NFA items have never been easier to own, so we hit the range to test out the Spike’s Tactical integrally suppressed 9mm Mini-Recluse.
With zero-dollar tax stamps and a recent wave of deregulation on NFA firearms, factory-configured PDWs have made a big step into the commercial market. For many moons, a two-stamp solution for backpack, bedside, and truck guns was beyond budget and practicality for many of us.
In addition to the extra time and $400 worth of fed gov taxes, the need to snail-mail permission slips every time you wanted to cross state lines made such guns more burden than boon. But the bureaucratic landscape has changed significantly in the last year, and these guns are now a more viable option for situations where you may want more than a pistol, but less than a proper carbine.
Spike’s Tactical Mini-Recluse Specs
Action: Blowback
Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 30
Barrel Length: 6.75 Inches
Overall Length: 24 Inches
Weight (unloaded): 7 Pounds, 5 Ounces
MSRP: $2,495
URL: spikestactical.com
Features & Details
Spike’s Tactical is no stranger to carbines or suppressors. Their integrally suppressed Compressor upper has been around for years and has a complete legacy all its own. The Recluse project started out, according to Spike’s, as a passion project for a one-stamp integral PCC. Its success led to the development of the Mini-Recluse, a two-stamp factory SBR that embraces an integral 9mm suppressor as a stand-in for a proper subgun or personal defense weapon.
With a demure 6.75-inch barrel and a total length of 24 inches (stock collapsed), the Mini-Recluse can provide real firepower in a rather handy, if not hefty, package. The quad-rail handguard that’s wide enough to nest a suppressor isn’t exactly heavy per se but it’s chonky, as the kids would say. Just like anything else with a quad rail, you’ll need slightly larger-than-average hands if you like the C-clamp grip, and some kind of panel or cover if you want to employ said grip comfortably.
The Mini-Recluse eats from MP5 mags, which leaves us conflicted. It certainly adds a touch of class and offers relief from the doldrums of “one more thing that takes Glock mags,” but you pay for it with the loss of last round hold-open and additional cost for spares — which you’ll need since our T&E sample shipped with exactly one mag. At the time of writing, you couldn’t even buy them from Spike’s directly, though hopefully that will change soon.
Rounds Downrange
We ran a couple hundred rounds through the Mini-Recluse during our testing period. It ran just fine with 124- and 147-grain ammunition but choked repeatedly on cheap-o Turkish BPS 115-grain.
The recoil system is a standard 9mm AR-style affair — which is a nice way to say straight blowback — but with a couple of unique twists. First is the use of Spike’s signature ST-series buffer. Depending on the weight, these use either solid tungsten weights, or, in some cases, powdered tungsten. We’ve been using the latter style for years in a number of builds and find a noticeable difference in the felt recoil impulse with powder versus solid weights. The Mini-Recluse uses Spike’s T3 buffer, which weighs 5.5 ounces.
The other novel feature is the use of a variable pitch recoil spring. A standard buffer spring is uniform end-to-end, with each coil being the same distance apart from every other coil. In a variable pitch or variable rate spring, the coils are closer together at one end and spaced further apart as you look down the length of the spring.
Generally speaking, the closer together the coils, the stiffer the spring, meaning the more force required to compress it. Spacing the coils further apart makes the spring more flexible, with less force required to compress them. The variable pitch spring in Spike’s system is set up so the more tightly coiled end sits against the buffer, with the coils growing further apart as you move toward the butt end of the buffer tube. The idea is that more of the recoil force is absorbed at the beginning of the bolt’s movement.
By the time the bolt reaches the end of the tube (closest to your shoulder), it’s been gradually decelerated along its length-of-travel to create a softer felt impulse. We’ve used these types of springs in 1911s before, but this is our first time experiencing them in an AR buffer system.
If you already own an AR-style PCC, Spike’s sells this buffer/spring combo as a standalone product on their website called the Flatline Kit. We were so impressed with the result that we purchased a variable pitch buffer spring for one of our 5.56mm ARs. Having said all this, if you’ve run any of the other operating systems currently available in the PCC market (roller delay, radial delay, gas piston, direct impingement), straight blowback, special spring or not, is still punchy by comparison, and the Mini-Recluse is no exception.
According to our gauge, the trigger weight averaged between 6.5 and 7 pounds of pull. This is a little heavier than we’d care for, but the trigger pull is clean, with none of the grit or crunch you’d expect from a true mil-spec trigger. Just a little bit of stacking before the break. Paired with a Trijicon MRO in a Unity Tactical FAST mount, we were easily able to get hits out to about 100 yards with little issue.
Loose Rounds
We came into this review really wanting, and expecting, to love the Mini-Recluse. Alas, our time with it left us feeling … OK. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with it, but by the same token, we would’ve liked to see something a little more refined and modern — particularly for the $2,500 price tag. The full quad rail handguard, improved-mil-spec trigger, straight blowback action, and Magpul CTR stock all come together to make this gun feel very cutting-edge-in-2008.
We can understand that the width of the suppressor may not leave a lot of room for M-LOK T-nuts to clear the gap. But, from what we experienced, the rails themselves tended to act as heat sinks during extended or rapid firing cycles. The team at Spike’s definitely anticipated this, on account of the fact they include a Burn Proof Gear Rail Wrap with every Mini-Recluse. But using the wrap then limits the use of said rails for their intended purpose of accessory mounting. So, it’s a bit of a catch-22.
All told, the Mini-Recluse is a meat-and-potatoes PCC built around the proven AR-9 platform. We appreciate the extra thought put into building out the recoil system and the use of integral suppression, but it’s also not difficult to find more modern feature sets for equal or less money in today’s market.
Still, it’s a well-built, no-nonsense PCC with onboard suppression inside a short footprint — and that’s hard to complain about.
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