Mercury Tubes

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I have never heard of such a thing!
I saw a brief picture of one somewhere,
might have been on this site in a posting but can't
quite remember.
They are used in the butt stock (wood) of a
shotgun to reduse recoil. I thought, that's pretty cool.

So my question is, do they work, or just another add-on
that only gives you a warm fuzzy feeling ?
Where or who sells these?
If they provide a noticable effect on reducing recoil
I might be interested, as long as there is no chance
of it leaking and they don't cost a couple hundred.
Can any of you nutz enlighten me on these ?
 
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h*tp://www.mercuryrecoil.com/

lot's of options with these puppy's....
they dont leak, welded stainless steel tube's and all that fun sort.
keep in mind tho they reduce recoil by adding weight more then anything so will you lose the balance of your gun by adding one?
 
Mercury Tubes in Shotguns

Hi, I will try to explain how the mercury tube works in a shot gun.

The steel tube that contains the mercury is not completely full. If you shake the tube you can feel the liquid mercury sloshing back and forth. I think there is a about a pound of mercury in the tube.

The mercury filled tube fits in the shotgun stock and the one pound of mercury puddles to the rear. At the instant the shotgun is fired, the mercury is simply resting in the tube. As the shotgun moves rearward with the recoil, the murcury now moves to the front of the tube and now the gun is one pound heavier with respect to the recoil.

By this time the energy of the of the shotshell is spent. The shotgun has now recoiled about half an inch an now weighs one pound more from an inertia standpoint. This extra pound now has to be accelerated to the rearward movement of the shotgun dissipating more recoil energy and making the gun gun more comfortable to use.

If the mercury did not move back and forth, you would have to add a lot more than one pound of weight to achieve the same results.

They work well.

Cheers,

Bill
 
Benelli Nova Mercury Tubes...

Here is a kit I have yet to install in a Benelli Nova.................

The backet fits inside the buttstock and the mercury tube fits inside that.

Cheers,

Bill

Mercury1.jpg


Mercury2.jpg
 
I bought two of them and put one on a rifle and one on a shotgun. After some experimenting I took them of both firearms. It was my experience they did little if anything more than the same weight of lead shot loaded into an empty shot shell hull and put in the same place on the firearm. However, recoil is a subjective thing! Friends of mine have them and say they work great.
 
Hi Moike,

The most important aspect of mercury tubes is the mounting angle. They have to be positioned so that at the "instant" of firing, all of the mercury is puddled to the REAR of the tube and therefore the weight of the mercury is NOT initially subjected to the recoil forces.

Only after the cartridge energy has been spent and the gun has began to move rearward does the weight of the mercury enter the recoil equasion as it moves to the front of the tube.

At the instant of firing the weight of the gun itself opposes the recoil. However with the mercury tube the gun meets a stationary one pound weight after about a 1/2 inch of rearward travel. This stationary one pound weight now has to be accelerated to the motion of the gun which depletes the recoil energy even more.

Cheers,

Bill
 
I used one in my target shotgun for ages. I don't know how much recoil it actually reduced. I used it primarliy for balance. I've been told that it is more noticable in high recoil applications (slugs and magnums).

Brad.
 
With mercury recoil reducers mounting angle and fill level is important, but fill level is generally set by the manufacturer.

If you are using a heavy firearm with loads that don't make the gun travel much, then you aren't going to see much improvement from the tube, because its effect depends on the mercury slapping up against the front of the tube when the gun is in motion, absorbing energy, moving backwards, and giving the energy up after the rifle has slowed down.

What it does, essentially, isn't recoil reduction, it's flattening the recoil impulse curve over time.

Obviously if the gun isn't moving much....then it's actually less effective than a solid weight. If you could tune the mercury tube by having internal baffles, or just less space so the mercury would travel a shorter distance.....but... I'd recommend against making/tuning a mercury recoil tube.

If you're shooting nothing but target loads, either just solid weight in the stock or a cutts compensator might be a better bet, but they too have benefits and drawbacks.

The weight will affect the handling of the gun, might compromise stock strength if you go overboard. The cutts compensator is an almost magical device, but does increase length and blast (noisy), can be very hard to get installed on a shotgun that has the mag tube flush with the muzzle (home defense guns), costs up to 200 bucks to get installed; and worst of all, some people think they look ugly, and we shooters are a vain lot.
 
Bobby Ironsights said:
The weight will affect the handling of the gun, might compromise stock strength if you go overboard. The cutts compensator is an almost magical device, but does increase length and blast (noisy), can be very hard to get installed on a shotgun that has the mag tube flush with the muzzle (home defense guns), costs up to 200 bucks to get installed; and worst of all, some people think they look ugly, and we shooters are a vain lot.
Click to expand...
Hey, I LOVE the "Briggs and Stratton" on my M12!!:p
Cat
 
Ok, Thx. for all the relpy's here.
Having read everyone's description and
experience with these tubes, I have dirived a
new question; at what angle do you want
to install one in the stock ? Front of the tube
slightly lower when the gun is held shoulder level . . ?
 
seems to me like a metal/plastic tube semi full of lead bead/shot installed correctly would have a simmilar, slightly less efficient result? anyone ever played around with that in a serious design?
 
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