The laser intensity dependence of the recoil energies from the Coulomb explosion of small argon clusters has been investigated by resolving the contributions of the individual charge states to the ion recoil energy spectra. Between $$10^{14}$$ 10 14 and $$10^{15}$$ 10 15 W/cm$$^2$$ 2 , the high-energy tail of the ion energy spectra changes its shape and develops into the well-known knee feature, which results from the cluster size distribution, laser focal averaging, and ionization saturation. Resolving the contributions of the different charge states to the recoil energies, the experimental data reveal that the basic assumption of an exploding homogeneously charged sphere cannot be maintained in general. In fact, the energy spectra of the high-q show distinct gaps in the yields at low kinetic energies, which hints at more complex radial ion charge distributions developing during the laser pulse impact.