What a switch's gram number actually tells you before you buy

Every switch listing carries a gram number, usually right next to the switch's name, and most first-time buyers treat it as the whole answer to "how will this feel." It isn't. A spec sheet actually reports two separate gram measurements, they describe different parts of the keystroke, and neither one fully predicts feel on its own. Getting this straight before ordering a hundred-plus switches is the cheapest insurance in the hobby.

This guide assumes a switch type is already on the table for comparison. For the step before that — choosing between linear, tactile, and clicky in the first place — see a beginner's guide to picking your first switch.

Two numbers, not one

Actuation force is the resistance the switch presents at the point in its travel where the keystroke registers — the moment the stem trips the contact (or, on a magnetic switch, crosses the sensor's threshold). Bottom-out force is the resistance at the floor of travel, when the stem has nowhere further to go. The gap between those two numbers is the resistance the finger still has to push through after the keystroke has already registered, on the way to the bottom of the case.

The catalog makes the spread easy to see side by side. The Gateron Magnetic Jade, a magnetic linear, actuates at 30g and bottoms out at 50g — a 20g spread, light at both ends. The Cherry MX2A Red actuates at 45g and bottoms out at 75g, a 30g spread — the widest of the five, which means a noticeably firmer ramp between registering the keystroke and finishing it. The Durock T1, a tactile, actuates at 55g and bottoms out at 67g. The Kailh Box Jade, a clicky, actuates at 50g and bottoms out at 70g. And the C3 Equalz Tangerine R2 actuates at 67g and bottoms out at 72g — a 5g spread, the tightest of the group, meaning once a finger commits past actuation there is almost nothing left to push through before the floor.

That last number is worth sitting with. A switch with a wide actuation-to-bottom-out gap, like the Cherry MX2A Red, gives a finger room to register the keystroke and ease off before the floor. A switch with a narrow gap, like the C3 Equalz Tangerine R2, does not offer that room — committing to the keystroke and finishing it are nearly the same motion. Neither is better. They're different shapes of resistance, and the single actuation number doesn't tell a buyer which shape they're getting.

Why heavier doesn't mean "harder to type"

The instinct is to read a higher gram number as "more effort," full stop. That instinct breaks down once travel distance and typing style enter the picture, because effort is a function of force and how far the finger has to carry that force, not force alone.

For a typist who bottoms out every key — the overwhelming majority of people, whether they realize it or not — the bottom-out number is doing most of the work in determining fatigue over a long session. Two switches with identical actuation force but a 20g difference in bottom-out force will feel meaningfully different by hour three of a workday, even though the spec sheet's first number looked the same on both.

For a gamer running a low actuation point, particularly on a magnetic or optical switch with an adjustable trip point and rapid-trigger firmware, the bottom-out number barely matters at all, because the finger is never asked to travel anywhere near the floor. What matters is how light and how fast the switch resets from a shallow press — the actuation number, in isolation, is a much better predictor of in-game feel than it is of typing feel. This is the core reason the same gram figure gets read so differently by a typist and a gamer looking at the identical spec sheet: they're weighting the two numbers in opposite proportions without realizing it.

Ranges worth shopping by use case

With the actuation/bottom-out distinction in hand, concrete ranges get easier to defend.

Light, fast typing. Actuation in the high 20s to mid 40s grams. The Gateron Magnetic Jade's 30g actuation sits at the light end of this band — a switch that registers with very little initial resistance, suited to typists who want a feathery first touch and don't mind that there isn't much cushion before the 50g floor.

General-purpose typing. Actuation in the mid 40s to mid 50s grams, which is where a large share of mainstream keyboards ship by default. The Cherry MX2A Red's 45g actuation and the Durock T1's 55g actuation both sit in this band, even though one is a smooth linear and the other has a bump partway down — proof that the actuation number alone doesn't tell a buyer which of those two experiences they're getting (more on that below). The Kailh Box Jade's 50g actuation also lands here, with the added caveat that it's audibly clicking every time.

Gaming with rapid trigger. Actuation at the lighter end of the scale, generally below 45g, paired with a switch built for a short, consistent reset rather than a dramatic bottom-out. The Gateron Magnetic Jade is again the clearest fit in this catalog, both for its 30g actuation and because magnetic switches are the ones rapid-trigger firmware is built around. Bottom-out force is close to irrelevant to this use case, since a well-tuned rapid-trigger configuration rarely asks the finger to travel that far.

Outside these three bands sits the C3 Equalz Tangerine R2, at 67g actuation. That's not a mistake in the catalog and it's not a switch to avoid — it's a switch for a specific preference: typists who like a heavy, decisive, no-cushion keystroke and who were never going to be well served by a "general-purpose" recommendation anyway. The point of naming ranges is to give most buyers a reasonable starting point, not to rule out everything that falls outside them.

The same number, three different feelings

Here is the warning this guide is actually building toward: the gram number says nothing about switch type, and switch type changes the felt experience of that number more than the number itself does.

The Cherry MX2A Red (45g actuation, linear), the Kailh Box Jade (50g actuation, clicky), and the Durock T1 (55g actuation, tactile) all sit within a single 10g band. A buyer shopping by gram number alone could reasonably expect these three to feel like close siblings. They don't. The Cherry MX2A Red's resistance rises in one smooth line with nothing to mark the actuation point except the keystroke registering. The Durock T1 has a bump built into the stem that the finger feels as a distinct event right around actuation — the "effort" of that switch is as much about pushing through a shape as it is about grams. The Kailh Box Jade adds a click leaf on top of a similar bump, so the same gram figure arrives with an audible snap that changes how deliberate the keystroke feels, independent of the force required to produce it.

Before buying on the number alone

A gram figure is a real, useful piece of information — it just isn't a complete one. Before treating it as a purchase decision on its own, check both numbers on the spec sheet, not just the first one. Work out whether the use case is typing (where bottom-out force dominates feel) or gaming (where actuation force dominates feel). Decide on a switch type — linear, tactile, or clicky — before comparing gram figures across types, since the number only means the same thing within a family. And if a tester is available, buy or borrow one and put a finger on the actual candidates before ordering a hundred of anything. The part pages for each switch carry both numbers side by side for exactly this reason; read them as a pair, not as a headline.

The catalog will keep adding switches with new gram figures attached, and the two-number habit scales to all of them without modification. A buyer who reads actuation and bottom-out together, and who treats the switch-type label as equally load-bearing as the gram count, will make a better call on the next unfamiliar switch than one who reads a single number and assumes it settled the question.