I understand what bump stocks do from reading up on them, but I haven’t found an explanation of how they work. They allow firing a semi-automatic weapon more quickly by using recoil to move the rifle back and forth (“bumping”) against the trigger finger. What I don’t understand is what is different in a bump stock compared to a regular stock. In my mind, I envision a big cartoonish spring in the bump stock that moves the rifle back forward after the initial kick from recoil. How does it work exactly?
In: Physics
Think about bouncing a basketball.
A manual rifle (e.g., bolt action) is like a ball that doesn’t bounce. You have to pick the ball up to drop it again.
A semi-automatic rifle is like a ball that bounces back up to your hand. You still need to push down again to keep the dribble going, but the ball has essentially reset itself.
A bump stock is like a basketball with extra bounce. So now, you just need to keep your hand in the same place and the ball will keep dribbling.
A bump stock does this by taking the energy of the rifle’s kickback and using it to move the trigger away from your finger and then shoving the trigger back into your finger.
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