Felt recoil is one thing, actual recoil is another thing though right? When I shoot my t97 I barely feel any recoil at all even shooting 556 instead of .223 rem. It doesn't have any fancy comp or brake just a standard A2 birdcage. There was no push, no thump on the shoulder, nothing even when double, triple tapping. But I do notice the muzzle rise and fall in the scope so I can tell there IS actually recoil when the shot is fired. So I would regard that the t97 gives very little felt recoil but I know there is recoil nevertheless. I never tried to do some slow motion to see how much the muzzle flips up. That would be some interesting research to do come to think of it. That, compare to shooting my 12g with 00 buck I can feel the knock on my shoulder. In fact I can see the bruise on my shoulder every time I came back from the range with my shotgun.
I definitely 'felt' and see that recoil with the 00 buck.
WIth your T97, yes there was a push. That muzzle rise and fall is specifically because the rifle pushed against your body, which your body resisted, and then had to transition to upward movement.
Keep in mind when shooting, there is noise, there is light, there is smell, taste and feel. Most people are also excited at least a little bit by shooting, and so your mind has to prioritize inputs, with feel being about the least important. But thats the human science, on to the physics.
Lots of people use different terms. Recoil, Free Recoil, Actual Recoil, Apparent Recoil, Felt Recoil etc. all with different meanings.
Recoil Energy is the total amount of rearward push in the firearm, and is a function of the power generated by the cartridge and the weight of the firearm.
Recoil Velocity is the speed with which the rifle will move towards the rear in a presumed vacuum, although in reality this is an unhelpful number.
What seems to be largely unquantified is the shooters ability to resist or mitigate recoil through physiological structure, strength, and holding technique, but we can leave that for another day.
Recoil Energy and Velocity give you a recoil profile that could be short and hard, (donkey kick), long and soft (gentle), Long and hard (awful) or short and soft (snappy), and any combination in between.
Somethings on the firearm can absorb or slow some or all of the recoil energy before it is transferred to the shooter, like Breaks and suppressors, recoil pads, semi-auto actions, recoil systems, and even just the surface area of the butt stock can have an effect on how our body responds to the energy transfer. The bottom line being not all guns that produce 20 lbs of recoil energy are going to feel the same.
There would be a threshold below which each shooter would no longer 'perceive' any residual recoil energy, but that is not to say there is no "felt recoil" as there is still recoil being transferred to the body. Whether or not the mind notices is a separate issue.
IF you are particularly accustomed to heavy recoiling firearms, then you could quickly be impressed by the apparent lack of recoil by a lesser recoiling firearm, but thats like driving 100 kph for 10 hours and then 'feeling' like 30 kph is painfully slow. It is, but its not zero.
