It’s trial & error, mostly the latter. I’d generally advise against setting linear physics but it seems justified for this very behaviour.
learn more stuff about Unreal’s physics
It’s getting replaced with a more intricate solution - Chaos. While the current system is usable, it is full of bugs that won’t be fixed; some are deal breakers, like material + destructible 
If you can’t fix those yourself, you’re stuck.
It’s a weird transitional period for physics. Whatever you learn on the math / logic side of things will be applicable later on anyway. But I’d lean towards learning the new system even though it’s not ready for production yet:
I’d like to think there’s a lot being done under the hood to address the issue.