Point of impact

[hughd]

"If the bullet is hitting that high there are two things that you can do to bring it down".
 1) reduce recoil to keep the muzzle low before the bullet exits with a lighter bullet.
 2) increase the velocity to get the bullet clear of the bore sooner as the muzzle is rising.
Have always had trouble with this... Can someone explain why increasing velocity would not also increase recoil?

Thanks, Hugh D.

[coyotejoe]

It will increase recoil unless the increased velocity is achieved with a lighter bullet, loading the same bullet to different velocities will not make much difference in point of impact unless we are talking extreme differences in velocity. It doesn't take much difference in bullet weight to make a substantial difference in point of impact. When you combine a lighter bullet with higher velocity the point of impact will be lowered considerably.

[Catfish]

Your not quite right Joe. I use to shoot alot of 44 mag. I mainly shot 2 loads, a jacket HP pushed to the max. for hunting and a lite loaded cast bullet for plinking. Both were 240 gr bullets. With my 7 3/4 in. barrels and up the hot loaded hunting bullet would alway hit alot higher than the cast. With my 4 in. barreled gun the cast bullets hit higher than the hot loaded jacketed bullets. So you have to put barrel lenth in to your formula also.

[coyotejoe]

No, you have to put jacketed versus cast bullets into the formula. For whatever reason I don't know, cast bullets always impact lower than jacketed of the same weight and velocity from both rifles and handguns. I do agree that the difference in point of impact is greater with longer barrels due to increased barrel time.

[Lloyd Smale]

sorry guys but ive shot enough to know that cast bullets of the same weight dont allways shoot lower then jacketed if shot at the same velocity. Now if your talking the same load and arent factoring velocity into it maybe a bit lower because cast bullets will allways shoot a bit faster then jacketed. The reason a faster load shoots lower is apon the shot the barrel is recoiling and the faster the bullet gets out of the barrel the less that the riseing barrel can effect the bullet. Its also the reason lighter bullets shoot lower. The lighter bullet causes less recoil (muzzle flip). Barrel lenght comes into play here too. For example my 4 inch 500s tend to shoot different weight and velocity  loads closer to the same poa then my 5.5 inch 500 does. Same goes for my short barreled 44 mags and 45 colts. Main reason is with a shorter barrel the bullet has less time going down the pipe. When talking really big loads in guns like my 500s or 475s i even notice that bigger loads seem to recoil less out of a short barrel. Youd think it would be the oposite because of the heavier weight of a long barreled gun but shooting one of my 4 inch 500s along side of a 7.5 inch 500 i notice quite a bit of differnce in recoil. Another thing that effects this is grip design. Shoot heavy loads out of a blackhawk type gun and point of aim changes and recoil sensations are bigger then they are out of something like a bisley that is a better grip frame for controling muzzle flip. Another factor that comes in here is the natural tendency to grip a gun tighter that has really big recoil. The tighter your grip the less muzzle rise your going to get and the lower your impact will be. Also one last thing that throws a monkey wrench into all of it is that differnt bullet designs tend to hit to differnt points of aim even with the exact same load and weight. So you cant just shoot one or two loads and make a written in stone opinion.