My own experience has been there seems to be less muzzle flip in the Shadow Orange with the buffer installed on a metal guide rod vs a regular Shadow Polymer Guide Rod (no buffer).
The difference there isn't just buffer vs no buffer. It's also metal vs polymer guide rod, and simply having the extra weight of the metal guide rod out front affects how the muzzle moves. If you want to test buffer vs no buffer, you'd have to use a metal guide rod in both cases.
I'd also suggest that how muzzle flip
seems is to some degree a function of how recoil feels, so simply doing something that makes recoil feel softer can create the impression muzzle flip is less, and maybe it is, but maybe it isn't. You'd have to take video with a camera from the side to determine how much difference, if any, there is in muzzle flip.
THEN there's the REAL question:
Does it matter?
The only importance of any of this is whether or not it functions to decrease split times. There's this intuitive impression that softer felt recoil must equal faster splits, or that less muzzle flip equals faster splits, and we spend a ton of time online talking about felt recoil. BUT the only thing that equals faster splits IS faster splits.
And the only thing you can measure that with is a shot timer.
Whether or not the recoil buffer reduces muzzle flip is irrelevant. Whether or not it reduces split times is what's important.
And generally speaking, if a modest decrease in recoil improves your split times, you have a weakness in grip and/or stance (most shooters can improve dramatically in this regard). If you employ good grip and stance,
modest differences in recoil should have no observable impact on split times.
