if anyone's interested enough to read the best thing ever written on recoil, he should get the a-squared manual and read that chapter. the different aspects of it are explained more thoroughly and - importantly - more correctly there than the over-simplified articles i've read anywhere else. i no longer have it but my recollection is one example used was a comparison of a 378 weatherby and a load in some big sharps round. both had the same kinetic energy of recoil. but due to ACCELERATION (back to force again here, not KE) the weatherby was far worse in FELT recoil because it occurred so much more rapidly.