty good to me for my situation. I'm in PA, the deer aren't very big, the ranges are almost never as long as 300 yards, and the recoil looks like it would pleasant enough for a 67 year old to shoot that it would make it to the range for practice along with the varmint rifles (a good thing).
Fitch