By Mark A. Keefe, IV, Editor-In-Chief

  It’s not just the recoil that gets you, but your perception of it and your anticipation of the kick.
  With the ComforTech stock system, recoil energy doesn’t go away, but Benelli’s engineers have changed how it is transmitted to the shooter—and may just have found a cure for “gun headache.”

  I was doing something I promised myself I would never, ever do again. I was sighting-in the Burris 3-9X Fullfield II on a 12-ga. rifled slug gun from the bench without the aid of any external recoil-reduction device. No Caldwell Lead Sled, no nothing, just my shoulder. The last time I did it was back in the early 1990s when I was helping another editor (far senior to me in the Rifleman pecking order, obviously) test the then-new wave of shotgun slugs for accuracy at 100 yds. I fired hundreds and hundreds of slugs from the bench over the course of a few weeks. I was younger then, but I still felt a little punch drunk—suffering from “gun-headache,” which I’ll get to in a minute—concussed and flinching at the end of each range day.
  Immediately after finishing that project, I was assigned to shoot and write up the Anschutz Model 2013 Super Match .22 LR rifle, a 12 3/4-lb. .22 designed for Olympic competition. I gently began to squeeze the trigger, and before the round in the chamber went off, the rifle jumped. Now you know as well as I that a nearly 13-lb. .22 LR has no perceived recoil—especially before you pull the trigger. But I had acquired the worst flinch of my life from shooting those slugs.
  That experience came to mind at Florida’s Brady Ranch last year as I braced for the pounding from a Benelli Super Black Eagle II rifled slug gun firing a Federal 1-oz. Hydra-Shok slug at about 1400 f.p.s. from the muzzle. The trigger broke, the gun came back, and well, no flinch. I did it again and again until a massive ragged hole appeared in the exact center of the Birchwood-Casey Shoot-N-See target at 50 yds. And when I used that gun on a Florida alligator, the shot was within a quarter-inch of where I was holding at 15 yds. The result? One less problem alligator in central Florida, and no unpleasant aftereffect from 31.18 ft.-lbs. of free recoil energy. Much of the reason for that experience had to do with Benelli’s ComforTech.
  According to Newton’s Third Law of Motion “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” We’ve had good recoil pads for decades, and that technology has been improving in recent years, but do they really make that much difference? In a word, yes.

The Facts On Recoil
  Former American Rifleman Technical Editor Maj. Gen. Julian S. Hatcher best defined the three elements of recoil in Hatcher’s Notebook. “The first is the reaction which accompanies the acceleration of the bullet from a state of rest to the velocity it possesses when it leaves the gun; that is, its muzzle velocity. The second is the reaction which accompanies the acceleration of the powder charge in the form of gas to a velocity in the order of half the muzzle velocity of the bullet. … The third is the reaction due to the muzzle blast which occurs when the bullet leaves and releases gas, which rushes out and gives the same kind of reaction or push that propels a rocket or jet plane.”
  Recoil is the rearward velocity and energy developed by the gun upon firing a cartridge. It is a factor of the weight of the gun, the amount of the powder charge, bullet weight, and the type of powder used. The recoil impulse, free recoil velocity and free recoil energy are likely the most important factors in determining how hard a gun kicks. How these figures are determined can be found on our website at www.americanrifleman.org.
  To give perspective, an 8-lb. rifle in .308 Win. with a 150-gr. bullet and a 47-gr. powder charge at 2820 f.p.s. muzzle velocity generates a recoil impulse of 2.7 lb.-secs., a recoil velocity of 10.9 f.p.s. and a recoil energy of 14.8 ft.-lbs. An 8-lb. 12-ga. shotgun firing a 2 3/4" shell with 1 1/4 ozs. of shot over 3 3/4 drams of powder at 1330 f.p.s. at the muzzle has a recoil impulse of 2.01 lb.-secs., a recoil velocity of 16.6 f.p.s. and free recoil energy of 34.2 ft.-lbs.

Sound Mind And Body
  According to the Textbook of Small Arms, 1929, “As regards the sensation of recoil, it seems well established that the actual velocity of recoil is a very great factor. In shotguns weighing six to seven pounds fifteen f.s. [f.p.s.] has been long established as a maximum above which gun-headache is sure to ensue.”
  The kick that results when you pull the trigger—how you receive and perceive the recoil—is a mix of the physical and psychological. The kick you receive at the shot is based on not only the recoil impulse, recoil velocity and free-recoil energy, but also on how tightly you hold the gun, the way the stock fits, the stock design and your overall impression of whether you think it is a hard-kicking gun or not. It isn’t just the actual kick but also the premonition of what’s coming and how well prepared or experienced you are for it.
  “A sportsman feels the kick of his weapon much more when firing at a target than when firing on game, for in the latter case his attention is fixed on his quarry, and he performs the required movements automatically without bracing his body to resist the recoil,” so stated the Textbook of Small Arms, 1929. That said, from the bench when testing or zeroing, it is a monkey on every shooter’s back, mine included.
  “Gun headache,” in my experience, is that point—whether through stout recoil from a few shots or repeated pounding from a lighter-recoiling gun—at which the recoil is more than a shooter can bear physically, mentally or both. You may not be physically aching yet, but your shooting performance is degrading. Flinch is one of the most obvious symptoms, as is an actual headache. If we take 15 f.p.s. recoil velocity as the threshold for “gun headache” with a 7-lb., 12-ga., then it corresponds to 24.16 ft.-lbs. of free recoil energy.

Recoil, Redirected
  ComforTech (March 2004, p. 44) made its debut in 2003, and is a system of stock enhancements that do not change the laws of physics or the facts about recoil, but bends them to our purposes. Benelli’s engineers spent a lot of time, and even developed specific machines and software, to examine and measure recoil. They looked at how and where recoil affects the shooter and developed ComforTech to lessen perceived recoil. The energy is all still there, but Benelli changed how it is passed on to the shooter.
  Traveling from back to front on an SBE II ComforTech is the recoil pad, which from the factory delivers a length of pull of 14 3/8", although it is available in 14" and 14 3/4" lengths. The pad is almost mushy under recoil but returns to shape after firing, and it expands to a greater surface diameter under compression. It is contoured to fit the shoulder pocket, specifically for either left- or right-handed shooters. It has a thinner but deeper scallop on the strong side and there is a series of eight asymmetrical chevrons to aid in gripping the shoulder. Benelli’s tests have shown that instead of having recoil travel sharply through the screw holes, the heel and other “recoil hot spots” it spreads the recoil impulse evenly. So even if you have gone over the 15 f.p.s. recoil velocity threshold, it doesn’t feel like it.
  The polymer stock is hollow in most areas and has chevron-shaped, rubber dampeners on each side running from just behind the pistol grip toward the top of the comb near the heel. The entire stock shell actually flexes under recoil, and those inserts cushion the blow and spread the recoil evenly throughout the stock.
  The cheekpiece is the unsung hero of ComforTech. It’s made of a material developed for the medical industry to prevent bedridden patients from developing bedsores. While I don’t get many bedsores on my cheek, this is the place where “gun headache” usually starts for me. This insert cushions your cheek and absorbs and spreads some of the recoil vibration. But most importantly, it is slick and smooth, and the comb slides past your face under recoil. I’ve fired more than 1,000 rounds in a day from a 20-ga. Cordoba with ComforTech with no hint of recoil transmission through my cheek.
  The ComforTech system isn’t just for bird guns anymore, and it is offered on the Super Black Eagle II in 12 gauge, 3 1/2", the 12-ga., 3" M2 Field and Tactical, M2 Practical, the 12- and 20-ga., 3" Cordoba, the 12-ga., 3" Super Black Eagle II slug gun, the SuperSport, and the pump-action SuperNova. It is also available on gas-operated semi-automatic R1 rifles in .270 WSM, .308 Win., .30-’06 Sprg., .300 Win. Mag. and .300 WSM.

At The Range And In The Field
  While I used a wood-stocked non-ComforTech R1 in .308 Win. to take a nice Axis deer at just over 100 yds. with a Federal 150-gr. AccuBond factory load at the Brady Ranch, I shot the gun side-by-side with .30-’06 Sprg. and .300 Win. Mag. guns equipped with ComforTech. The non-ComforTech .308 Win. kicked, well, about as you would expect. The .30-’06 Sprg. with 180-gr. (20.4 ft.-lbs.) felt more like a .308 with 150-gr. loads (13.4 ft.-lbs.). As a matter of fact, it seemed at the time that the heavier .30-’06 loading was actually a bit less abusive than 150-gr. .308 load. Perception-wise, a ComforTech .308 Win. feels about like a .30-30 Win. To obtain the recoil figures for the guns I used in Florida, I fired an R1 with ComforTech in .30-’06 Sprg. and a 12-ga. SBE II slug gun over an Oehler Model 43 Personal Ballistics Lab to get the velocity and energy figures with one load each. I then calculated recoil impulses and recoil velocities, which are shown in the accompanying table.
  Benelli’s testing found 15 percent less muzzle climb and 20 percent faster recovery time with Federal 12-ga., 3 1/2" 1 3/8-oz. steel shot loads with the SBE II with ComforTech measured against an SBE without it. Again in Benelli’s internal testing, it found up to a 69 percent faster recovery time with competitive models made by other makers.
  Not having access to Benelli engineers’ sophisticated testing equipment—they were unwilling to fly it in from Urbino, Italy, just for me to play with it—I came up with a field expedient. At the clays range, with a PACT timer recording the time between shots on 30 fast simultaneous pairs of crossers set on automatic, my times breaking the second bird were an average of 24 percent faster with a ported and ComforTech-equipped Cordoba 20 gauge than with a similar 28"-barreled 20-ga. Benelli without it.

Multiple Impacts
  Last year I also went to Argentina’s Cordoba region with David Denies Doveshooting with the guys and cameras from “Benelli’s American Safari.” Over the course of four days, I fired a total of 6,147 shotshells from both 20- and 12-ga. guns, with and without ComforTech stocks. There was a difference. One morning I fired a 12-ga. Super Black Eagle without ComforTech and then switched to one with it. My percentage of hits improved by 14 percent. Was it because I was getting used to the flight paths and speeds or was it because I was able to follow-up more quickly and with less pounding? In retrospect, I believe it was a little of both.
  In addition to the actual recoil of each shot, there is cumulative effect. If we use just under 24 ft.-lbs. of recoil from a 7-lb. 12 gauge as an example, it is equivalent to having a 24-lb. weight dropped from a height of one foot on your shoulder every time you pull the trigger. So, on an afternoon that I fired 24 boxes, it was like getting smacked by that aforementioned 24-lb. weight 600 times.

The Bottom Line
  After shooting ComforTech guns quite a bit, it seems to me that the perceived recoil—what you think you are taking in recoil—is reduced by a minimum of three to six ft.-lbs. of recoil energy, perhaps more depending on the gun and load. Of course, this is subjective based upon my shooting experience, not science. Benelli’s engineers give the number at 30 percent, with up to 69 percent over some of its competitors. All the energy is all still there, but the system does an excellent job of changing how you perceive it. For going up a chambering in power, using a heavier bullet weight, high-volume shooting, or just not taking an unnecessary pounding, it works.

When it comes to free recoil energy, there is no free lunch; but Benelli’s ComforTech stock system, now in rifles and shotguns, can at least ease the perceived burden of shooting heavy-hitting guns.