When you’re shot by a bullet, you don’t actually get knocked backwards. You simply crumple on the ground. Hollywood wants us to associate guns with tremendous physical power – it’s as if being shot is akin to being punched hard, or shoved. A bullet is a streamlined, hard object which focuses a large amount of kinetic energy onto a small area, but has relatively little momentum due to its small size in comparison to a human, meaning it has little ability to drive an object back. A boxer's fist, on the other hand, has far more momentum and a much broader contact area. The much higher pressure will cause the bullet to impart massive stress to a tiny area, causing it to penetrate rather than shove backwards; conversely, you are unlikely to see a boxer put his fist through his opponent's torso because of the very low pressure caused by the large contact area. High-powered rifles just make the bullet still more likely to go through the target rather than be stopped and have to shove it back. Still, if someone is wearing body armor they might bounce backwards a bit.
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