Herrett's Grips

When I bought that Bodyguard yesterday, it came with a set of ugly grips. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder and the more I handled the revolver, the more I liked the way it felt in my hands. As I inspected the grips more closely, some interesting things came into focus.

They're made by Herrett's Stocks, Inc and Herrett has been making gun grips for a long time.

These are wooden grips and I'd suspect walnut, but I'm not ready to bet on that. They're finely checkered but the points aren't sharp. The effect gives the grips a pleasing roughness without feeling "pointy".

The frontstrp is open and these stocks don't have a filler behind the trigger guard. Also, there's an additional 3/8ths inch of wood below the grip frame, which mean all three fingers of my hand can grip the stock.

The backstrap is covered in wood, which is something we don't see a lot of these days. The effect of the open frontstap and closed backstrap tends to move the grip back away from the revolver, just a quarter-inch or so. It seems to make the gun longer, increasing the length of pull, which is a measurement we don't often take with pocket revolvers.

I had seen Herrett's stocks before, but I've never owned any. From looking at Herrett's website, it looks like they make stocks the old-fashioned way, one stock at a time. You also order stocks the old-fashioned way, by printing an order form and sending it to them, either by fax or mail. They want a tracing of your hand, which tells me that they understand how the human hand interacts with a revolver.

I went to their website originally to try to see what type grips I had on this revolver. I have to admit that I still don't know what model I have, but they fit and feel good, so I'll keep them on the pistol. They may be custom grips and if so, that only deepens the mystery of this little revolver.