Originally Posted by Jordan Smith
Originally Posted by T_Inman
Originally Posted by Jordan Smith
the heavier the internal part, the more force is applied to it to get it to accelerate at that rate.


This makes sense but also the heavier the internal parts, the more they resist acceleration due to a given force...right? I always get confused on these things.

Yeah, sort of. The heavier the part, the more force it takes to get it to accelerate at a given rate.

To really explain it, we have to break it into two parts. First, consider the scope and rifle as a single object. A certain fixed amount of force gets applied to the rifle in the form of recoil. Well, I think it’s fairly intuitive for most here that the heavier the rifle, the less it accelerates due to that fixed amount of recoil. A heavier scope makes the rifle/scope object heavier, so it accelerates less under recoil.

Now, for the second part assume the rifle/scope is accelerating at a given fixed rate. For a heavy part to accelerate at the same rate as a light part, more force is applied to the heavy part. As mathman correctly pointed out, the strength of the fastening system of the part, relative to the force applied to the part, is what determines whether the fastening will let go or not.

So the factors that contribute to scope durability are overall heavy weight, and strong internal fastening systems relative to the weight of the internal parts.

A simple analogy would be someone driving a car. The engine (like the rifle’s recoil) has a fixed amount of power it can apply to accelerating the car with everything in it. If the car with its contents (rifle/scope system) weighs more, it’ll accelerate slower than if it weighs less. Now take one particular item in the car (like an internal scope part). The car and its contents accelerate at a given rate, and if that one item inside is heavy, let’s say it’s the driver, then the seat will have to apply more force to accelerate the driver at that given rate than if the driver was lighter. And if the strength of the seat is insufficient compared to the weight of the driver, the seat will collapse and the driver will break loose inside the car (like an internal part breaking loose inside the scope).


Thanks. I get the internal scope part analogy and certainly understand that the momentum of said parts can cause issues under recoil, but I am not a physics person...it seems that with a given force, a heavier scope (or scope parts) would both accelerate and also resist that acceleration more.

People say a heavier rifle soaks up recoil more than a lighter rifle...and thus kicks less. I see the same logic confliction here as a heavier rifle (assuming enough recoil is there to get it moving) would both kick more due to more momentum and also resist that momentum more, and thus kick less.

I dunno......