Could the weight of the gun have an effect? I love my .50 caliber Hawken style muzzleloader. But I'm really small, and it's quite heavy, so I have to lie flat on the ground when I shoot it. but I feel almost no recoil. We also have a couple of 8mm. Mausers which I have to use the same way. Even though the muzzleloader and the Mauser have metal butt plates, I don't feel much. But I feel a lot more recoil with my 20 ga. shotgun which is lighter than the rifles even though it has a padded butt plate.

So could the extra recoil maybe be affecting the accuracy?

Yes.. its called inertia and it has a huge effect. Anytime I am dealing with a fast moving piece of machinery, I have to calculate inertia to know how much energy will be required to start and stop the motion of any moving parts. If you hook up a servo drive or other kind of motor, you can burn them out if inertia loads are greater than the components are rated for. In fact, to my knowledge, inertia would be the single largest variable in determining the amount of recoil.. (although I'm not sure off hand what the effect would be if the weapon was pointed straight down and you had gravity working with you) I'd have to work that one out.

That I'm not sure about.. As I have been told here in this forum that I am mistaken, I always thought the projectile was long gone before any recoil could affect accuracy.

As soon as the charge goes off, it starts pushing the bullet, slug, ball, what have you, down the barrel and pushing the gun backwards.

How you hold it makes a difference. When my husband taught me to shoot, he had me hold the gun with different grip. If you hold it too tightly, your muscle tremors, which you can't actually feel, can throw it off. If you hold it too loosely, it can bounce around when the charge goes off. You have to hold it snugly but not too tight and straight back against your shoulder. Your support of the forearm has to form a straight line back to your shoulder so when the charge goes off, the gun goes straight back.

My husband learned to shoot as a kid back in the Ozarks. But they taught him the same stuff in the Army.

At fifty yards it should be dead on if your aim is straight. Have to hold up around six inches at a hundred.

I have two 12g slug guns, rifled barrels, 3.5-9x50 scopes - I shoot both out to 150 yards regularly - I keep it 1" high at 100 yards, which puts it just about 1" low at 150 yards, and 9-10" low at 200 yards.

I normally only shoot 100-150yrds, and havent yet had to take a deer at "extended ranges" - but I know my limits should the opportunity present itself.

I only shoot high velocity slugs (XP3 or SST's) - and these slugs make a HUGE difference. If I were shooting the old Winchester SuperX cheapos, they'd be a foot low at 150 yards..

When they came out with the Partition Golds, I started shooting those, switched to XP3's when those were new....then finally migrated to Hornady SST's

I need to get a dedicated 12ga slug gun because I shoot a Winchester 1500 speed pump in 20ga and I pretty much exclusively run the super x or whatever they are. Haven't shot out to 150 but at 50 and 100 it's a dream. Just as good as any rifle I have at those ranges. But I am holding about six inches at a hundred. When you say a foot high with the super x I believe it. Even though I don't have a rifled barrel ill have to try out some high velocity stuff.

You'll need a rifled barrel! All the high velocity slugs are sabot style slugs for rifled barrels.

The more I increase the velocity in a reload when all other variables are the same, the lower the POI. A flatter trajectory is why. Some say recoil pushing up on a barrel before the bullet exits makes slower velocities shoot higher. However the higher velocity round of the same bullet weight and caliber has much more recoil and it still shoots lower. This is my personal experiences and not something I've read about.

All my personal experiences with the effect of recoil is the anticipation will make you miss. Bad shooting form affects accuracy as well. Control is VERY difficult since fractions of a degree off the mark equals a bad shot.

So you are agreeing that it has to do with how fast the bullet leaves the barrel? Or did I misinterpret that?

It's not anticipation for me.. I'm a big guy and recoil doesn't bother me much.. Now perhaps it is bad shooting form.. we have yet to see if that is it.. I still have my doubts because every other gun I have ever picked up (mine or borrowed), has been easy for me to shoot with.
And the reason I have such doubts is what you said next about "fractions of a degree off".. No human can hold something that steady.

I still think its the gun/ammo combo and nothing to do with me.. but, since there is overwhelming support suggesting bad form, I will try what they recommend.

Murby: "And the reason I have such doubts is what you said next about "fractions of a degree off".. No human can hold something that steady.

I still think its the gun/ammo combo and nothing to do with me.. but, since there is overwhelming support suggesting bad form, I will try what they recommend."


***Are you kidding me with that steady statement?! Must be, as I guess you haven't seen bench rest competitions where guys are shooting one hole groups at long distances. Maybe you also haven't seen these 22s with open sights that even a lot of kids are using that shoot one hole groups because they can hold so steady. A lot of competition shooters that are really into it can even control their heart rate to take that as much out of the equation as possible!

If you are .1432 degrees off center at 100 feet you will miss by a quarter of an inch. That is why bench rests are used in top level competition and the only way I sight my rifles. Then I hope like hell I can keep steady enough place good shots offhand.

I understand that part.. But what others seem to be suggesting is that the shooter needs to be able to prevent (dampen?) the recoil by holding the weapon firmly, and by doing so, you can somehow stop the weapon from moving that small distance that throws the shot off.

I just find that hard to believe. Not saying I'm right or wrong about it, but it just doesn't seem to make sense from everything I know about energy and motion.. And while my experience is centered around machinery that doesn't deal with any human interaction, I'm fairly certain a living person can't come even close to the accuracy and repeatability of a machine.

When I sight in my guns, I also use a bench rest or at least a bi-pod... As I did with the shotguns too.. its not like I'm standing upright holding the weapon. When I look through the scope, I can not discern any motion of the cross hairs on the target at 50 yards. Can't say that's true at 200 though..

And I can't imagine that a bit of shooting form error would result in a six to eight inch error at just 50 yards when I can shoot two hundred with a .308 with no issues.

It doesn't make sense, which takes me back to thinking its the gun or the ammo..

Lets just sum this issue up and be done with it for I am clearly seeing where this is NOT going. You are trying to compare apples to oranges and not getting the overall picture.
And yes, you can miss a target by 6-8 inches with bad form at such a short distance, if not completely. I see it all the time when teaching firearms classes that I do for my agency with new cadets that supposedly have firearms knowledge and experience.Even some of my snipers that I train I wonder how they got to that stage with all they were doing wrong.
You obviously have form issues that have been addressed here. You are going in circles with trying to analyze what people are telling you with FAR MORE experience in what they are saying to your question. As some one suggested, go to a benchrest match or two and watch and learn. You will learn volumes of what you need to be doing right as opposed to what you are doing wrong. And after you obtain several HUNDRED THOUSAND more roundsyou will see what we have/were trying to tell you.