A year or so back, VZ Grips provided me with their two grips for the Ruger GP100: Their Twister, which features a series of deep grooves to provide for increased skin contact grasping, and more aggressive G10 striations, resembling canvas. I chose it to be in black, with silver stainless steel hardware.
The second grip their VZ 320 grip, was noticeably smoother in texture, and without the deep grooving. Mine is in their black cherry color, with a burgundy base color and black or mahogany colored rippling. I chose for the hardware to be black for these grips.
Other than the color and texturing, the grips are identical in shape, somewhat resembling a modified birdshead profile, with a deeply niched backstrap tang. The frontstraps somewhat resemble an airfoil, coming to a rounded peak where the two halves join. Viewed from the front, they look like the prow of a ship.
I’ve shot both in matches and practices, the Twisters more heavily. My thought was that the deeper grooving and more aggressive surface texture striations would provide a more locked-in grip.
Although the smoother VZ 320 grips had acquitted themselves satisfactorily in an IDPA match previously, I had pretty much mentally placed them in the “pretty/BBQ grip” category feeling that the Twisters were superior for general use, particularly with hard-recoiling 158 gr .357 magnum cartridges. (They do look magnificent with the glossy black-blue custom blued finish on my GP100).
In re-examining the VZ320’s recently, at closer scrutiny I noticed some subtleties, such as the striation “checkering” in the fabric-like texture, which is deliberately more pronounced on the backstrap and frontstrap areas, the deep backstrap tang niche, and some very subtle thumb shelving at about a third down from the top of the grip on the grip sides.
I was also provided a quantity of 158 gr .357 magnum cartridges to test and evaluate from High Desert Cartridge Company; I’d been impressed with their .45 ACP and 9mm cartridges, and was looking forward to testing these (their 125 gr .38 Special cartridges will be tested in my Ruger Security Six). While I didn’t chrono the ammunition, High Desert’s owner stated to me that it performed in the 900 fps vicinity, midway between .38 Special +P and full-house 1,200 fps .357 magnum. I experienced no pain or blistering using it throughout the match day, going through some 120 rounds. It felt good, with very manageable pressure, muzzle flip and recoil characteristics.
https://highdesertcartridge.com/
Using a cartridge sizing block, I checked each individual round, and rejected 2 out of about 150 due to irregular sizing, and in use I had one with a high primer (making triggerpull difficult) and one initial primer failure to ignite; it detonated after a second hit, but I had to go “around the world” with repeated triggerpulls to reposition it for firing.
Others than these 3 failures, I found the cartridges to be excellent; exceptionally accurate and very clean burning. Allu used in the match chambered smoothly and ejected smoothly; Safariland spring-loaded Comp III speedloaders were used, with no loading issues throughout the match for reloads; the initial administratively loaded first cylinder was loaded with a Safariland Comp II.
I was Match Director for the match, and we had designed a six stage, minimum round 108 round match. Out of the 6, 2 required single handed shooting only (shooters were able to pick which hand, and could switch hands at any point if desired; reshoots if desired could be performed freestyle, provided single-handed engagement requirements had been first met).
While I’d previously been pleased with the VZ 320’s, I felt that the Twisters were probably a better choice; now I’m not so sure. Don’t get me wrong-the Twisters are flat-out excellent. But where I was previously a bit wary of the 32-‘s lighter surface texturing’s abilities to provide enough of a retentive contact gripping surface to handle .357 magnum loads, in reality they provided an excellent, stable and consistent grip, and also provided more than sufficient control with .357 magnum cartridges. Draw, indexing, grip and grippability, stability and facilitative of hand adjustments were exemplary. The grips were also very supportive and facilitative of hand movements involved in executing cartridge loading, ejection, and use of speedloaders in reloading.
The ergonomics of the grip are superb. The backstrap tang niche is perfectly positioned and deep enough to provide excellent support and steering, and the subtle side shelving is also perfectly positioned for my thumb and palm. The surface texturing and inherent “chalkiness” of the G10 material provide for both hand movement adjustability and hand lock-in. A very pleasant surprise was how effective the grips were in single-handed shooting; as Match Director we had two stages that mandated single-handed shooting (shooters’ choice of hand, and they could use either hand in the stage, or even switch hands as they felt situationally advantageous-as long as they shot single-handedly). The grip’s ergonomics and subtle texturing worked extremely well for me in these single-handed shooting stages.
In short, the VZ 320’s just work, and are much more than just an aesthetically pretty face. Their relative smoothness also is nice for concealed carry, precluding concealment garment grasping/bunching/printing. While aesthetically quite attractive, they are also exceptionally ergonomic and fully ready and capable for carry and duty.
VZ also has more aggressively textured similar grips for other platforms, and I look forward to discussing adding such to the GP100 VZ G10 grip lineup, but these smooth 320s are excellent, just how good and effective they are in use, and in use under competition-induced stress came as a very pleasant surprise to me; I have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending these for consideration and use with a GP100.
Similarly, I was pleased with the High Desert Cartridge Company’s .357 magnums. The ones provided to me for the testing had some surface blemishes and were considered seconds, but operationally the same as their firsts. However, with any re-manufactured or reloaded cartridges, I recommend checking each individual cartridge for sizing and primer fit/positioning before use (and it’s not a bad idea to do this even with factory new cartridges). Their performance and price-point provide an excellent value for practice, training and competition use.
Best, Jon
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Originally Posted by Flashman
Thanks!
