It's Not Just The Kick

Playing with GURPS: Gun Stats has brought one stat to the forefront.

Rcl, or recoil.

At first glance, this is how hard a gun kicks and you'd think that the more it hurts your shoulder, the higher the Rcl should be.

But...

The game effect of the Rcl number is how hard is it to get a second shot on target.

A bolt gun is going to be harder than a double rifle because you have to work the action.

A semi-auto gun has moving parts that might make the gun move more and make it harder to get a second shot on target, even if the action absorbs some of the pain transferred to your shoulder.

I was calculating some of the big game rounds and noticed that a break open action had significantly lower ST and Rcl than a bolt gun.

Case in point: .375 H&H.

It's a good example because we can still get double rifles in it, as well as bolt guns.

A Winchester Model 70 Safari is 8.5 lb. loaded and has ST 11, Rcl 5.

A Chapulis Iphisi is 9.3 lb. loaded and has ST 10, Rcl 3.

The difference in mass is not the deciding factor, but the change in constant from 0.5 for bolt guns and 0.25 for break-opens.

Despite the RoF 1 for the bolt gun making it seem like there's no reason for the Rcl value, there are rules for firing faster than the Rcl number suggests.  All that manipulation of the bolt comes to the foreground there.

A double gun, however, just needs you to pull the other trigger.

Gun Stats significantly alters the ST and Rcl requirements of some guns down to the point where it's conceivable that an averagely stat'd big-game hunter could fire two rounds with good effect.

Gun Stats is generating ranges that are more in line with what I've read about African hunting than what High Tech said they should be too.