Thursday, January 28, 2016

Get a Grip.

My son is talking about grips on his J-frames, and this is a good enough time as any to talk about such things.  Grips on a handgun are important, simply because it is how you hold the darned thing. Natural pointability is very important in a handgun, along with the ability to soak up recoil.  A grip that fits your hand is more likely to properly point the gun than one that doesn't.  A properly fitted grip will seem to transmit less recoil impulse than an improperly fitted one.

Pretty grips may be important to some, and we all want our handguns to look nice.  To that end, we spend money trying to find the proper grips for our handgun.  Whether semi, or revolver, single or double action, hammer or strker fired, if the gun doesn't fit your hand, you're less likely to hit with it.
When I'm instructing a new shooter, I try to let him or her use several different grips, to find the one that fits them best.  Fit matters, and I can't stress that enough. Let's take a look again at part of my collection.

The two on the left are my fast-draw revolvers.  They're both Uberti Cattlemen, but the grips are perceptibly different.  The brass framed grip is just a little larger than the steel framed grip.  Milady could use my steel-frame in a pinch, but the brass frame is simply too big for her hand.

Milady's revolvers are on top and bottom.  The one on top is a Traditions (made by Pietta) and has white PVC grips.  Milady bought in new in August, and fell in love with it immediately on taking it from the salesman.  It fits her hand perfectly. She bought it on the spot because it fit her hand so nicely.

Her other gun is on the bottom, the Ruger New Vaquero with the green grips.  Out of the box,, that revolver had nice rosewood grips, but it was too large for her small hands.  We looked around and settled on a pair of Ruger Gunfighter grips.  Standard black plastic with molded checkering.  They were still too large, so I sanded them down to fit her hand, but they were ugly. She fixed the ugly by simply painting it with fingernail polish and two coats of clear. Now, it fits her hand and is distinctive.She gets a lot of comments at shoots on those green grips. They fit her hand, and they look great.

The revolver in the middle is grandson Zach's gun, also a Ruger New Vaquero.  Originally, it too had Ruger rosewood grips.  After some trials, he opted for standard Ruger Gunfighter grips.  As he grows, he'll probably need larger grips, and I've kept the original rosewood grips that came with that gun.

This is just a small example, on one type of handgun.  Luckily, we have a large selection of aftermarket grips from which to choose.  Lots of companies large and small making grips. Find a pair that fits your hand and you'll notice that the gun shoots better.

1 comment:

Charlie Mitchell said...

Absolutely.
And we guys ( Um... me) need to learn to let our wives and daughters pick their own firearm. It has to feel right to the person doing the shooting.