I'm looking for a word.

reverberation?

Concussion, perhaps?

Thud. Booming thud. Or the suggestions above. It might be more than a single word and one that succinctly describes the sensation. I reckon a short description might be better than a single word.

What is happening, I call "overpressure." It could be called whatever works. Pressure recoil. Sympathetic compression. Backblast.

C.bronco said:

reverberation?

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I vote reverberate. That's the word my mind immediately went to while reading your description.

Repercussion?

Jolt??

Buffet???

pandora1983 said:

I vote reverberate. That's the word my mind immediately went to while reading your description.

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I don't think reverberate works at all. Reverberate means a lasting effect, a noise or activity that continues.

That sudden shock from a cannon, doesn't last, it's an almost instantaneous shock wave. In know from firing and being around cannons and other firearms, and from standing in the wrong spot when someone else was firing them, that, technically, the shock wave is blast overpressure, but when it hits something, or someone, it affects, damages, or even kills, by concussion.

What a person feels is concussion caused by blast overpressure.

Chris P said:

Concussion, perhaps?

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Not perhaps. Chris nailed it. It's concussion. Why fight perfection?

Shock wave, pressure wave, detonation wave. You can see it travel out from a bomb blast faster than the expanding gasses of the explosion itself.

When a bullet hits flesh at high speed it creates hydrostatic shock (shock through liquid) that punches a big hole in the meat and slams the nervous system. A shock wave hitting a body could have a hydrostatic effect on the nervous system.

Wikipedia has some terms under shock wave that may help.

Yup, vote for concussion, as the force that causes the effect is referred to as a concussion blast.

Percussion

Recoil for a rifle butt hitting you in the chest or shoulder.Sometimes also called "kick."

Blast, concussion, percussion, recoil, shock wave, compression wave etc. for the force that radiates away from an explosion.

Btw, with large explosions, these can actually kill people or animals. When that fertilizer plant blew up in West, Texas, I remember reading about this. It's called barotrauma in modern medical terminology, but I don't think they'd use that term in a world that's still fighting with cannons.

I third (or fourth or fifth or whatever we're up to) 'concussion'. For sound alone, 'report' is the word you're after.