Recover Tactical S-Pro Conversion Kit [REVIEW]
Is it a pistol? Is it an SBR? We tested the Recover Tactical S-Pro chassis to see how this conversion kit works in the real world.
We review products independently. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a commission to help support our testing. Learn more.
Recover Tactical S-Pro Pros & Cons
Pros
- Modular Multi-Gun Design
- Quick Deploy Stabilizer
- Metal On Metal Optics Mount
Cons
- Initial Expense
- Optic Mount Sits High
The Bottom Line
The Recover Tactical S-Pro provides the most modular handgun chassis kit on the market, capable of housing a variety of guns. The Recover S-Pro kit provides a robust, modular handgun chassis that turns your handgun into a PDW, increasing range, stability, and accuracy.
If you’re looking to turn your handgun into a PDW, you have plenty of options, and the Recover Tactical S-Pro is just another one, right? Well, maybe not.
Handgun chassis kits are nothing new. They’ve been around forever and occupy a niche part of the firearms market that seems to be constantly growing. With constant growth, the market gets crowded.
The S-Pro promises to turn your handgun into a sleek, concealable PDW while offering a new degree of modularity. Does the S-Pro rise above the competition?
We plan to find out. Let’s toss a Glock into our S-Pro and see if this new, modular kit rises above the current crop of PDW conversions.
Table of Contents
Recover Tactical S-PRO Pistol Stabilizer Conversion KitTrending: Best AR-15s, Best Pistol Red Dots, & Ammo in Stock
Recover Tactical S-Pro Specs & Features
- Material: Glass-reinforced polymer
- Compatibility:
- Weight: Stabilizer brace with strap - 10.23 oz
Most chassis kits are designed for a specific pistol. It fits a Glock, or a Sig, or a Smith & Wesson M&P.
The S-Pro’s design does things differently.
It uses a common base that forms the right side of the chassis. From there, the user attaches a front and rear mount, which accommodates their specific pistol.
A user can purchase one base and then purchase additional front and rear sections to accommodate pistols. With that base, users can choose a stock for an SBR or a brace, an optic mount, and a forward grip that doubles as a magazine holder.
The brace or stock uses a push-button spring deploy design. Press a button, and it shoots out rearward and locks into place. What’s neat is you can start with a brace, and with an Allen wrench, you can easily swap the brace to a stock should you go the SBR route.
The base part is metal, and the optic’s mount is also metal. A metal-to-metal connection helps prevent chassis flex and ensures your zero actually holds zero under a little pressure. With that said, the kit can use the optic already mounted to your slide or your iron sights.
The optional front attachment provides a metal blast shield and a few M-LOK slots for accessories. At the bottom of the kit, we have a long Picatinny rail, and on the right side, we have another rail for accessories. You can attach everything from lights and lasers to cupholders and kitchen sinks.
The S-Pro and Pistol Chassis Economy
Handgun chassis kits have been around for a long time. We can arguably argue that the Mech Tech rifle conversion kits started the entire genre to a degree.
The Roni kits came along and allowed you to turn your Glock into a short-barreled rifle.
Then pistol braces swung in, and we saw these kits explode. Recover Tactical produced the 20/20 kit for years, and their claim to fame was a much less bulky, more refined kit that really embraced the PDW idea. The 20/20 kit was sleek, affordable, and released for a wide variety of different guns.
In a field of bulky, gun-encompassing kits, the 20/20 stood out. The new S-Pro aims to keep the sleek design, but add more modern features, fix some complaints about the 20/20, and provide a much more modular design.
The Recover Pro S-Pro At The Range
I used a Glock 17 Gen 3 as the pilot of this mech suit.
Installation is simple. One important consideration is to make sure the charging handle lines up with the slot in the base. You can assemble the kit incorrectly, and you’ll get a jamomatic.
How do I know? I did it! Luckily, it was an easy fix, and that was my only reliability issue. I chewed through right around 300 rounds of Monarch Steel cased ammo without any malfunctions with the Glock and S-Pro.
I used the optic’s mount paired with a Burris Fastfire 4.
The Best Gun Deals, Coupons and Finds
Subscribe to Pew Pew Tactical's sales and deals email.
One of the weird things about this kit is the optic’s mount. It attaches to the base and provides two M-LOK slots to which you attach a rail. I’m not sure why they went this route instead of just making the rail part of the mount.
This adds a failure point to the optic’s mount. M-LOK gets loose eventually. I’d prefer a one-piece rail and mount, or even a direct-attach mount with RMR/RMSc footprints.
Did I have issues with the rail staying on the mount? No, but I will be making witness marks to check and track for any looseness.
With the optic mounted, I did a 25-yard zero.
At 25 yards, from a rested position, I could create a 4-inch group with 115-grain 9mm ammunition. Is that great? No, but it’s better than I could do with a handgun and my mediocre skill.
I took the S-Pro and Glock to 50 yards and had trouble hitting a reduced-size 33% IPSC target. I was probably running around 50 percent. When I switched to a full-sized IPSC target and FBI Q, I had no problems dropping rounds into the chest area of the targets.
Like all of these kits, there is a little flex between the gun and the kit as it recoils, and a little flex means once the first recoil pulse is over, it’s moved slightly inside the kit. The S-Pro exhibits much less flex than other kits, but there will still be a little.
The S-Pro will certainly improve your accuracy over a handgun, but I don’t think it will ever match a dedicated PCC.
As you’ve noticed, the optic’s mount sits quite high over the top of the gun. That’s nice for a head-up shooting style, but it gives you a nice dose of height over bore when shooting. PDWs in pistol calibers excel at ranges from zero to 50 yards.
When we get close to the S-Pro and its optics mount, we have to account for height over bore to make our shots accurate and precise. When I tried a Bill Drill, I had to aim at the top of the A-zone to center my hits.
I can accept that with an AR that lets me reach out to 500 yards, but that’s a downside for a tool designed for relatively close-range shooting. I think a slide mounted on an optic would be the better choice overall for this kit. It would remove the height-over-bore issue and likely improve overall accuracy.
One thing I tried was removing the Glock from the S-Pro and reinserting, and checking the zero. I did it three times and didn’t notice any shift in zero at 25 yards.
In previous chassis kits, I noticed a zero shift when removing or reinserting the gun. The S-Pro holds the gun consistently enough to ensure this isn’t an issue.
9mm Ammo in Stock
Ergonomics: Fit and Feel
There are two parts to this conversation. We have the ergonomics of the S-Pro and the Glock inside the S-Pro. Let’s start with the S-Pro itself.
First, the brace button is conveniently placed at the top of the base kit. It’s big, easy to hit, but sits flush with the base, so a negligent discharge of your brace would be tough to occur. The brace can be configured for left or right-handed shooters, and there are two points to add a strap, or in my case, a shock cord.
Like most single-arm brace mounts, there is a fair bit of flex. You can feel it move and flex as your arm makes contact with it. It’s fine, but as long as you apply the same amount of pressure, you won’t have a problem.
Up front, we have the optional blast shroud. The blast shroud slides on the kit and locks in place. You remove the blast shroud via a button. The button doesn’t require much pressure to defeat.
Our Most Popular Posts
With that in mind, I wouldn't suggest resting your hand on the blast shield. It’s too easy to accidentally remove with just a little pressure. If you take the SBR route and attach a vertical grip, you’ll be fine, but just resting on the blast shield makes it too easy to press that button and slide your hand in front of the muzzle.
The multitude of rails allows you to place lights and attachments wherever you want it to be. There is certainly no complaint about a lack of attachment points.
How does it interact with your Glock? The rear attachment point does put a bit of plastic between your hand and your gun. You can’t choke up as high on the gun. Ultimately, it’s not an issue for recoil control, but it does make mag swaps difficult.
My firing hand thumb can’t quite reach the magazine release, and I can’t move my hand all that well around the grip due to the S-Pro. I learned to use my support hand to press the magazine release, which worked well, albeit more slowly than a standard handgun magazine swap.
The addition of a charging handle is basically necessary unless we are using an optic mounted to the gun as a charging handle. As a charging handle, it works well without breaking your position to operate the Glock.
Improvements We’d Like To See
I’d like to see two changes. First, lower the optic’s mount. That seems fairly simple, given how it attaches to the base of the S-Pro.
This will eliminate the height-over-bore issue. I’d also like to see direct-mount options, so I’m not stacking tolerances with an M-LOK-attached rail and a Picatinny adapter on my optic.
Second, for the blast shield, I’d change the push button method that allows it to detach. It’s convenient, but I wouldn’t mind a backup lock system to keep it from sliding off.
By the Numbers
Reliability: 5/5
The S-Pro doesn’t affect the reliability of your firearm, so it will depend on your gun’s overall reliability more than anything else.
Ergonomics: 3.5/5
The ergonomics are mostly fine, but be prepared to adjust how you reload and handle your handgun. It becomes a different platform.
Accuracy: 3.5/5
The S-Pro aims to turn your handgun into a PDW or large-format pistol. Part of the compromise of shoving your gun into a kit like this is the slight flex it experiences. The optics’ mount and height over bore issues are worth noting as well.
Customization: 5/5
You can shove a lot of stuff onto the S-Pro kit. Optics, lights, lasers, and whatever. Plus, with a Glock, you can swap a ton of parts inside the gun as well.
Value: 4/5
At $299, this is priced to compete with comparable kits, while offering a fair bit more customization, a slimmer designer, and a more modular overall layout. Plus, the quick-deploy brace is fantastic.
Overall: 4/5
The S-Pro might be the best chassis kit outside of something like the Flux Raider. It’s easy to install, increases accuracy, control, and effective range. It’s not perfect, but it’s a ton of fun.
Recover Tactical S-PRO Pistol Stabilizer Conversion KitFinal Verdict on the S-Pro
The S-Pro provides a modular chassis kit perfect for the guy or gal that owns a multitude of handguns.
It doesn’t beat a dedicated PCC, but it’s cheaper and doesn’t require an FFL to transfer it. This can be an effective and affordable way to dip your toes into the world of PCCs.
Is the S-Pro for you? What’s your experience with these chassis-style systems? Let us know below! We have more systems in our Best Glock Conversion Kit article!
How We Tested the S-Pro
I went through 300 rounds with the Recover Tactical S-Pro and the Glock 17 without problems, using the cheapest steel case I had.
I tested accuracy at 25 and fifty yards before closing the distance and trying a few fast-paced pistol drills.
Drills included the Bill Drill, the Failure to Stop, and transitions between multiple steel targets.
Meet the Experts
Travis Pike is a lifelong shooter and USMC veteran with thousands of hours behind guns. He is an NRA Basic Pistol instructor as well as a concealed carry instructor. He has reviewed nearly all of the chassis systems you see on Pew Pew Tactical and most recently wrote our best of article - testing out the conversion kits in that article.
Jacki Billings is PPT's Editor-in-Chief and edited this review. She applied the PPT testing standards she developed for PPT to edit the review, as well as her deep knowledge of Glock pistols that spans almost two decades.