Hi Denver Shoulder Pain,
Buckling Column Gel is certainly an interesting material but like any material some people will do well with it and some won’t.
The thing that’s most unusual about it is that it has what could be called a negative compression modulus. Compression modulus is the rate that a foam becomes firmer with deeper compression. The equivalent with a spring is called spring rate. With buckling column gel instead of getting firmer when you compress it more deeply like foam materials … it starts off firmer when it’s not compressed and the gets softer when the columns buckle under pressure. Different types of foam and different designs of innersprings all have a different response curve (there is a little more about this in post #2 here). A forum search on “orthogel” which is used in the Nexgel mattress or on “intelligel” used in the Intellibed, or on somnigel which is a newer version that is used by several manufacturers (you can just click the links) will bring up more forum comments about them.
Most foam materials and innersprings get progressively firmer as you compress them so the initial compression is softer than when you sink deeper into the material. With buckling column gel it’s the other way around and the firmer resistance would be with the initial force and then when the columns buckled the resistance would become less. This allows the buckling column material to stay firmer under the more recessed parts of the body while it allows for deeper penetration into the material under the pressure points. This allows the more recessed areas of the body to support more weight and re-distributes the weight away from the pressure points.
Of course the buckling column gel is only one of the layers and the feel and performance of the mattress would also depend on all the other layers both above and below the material. They also have a somewhat unique “feel”.
If there is a retailer near you it would certainly be worth testing.
There are now three manufacturers that have different versions of buckling column gel. One is Intelligel and one is NexGel (now owned by Spring Air / Sommex since Natura went bankrupt) and Leggett & Platt now has a version called Somnigel which is being used by King Koil and several other manufacturers in their mattresses. There is a little more information about them in post #7 here and in post #2 here.
The Intellibed site has a retail store locator here and NexGel has a contact page here so you can find out if there are any retailers in your area that carry either of them so you can test them in person. King Koil also has a retail store finder here.
I’m not sure whether either of them will give you the specifics of all the other layers in the mattress which may be more difficult to find out.
Phoenix