Let’s just call a spade a spade. Despite what some shooters might tell you, 9mm is not a hard-kicking cartridge. In fact, even restricting the scope of the statement just to handgun cartridges, it’s pretty light as recoil goes.
And yet, recoil is one of the things (along with muzzle flip) that fatigues a shooter and whips the sights around, disrupting the sight picture. Even a strong, seasoned shooter could benefit from less recoil and minimized muzzle flip if the goal was to place a lot of shots not only accurately but quickly.
So, this brings up the question of how one industry-defining pistol, the Laugo Arms Alien pistol, takes recoil reduction to the next level, and primarily through a lower bore axis.
Here’s what you should know.
What Even Is Bore Axis?
There’s more than one way that the Laugo Arms Alien pistol reduces recoil, but the heavy hitter here is a ridiculously low bore axis. It produces amazingly low recoil in this pistol and also keeps muzzle jump under control.
Of course, all of that is not much use if we don’t know what it is, so let’s put that under the microscope.
Think of bore axis as an imaginary line that runs through the perfect center of a gun’s barrel, the middle of the bore, starting at the breech at the back of the chamber, running out the muzzle.
This is the bore axis. It is also, in theory, the path that a bullet would take, if it were perfectly loaded in the cartridge, and if there were no bullet drop. It certainly does correspond roughly to the path the bullet takes while it is in the barrel, at least.
Now, because of this, we can consider how the force of felt recoil affects a shooter. Since recoil is primarily a product of muzzle energy, the higher the muzzle energy, the higher the felt recoil. But that has nothing to do with bore axis, right?
Mathematically, felt recoil is felt recoil. But, when we introduce bore axis, how you actually experience that changes.
Imagine yourself holding a handgun, and that the handgun’s barrel is 2 inches above your grip. That is a high bore axis. Now imagine how the force of felt recoil will translate to the experience.
The gun becomes a lever, and your wrist the fulcrum point. The higher the bore is above your wrist, the more leverage that force of felt recoil has over your wrist. So while the quantitative force of felt recoil is fixed, it gets magnified through the mechanical advantage of leverage.
In layman’s terms, the higher the bore axis, the more recoil you will actually experience, if you hold every other factor equal.
Now imagine the same exact gun, but with a barrel that was lower, only 1 inch above your wrist. The recoil you experience will actually not feel as severe, if you hold everything else constant.
Also, we need to consider muzzle flip here, because the effects of muzzle flip are magnified even more dramatically with a higher bore axis than are the forces of felt recoil.
This is why the Laugo Arms Alien pistol is so revolutionary, or to be fair, it is one of the reasons that it is. It has the lowest bore axis in the world. Not only is it not just low, it is actually not even above the shooter’s wrists. It is below the shooter’s grip, by 1.7mm.
The result is an amazing reduction now just in the force of felt recoil, but in muzzle flip. That translates to big things with a sporting pistol like this, because it not only reduces shooter fatigue, but it also minimizes muzzle flip, keeping the sights trained on target for faster, more accurate and more confident follow up shots.
What Else the Laugo Arms Alien Pistol Offers
A low bore axis may be the primary recoil-reducing feature of the Laugo Arms Alien pistol, but rest assured it is not the only feature that makes this a great gun.
Among other things, the Laugo Arms Alien pistol:
- Is built around a gas delayed blowback action, which slows down the movement of the slide and reduces recoil.
- Sports a non-reciprocating top rail, so that the sights do not move during firing. This feature not only reduces recoil but helps keep the sights on target.
- Is made with a low-mass slide that further reduces recoil.
- And has a low center of gravity.
All in all, this Laugo Arms Alien pistol is a game changer. That should be apparent.
Interested in Learning More?
Want to learn more about the Laugo Arms Alien pistol? Take a closer look here on our website or get in touch with us directly. We would be more than happy to help.
