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Scientific testing confirms the intuitive relationship between recoil and accuracy. In 2017, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory conducted a controlled study to quantify how subtle differences in recoil energy affect shooter performance. They found that “recoil condition did… influence shot placement, with accuracy decreasing as the energy associated with firing increased.” In other words, even with trained shooters and only slight changes in recoil, higher recoil resulted in worse accuracy (larger shot dispersion). Interestingly, the study noted that shooters maintained similar split times (rate of fire) regardless of recoil, suggesting experienced shooters could work around recoil in terms of timing, but could not avoid its effect on precision . This backs up the common wisdom: recoil makes accurate shot placement harder. The study underscores that recoil management is not just about comfort but measurable performance – as recoil energy went up, groups opened up.