1911 recoil buffers?

are these recoil buffers needed or usefull or are they a waste of time and money im willing to pay 7 bucks if they will extend the life of my gun but just wondering do to they work have any of yall ever tried them? thanks

I just tried my first one today. While I was shooting I didn't notice a single thing different. You can however feel a difference when you manually cycle the slide. It is a softer hit when the slide goes all the way back. And on my gun, I now HAVE to use the slide release to let the slide forward. Pulling back and letting go won't work, since the buffer doesn't let the slide come back far enough to disengage the slide lock.

I think it would be better to put in a slightly heavier recoil spring then what came from the factory. I wouldnt go to heavy as it won't cycle.

Yeah ,what he said....

Buffers tend to cause jams or fte,etc. If your gun is set up to have the correct weight spring for the loads you are shooting, there will be no wear to the gun due to slide to frame contact during cycling.

This is called tuning...and the reason wolff makes spring kits. keep changing out to the next size up heavier spring untill the gun fails to cycle correctly...then drop back to the previous spring that did cycle correctly.

of course this is done after you have a load worked up that works well.


Most factory springs are set to reliably cycle with most loads. I wouldn't mess with the recoil springs until you have put at least 300 rounds through it to break everything in properly.

that makes since i was reading about the trail boss loads in the new hodagon book they said with a min charge and a 180gr cast bullet the springs would have to be changed due to the light recoil wouldnt allow it to feed! it said the recoil would be the same as a 9mm im gonna get me some trail boss to load my 230 grain cast bullets with!

dartfreak75 wrote:that makes since i was reading about the trail boss loads in the new hodagon book they said with a min charge and a 180gr cast bullet the springs would have to be changed due to the light recoil wouldnt allow it to feed! it said the recoil would be the same as a 9mm im gonna get me some trail boss to load my 230 grain cast bullets with!

Sounds like a cool experiment.... did they recommend how many pounds to drop off the spring?....like from a 22# to a 18#? Or will you have to keep trying lighter springs until you find the sweet spot?

230gr is alot more than 180gr....do you have load data for trailboss using the 230gr bullet?

Keep us in the loop if you continue on this journey...

I have a Shock Buff kit in my .45 Gold Cup NM Series 80 which has a 22 pound spring as well. I used to shoot a lot of heavy 245 gr +P loads when I shooting competition in majors.

Since my pistol gets shot now with standard fodder I guess I could take it out and drop the spring back to stock (18?).

The pistol has seen a lot of rounds as I bought it new in 1989 and have shot it a lot through the years.

For those of you in the "good" & "sensible" states where you can own a suppressor and actually shoot the weapon with it attached (a gross misdemeaner here even if the suppressor and weapon are legally possessed).

I wonder if a Shock Buff kit will help the pistol or will it FTF with the suppressor mounted?

I had a Glock 20 that I loved that got sold in financial crises that I also put a Shock Buff kit in and it loved it with the stock springs.

My carry piece Glock 19 also has a Shock Buff kit with an aftermarket spring kit that seems to help tame some of the hotter +P 9mm ammo.

Tomorrow I will try to get some pics of the buffers in the Glock and the 1911A1 Colt NM so you can see the wear on the buffers.

Steve

(Edit: found the camera & took some pics)

Here is my Glock 19 with its Shock Buffer.


Here is my Series 80 NM Colt .45 with it Shock Buffer: