Slide Lightening

[Rodbender]

Several custom gunsmiths offer different variations of taking metal away from the slide. Is there really a difference in recoil? Are these areas a place for a split to start? Is it worth the cost to have a gun with this done? Is there really a competitive edge for those that have guns like these?

Slide lightening began with the open guns because of the extra weight of the comp and barrel which slows the cycling of the slide down because the slide can not start cycling until it pulls the barrel and comp back and out of the way so slides were lighting to compensate for the extra weight. advantages to a lightened slide is it makes for a lighter gun and it dose cycle faster and guns recoil is over faster because the slide cycling faster counter act the felt recoil But one of the biggest disadvantage is that I have seen is that shooters that do not have a good stable grip tend to have more jams because the slide has less inertia this was once called rubber arming the gun.