Rifle Shock Absorber

A rifle in two parts, connected by a shock absorber. One part comprises the barrel, sight, magazine, and firing mechanism. The other part is made up of the grip, trigger, and butt. Between the two is a shock absorber (spring-mass damper, rubber pad, etc.). The trigger uses a cable to carry a mechanical or electric signal across the shock absorber to the firing mechanism.

Rifles often have a shock absorber pad on the end of the butt. There is no similar protection for the grip and trigger portion that I am aware of. The design I propose would allow a soft shock absorber to be used, so the damper would compress by several inches during firing, greatly decreasing the shock of recoil. (Edit: use a damper that can compress by a foot or more.) With current designs, a shock absorber on the rifle butt must be stiff to prevent excessive gun motion.

For automatic weapons, an active control mechanism could vary the damping (possibly using magnetorheological fluid) for optimal damping.

There, I can forget about this idea, and think of happier things.

(Edit: The fishbones mean I didn't take this far enough. Imagine a small cannon, say 1 meter barrel length, with a magazine and firing mechanism similar to a modern rifle. To allow safe firing of this cannon, attach a 1 meter long coil-over spring+damper to the butt end. Attach a frame to the other end of the spring and, via bearings, to points along the coil spring and cannon. Add a shoulder pad and pistol grip to the frame for easy carrying of the ~50lb device, and add a flash suppressor that channels exhaust straight up to counteract the torque caused by placing the cannon above the shoulder pad. Now imagine that it is the weapon of choice for custard-hunting robot-cats from space. There.)