He was an onlooker. The range was all but empty. “Could I try that?” I had one cartridge left and handed it to him, with the rifle. Quickly he thumbed the cigar-size round onto the follower and stepped to a bench.
“Best stand,” I said, “so you can flex a little.” He nodded vacantly, hoisted the CZ and pulled the trigger. At the concussive blast, his shoulder convulsed. The muzzle flipped skyward as he stumbled back then fell on his fanny, hard. The rifle, now a 10-pound baton, sailed end-over-end into the grass beyond.
I retrieved it while the fellow picked himself up.
“Good golly!” he gasped. No harm to anything but his pride, it seemed. My .505 Gibbs had nary a scratch.
Isaac Newton described recoil when he figured out that for every action there’s an equal, opposite reaction. You can calculate the kinetic energy of recoil with this formula: KE = MV / GC, in which M is the rifle’s mass and
