Why does recoil go up and not down on a gun?
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The barrel of the gun is above your hand, so the forces are backwards, and up.
(You could hold a stick in your hand, and push back on it, and you will feel the same forces)
Ideally, you would be able to hold a gun so the barrel is in the middle of your hand and recoil would be straight back, but that isn’t possible (at least on a handgun), so generally the goal is to have the barrel as low as possible.
Recoil doesn’t go up, it goes back (opposite of the bullet).
However, when a person’s hand is below the barrel holding the gun, it creates a pivot point around at the hand and the barrel gets pushed back when the gun gets fired
Recoil is backwards and two things happen for pistols and long guns.
With a pistol, as the force is applied backwards, your arms are locked so this impulse cannot move back, so is diverted. Your wrists can bend upwards much easier than both hands moving left or right or down. So your wrists “buckel” upwards.
Rifles are much more controllable as your shoulder cannot buckel and divert the force elsewhere so is sent just backwards. This is why recoil is so reduced even though more force is applied.
Recoil is toward the back along the barrel, typically the barrel is at the top of the weapon slightly above the center of mass because things like handles, stocks, magazines, etc all are below the barrel, so when fired this creates a torque the causes the end of the barrel to rise. It’s a little more complicated when you factor in how the weapon is held, but generally this just shifts the pivot point to your wrist or shoulder. It would be entirely possible to design a more balanced weapon where the recoil comes straight back, or to even have the recoil push the barrel down.
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If you put a compensator on a pistol or rifle, the cutouts will direct the expelling gas upward and send the recoil of the gun downward. They are designed to combat muzzle climb
It’s the hand grip adding mass to the over all shape, making the centre of gravity below the barrel, thus the recoil creates a moment to make the gun spin counter clockwise = up.
A lot of answers focus on the hands, but not all guns are handguns and this happens even when the gun is sitting down on something and nobody is touching it.
Guns recoil back along the line of the barrel.
Most guns, a lot of the gun hangs below the barrel (stocks, grips, magazines, etc).
That means, compared to where it balances, the barrel is on top of that.
If the barrel is on top, and it goes back, then it makes the whole gun want to spin upwards some amount (not all of it) because the bottom parts of the gun don’t want to move.
The hands/shoulder/etc is just more holding the bottom parts and keeping them from moving, making the gun spin more and faster.
That spin is call ‘muzzle flip’, and is what you are thinking about going up.
But, if you were to change how the gun works, or, say, hold it upside down, it could spin down instead of up.
Many people here have pointed out that recoil doesn’t in fact go up, but back, that is true, but can be misleading. **Felt** recoil tends to go up because the bore axis of the gun is above the grip. It means that the gun will try to pivot upwards. If you think about someone pushing directly on your extended fist it will be pushed straight back. However if you’re holding a stick in your hand and the person exerts the same force on it, that force will rotate your hand instead of simply pushing it straight back. The same applies with a gun.
If the bore axis was in line with your hand you would feel it straight back. If it’s above your hand, the muzzle will try to rise. If it’s below it the muzzle will try to go downward.
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a4c4c67031f7262c47c9b23abeddbd9f-pjlq
Notice how the barrel is over the pivot point. If recoil moves perpendicular to bullet it moves directly back. Since recoil occurs above pivot point it rotates about the pivot point
Edit: to add I do recall watching a gun youtuber where they had some new gun that had a barrel lower towards the pivot point and there was a pretty significant decrease in angular recoil. Currently trying to find video
Edit 2: found that demolition ranch compared a 357 mag revolver against the chiapa rhino and there’s a noticeable difference in kick pattern because the barrel is lower and more in line with the pivot point
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