spitfiremac
Inactive
Hi all, I'd like to throw a thought I had today at the hive mind and see where it sticks...
When the Glock 19X came out, I was one of the sneerers... the "Have they lost their minds?" crowd but now I'm questioning some of the conventional logic on long-slide race guns.
Mainly this... Does the lighter reciprocating mass of the shorter slide and the greater inert mass of the larger grip and magazine improve the flatness/anti-climb properties of the pistol over a conventional long-slide race gun? I'm thinking it might, but I don't have to be right on this, I'm just hoping for a good, dare-I-say-friendly discussion and hopefully a general consensus.
Let's start with what we know:
Long slide = long barrel = faster bullet & gases = more recoil BUT ALSO = possibly less unburnt propellant causing a softer blowback force
Long slide also = longer sight radius = more accurate sighting/shooting at distance = MAYBE also slightly slower shooting especially at near targets
Okay, so two things to deliberate here: How does the more unburnt powder affect recoil? Is a longer, more precise sight radius, also slower to sight in?
These are important in that these long-slide qualities could mitigate whatever advantage a short slide might bring to perceived recoil and follow up shots. Let's get back to that original question then... given that the slide mass reciprocates back on the user until a hard stop, and then back forward until another hard stop, all above a shooter's hand wouldn't it make sense to shorten it, giving it both less mass and leverage? You could even keep a long barrel and sight radius (mount the front sight high on the barrel.)
If there's an advantage I'd feel it would be the lessened mass of the slide, but also, consider a large grip and magazine. It would seem to me, magazine or not, that any stationary mass you could add to the frame/grip would help to dampen the forces pulling your hand back and up. Generally you want that weight to be forward, thus the barrel weights ala John Wick's P30... but any mass at all would still help, right? And a mag can't be consistent as you expend its contents down range, but any weight would still add to that inertia.
Whether there's something to that or not, we already know that a shorter slide area is anecdotally reported by many shooters as marginally preferable for fast handling and transitions to target, so that's a plus... as well as it's more convenient and usable for people in and out of really cramped spaces, so that rounds out the advantages that shorter slides, longer grips.
I think all those advantages don't meet up with the logistical and discretionary disadvantages of it in CC, but that's more personal lifestyle/preference. I'm starting to think that weird arrangement would make for a faster/flatter shooting gun, even if the bullets are neither faster or flatter.
When the Glock 19X came out, I was one of the sneerers... the "Have they lost their minds?" crowd but now I'm questioning some of the conventional logic on long-slide race guns.
Mainly this... Does the lighter reciprocating mass of the shorter slide and the greater inert mass of the larger grip and magazine improve the flatness/anti-climb properties of the pistol over a conventional long-slide race gun? I'm thinking it might, but I don't have to be right on this, I'm just hoping for a good, dare-I-say-friendly discussion and hopefully a general consensus.
Let's start with what we know:
Long slide = long barrel = faster bullet & gases = more recoil BUT ALSO = possibly less unburnt propellant causing a softer blowback force
Long slide also = longer sight radius = more accurate sighting/shooting at distance = MAYBE also slightly slower shooting especially at near targets
Okay, so two things to deliberate here: How does the more unburnt powder affect recoil? Is a longer, more precise sight radius, also slower to sight in?
These are important in that these long-slide qualities could mitigate whatever advantage a short slide might bring to perceived recoil and follow up shots. Let's get back to that original question then... given that the slide mass reciprocates back on the user until a hard stop, and then back forward until another hard stop, all above a shooter's hand wouldn't it make sense to shorten it, giving it both less mass and leverage? You could even keep a long barrel and sight radius (mount the front sight high on the barrel.)
If there's an advantage I'd feel it would be the lessened mass of the slide, but also, consider a large grip and magazine. It would seem to me, magazine or not, that any stationary mass you could add to the frame/grip would help to dampen the forces pulling your hand back and up. Generally you want that weight to be forward, thus the barrel weights ala John Wick's P30... but any mass at all would still help, right? And a mag can't be consistent as you expend its contents down range, but any weight would still add to that inertia.
Whether there's something to that or not, we already know that a shorter slide area is anecdotally reported by many shooters as marginally preferable for fast handling and transitions to target, so that's a plus... as well as it's more convenient and usable for people in and out of really cramped spaces, so that rounds out the advantages that shorter slides, longer grips.
I think all those advantages don't meet up with the logistical and discretionary disadvantages of it in CC, but that's more personal lifestyle/preference. I'm starting to think that weird arrangement would make for a faster/flatter shooting gun, even if the bullets are neither faster or flatter.