Not to be agrumentative, but I believe this thread is exactly on topic, especially since the relevant aspects are the physics involved and possible performance, while recoil and powder amounts used are irrelevant. Let me explain. Regarding the recoil, some here seem to be gluttons for punishment and combined with their recoil tolerance and desired results, recoil truly does not matter. I'm not saying that they don't have a limit, but their limit is not the same as some of us who have old injuries to deal with or just don't like recoil. So recoil is irrelevant in this discussion because recoil tolerance is so varied and is not a constant variable, which varies with different shooters, different stocks, different barrel profiles, gun weights, etc, etc.
Now to powder charges. We have varying "disposable" income levels here. Some of us are more concerned with the cost per shot than others, so that is also, once again, irrelevant due to being inconsistent. Just using myself as an example, I have less money left over for playing now that I have a mortgage payment, and a truck payment, and other bills associated with a house and life in general, than I did when I was living in the barracks (and making quite a bit less than I do now overall) but my only bill was a motorcycle payment, and insurance and gas for the bike. Back then, I had more guns than I do now, and a stockpile of ammo for them all, and went and shot them all every chance I had. I used to go through a minimum of 500rds of centerfire ammo per week. I can no longer afford to do that due to various responsibilities. Not a complaint, just a fact. Back then, I didn't care if I was shooting my .32 with a 20gr load of FFFG, or my .50 with 100grs, because I could afford to. Now, I still shoot, just not as much. But I don't believe that any of us has a place to say how much powder is too much for someone else to shoot per shot, especially since we are paying for our own powder, not anyone elses. Due to using my guns for hunting, I use the same load for hunting as I do for targets. That means 20 in my .32, 70 in my .50, and 80 in my .54. We all know I don't need 80grs to get that .54" ball through a piece of paper, but I use it so all my shots with this rifle have the same point of impact and I know what it does at all ranges out to my maximum hunting range.
Now I can't afford to feed a .62 enough powder to drive it as fast as I can my .32, .45, .50, etc, and wouldn't even if I could due to a bad shoulder, but I also know through experience with various weapons over the years that Spence and the others above are right where it comes to performance of larger/heavier calibers as opposed to the small ones. I have just as much fun shooting my .32 as I do my .54, but each has performance characteristics that make them better suited to some tasks than others. And we can't change physics just with wishful thinking. We also can't make the argument that one is flatter than shooting than the other unless we start out by leveling the field. The argument above sounds like someone saying that my .32 will shoot flatter with a 20gr powder load than my .54 will with the same 20gr powder load, we all know that. But what will give us a true comparison is loading to the same velocities, regardless of what the powder charge is that has to be used to achieve that same velocity. If we do this, the larger calibers will recoil more, but they will also shoot flatter over long range. This won't be noticeable over 25 or 50yds, but will start to make a difference at 100, and the further out we place the target, the more of a difference we will see in favor of the larger caliber.
