Recoil

I made myself (I need to publish some for fun on youtube). They show the recoil of a heavy handgun (single shot or revolver) overcomes a human's ability to control it, at first. It's actually on it's way to smashing into your face (recoil force #1). Then your conscious reflexes get control of it (recoil force #2) and you "push back" on the forces (recoil force #3). In slo-mo it is clear to see and very interesting. A rifle sort of does the same thing but having it on your shoulder disperses the forces over your entire body, even to your toes! Plus there is no "push back" as with a handgun (recoil force #3). Rifle recoil is spread out over 200 lbs. of resistance vs 5-6 lbs. of the naked handgun and your arms.

The forces on the scope are the abrupt start and stop on the internal lens' and cross-hair adjusting mechanics. I have a Leupold scope M8 4X on my desk awaiting repairs with a de-laminating eyepiece lens. The forces over thousands of rounds sort of crushed the lens in it's mountings. (I guess)

O'l JD Jones makes those odd 3 and 4 ring aluminum scope mounts (never figured the aluminum part other than cost) and wrote that he found the scope body flex had a major play in scope life. The old gentleman may have a point. I try to spread the mounting rings apart as much as possible to help with this "tube flex" issue. The earliest revolver mounts were horrible with this, a ring on each side of the turrets. You are limited with space on a revolver but I think spreading the load out as much as possible can't hurt. I'm not really sold on multi-ring mounts but the principle seems reasonable.

Air guns (spring piston)are supposed to be some of the worst recoil. They abruptly recoil suddenly in one direction then slam to a stop in the other as the piston hits home in the air chamber. I have limited experience with them but hear the old "Weaver" K series was a sleeper value with airgunners for this trait. Sounds interesting.