The Importance of Recoil Control to Shooting Performance

[Doc_Glock]

Go shoot some drills with both and report your splits.

My best splits with a Glock 9 are in the .15/.16 range, and sub .20 is common, to an A at 7. I can’t do that with the 44.

G44 splits 0.20-0.21, G19 0.24-0.25 That is about as fast as I can go.

[TCFD273]

Sorry for the distraction, but I totally don't get why this gun is a big deal. Is it a John Wick thing?

No worries. I’m a closet 1911/2011 guy. I don’t shoot or carry them very often anymore, but still love them.


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[Doc_Glock]

Extreme example:

Imagine a laser pistol that put holes in a target but did not recoil at all. Is that harder or easier to shoot than a 9mm pistol?

I don't think there is an argument that less recoil makes for better shooting. Equipment that recoils less is simply always going to be easier to shoot well, GJM's experience excepted.

It also emphasizes how important learning to control the cycling of the gun to return the sights to zero as repeatably and quickly as possible is. I expect the software solutions to this are more impactful than the various hardware solutions, but I don't think hardware solutions are necessarily useless.

[Doc_Glock]

Sorry for the distraction, but I totally don't get why this gun is a big deal. Is it a John Wick thing?

I have been told the thing recoils like a .22, but is a service caliber gun.

[Clusterfrack]

I have been told the thing recoils like a .22, but is a service caliber gun.

Heavy metal 9mm's can be soft shooting, especially with minor PF loads.

[GJM]

G44 splits 0.20-0.21, G19 0.24-0.25 That is about as fast as I can go.

That would suggest that the limitation for you, in terms of shooting faster, is recoil control, not trigger control. Probably good to figure out what you can do to improve your recoil control.

Between the full size grip, weight and trigger, my 17 is a more shootable gun than my 44, even considering the difference in caliber. There might be some things you can do to your 9mm Glock to make it more shootable.

[Doc_Glock]

That would suggest that the limitation for you, in terms of shooting faster, is recoil control, not trigger control.

Your experience suggests the opposite for you: you seem to be limited more by the trigger weight/travel of the 44 than by recoil control. In fact at this point you seem to be so recoil agnostic that your splits are more affected by trigger mechanism/weight/travel than the cycling of the gun. I find that interesting and inspiring.

[Alpha Sierra]

Maybe I'm missing something, but why are we talking about fast splits? To me recoil control means that the gun returns reasonably quickly (~0.20) but more importantly it returns to the same spot in a highly repeatable way.

+1
I'll take .21 - .23 splits with a tight cluster at 10 yards over .17 - .18 splits with a 50% Cs and Ds at the same distance any day and twice on Sunday

But .17 splits make you look cool

[CCT125US]

Recently switched my USP9C v7 LEM to v1 Da/Sa. While comparing this to my P30v1, it returns more consistently, and with less effort. I am shooting with a higher degree of what I'll call sustained accuracy. It requires less input, and allows me to shoot better, longer.

[MGW]

+1 I am a high risk patient for getting lazy on the grip with lighter recoiling calibers. That's a thing to be watchful for. I've seen it manifest a few times when breaking out my G22 and being very focused on winching down that grip and seeing improved hits without a measurable speed penalty. Then I have to back and apply that learning to the 9's.

I think I might have this tendency too. If I shoot a 1911 for awhile I find that I can pick up a 17 and shoot it really well. It doesn’t take long though and I start throwing shots with the Glock. I’ve always assumed it had more to do with trigger control than anything else. But maybe it’s the grip strength difference needed to control 45 compared to 9mm. I haven’t owned a 21 in a long time but it would be interesting to see if the same thing happened after shooting one of those for a couple months and then switching to a 17.