As with most trends, things often come full circle, and this clearly applied to compensated pistols. However, the most recent iteration we’re seeing – compensated subcompacts or micro pistols – is a relatively new one.
Compensators themselves are not new. Their history extends back almost a century to the likes of John Dillinger running a full-size 1911 chambered in .38 Super with a Thompson foregrip in the 1930s. Then came the ’70s and ‘80s, when we saw compensated full-size guns in various action movies of the era, and now, even still, you can clock a compensated Beretta here or HK there.
However, taking a subcompact that is already relatively snappy to shoot and adding a compensator to it seems to be all the rage. For example, the market has the FN 509 CC or Sig Macro Comp – the former has a compensator that detaches, but the latter does not. Some companies, arguably, do it better than others; but should you want a compensated subcompact without a thread-on or after-market compensator, Shadow Systems dropped a new release – the CR920P.