Looking to tame your heater? Here we take a quick look at Vantage Point Armory’s pistol comps.
Comps on pistols are the hot new thing. But what if you already have a pistol and want a comp?
For the most part, it means a new barrel, a comp and perhaps even some pistolsmithing work to get it all behaving properly. And, if you’re doing this to a striker-fired pistol (anything not 1911, really), once the comped barrel is on, you can’t get it off without removing the comp from the barrel.
Instead, look to Vantage Point Armory. Their comps slide onto the accessory rail of the frame, match up with the slide and barrel, and provide a setup that doesn’t require comp-barrel surgery to remove.
The solution is simple, but it only works for some pistols. (They have a list with 10 very popular pistol models.) You use the lock bars and set screws that come in the kit. Slap the lock bars into the accessory rail slots, slide the comp on and bolt the comp rails through to the lock bars. That’s it. The comp now diverts some of the muzzle blast gases to tame recoil and reduce muzzle rise.
You can even, with some models, still mount a light onto the pistol once you’ve installed the compensator.
It’s A Soft Fix
This is not a perfect solution. (In reality, there is no such thing as perfection.) As a comp, it will not be as effective as one that is barrel-mounted. The needed extra clearance and gap from barrel to comp means you lose some effectiveness. But, for the $150 Vantage Point Armory charges for a comp, you cannot buy a barrel ready-threaded for a comp. Then, the comps will cost almost that much. And, with Vantage Point, you won’t need a pistolsmith to install it; you can do that yourself.
You will still have to remove the Vantage Point comp to disassemble your pistol. However, removing four setscrews to slide the comp off the rail is a lot easier than wrestling a comp off an extended, threaded barrel. The comp has been given a Cerakote finish, so it will scrub up without too much hassle, depending on how long you go between cleanings.
And, depending on the pistol you have, you can still fit the comped pistol into a holster.
This is one of those “wish I’d thought of it” ideas that, on second thought, has a lot of downsides for a comp maker. Downsides? The dimensions of the various pistols means Vantage Point has to account for the distance from rail to bore center, rail length, slide profile, slide contour and barrel movement on each and every pistol as an individual option (which they have done). Some pistols are easier than others. Glock dimensions are so alike that one of the Glock comps works on no less than five different 9mm models. But I don’t see them ever coming out with a “one size fits all” comp. It’s just not possible.
What is possible is getting a comp onto one of the listed pistols and even getting a light on there as well—without enlisting the services of a pistolsmith.
That’s a win in my book.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2025 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
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