[pfgrone]

At a gun show, saw some "felt recoil reducers" for sale. Was considering getting one for my wife's 9mm. Are recoil reducers actually good products?

Anyone have an opinion from actual experience with one? Specific brands?
Paul G.

[boofus]

Is that just a fancy way of saying "compensator" ? :o

[PO2Hammer]

..or a shock buffer?

[sm]

Perceived Felt Recoil can encompass a lot of things:

-Comps, which I do not have a need for in CCW, or anything I do.
-Shock buffers, which I have used for range only in a 1911- and never use for CCW, or anything else.

Now some things that do have a bearing on Felt Recoil include:

-Rule of 96s
-Doubling up on Hearing protection
-Gun Fit to shooter
-Type of stocks or grip angle of handgun
-Proper training
-Physical attributes of shooter. Such as arthritits, any injuries (carpal tunnel, Ganglion cysts...) surgeries, age, building up hand, wrist, forearm strength...
-Best caliber for that person at said level of experience.

Proper training / lessons and shooting a variety of platforms and calibers before making a purchase...takes all the aforementioned into consideration.

[1 old 0311]

Mine is a PAST shooting glove.

Kevin

[RyanM]

There are a lot of goofy products out there that are supposed to reduce recoil. In general, there are three categories: weights, shock buffers/variable recoil springs, and padding.

Weights slow down the gun's recoil, making it physically softer. A gun's backwards momentum will equal the bullet's forward momentum, so a heavier gun will move slower for the same momentum. Usually minimal effect on reliability, unless you start weighing down parts that actually move when the gun fires, such as the barrel. For instance, some guns won't cycle properly with a suppressor in place, since the force of the recoil then has to tilt this big, heavy piece of pipe up along with the barrel. Downside is the gun weighs more.

Shock buffers and variable recoil springs (and I think there's some kind of magnetic recoil-reducing thingie for Glocks now, too, that fits in this category) don't actually change the momentum or velocity of the gun's recoil, but instead slow down the acceleration (how "snappy" the recoil is) by changing the way the slide moves. It's kind of like the difference between slowly accelerating a car up to 55 mph vs. a semi truck doing 55 ramming into a stationary car; you reach the same final speed either way, but one way is a heckuvalot more sudden, and thus a heckuvalot more painful. The downside is that they will adversely affect reliability.

Padding works a lot like shock buffers in that it slows the acceleration without changing the final velocity, but it works by slowing the rate at which the frame pushes your hand, instead of the rate the slide pushes the frame. This is usually the best route, since it makes a negligible difference to the weight of the gun, and won't affect reliability.