Rethinking revolver grips

[BillSWPA]

Put this in the category of little, basic details I wish I learned a lot sooner in my pursuit of shooting.

For much of my shooting pursuit, my thoughts on revolver grips were influenced by Bill Jordan's No Second Place Winner, a book that is still very much worth reading. While the equipment may have changed, the rationale and tactics have not. Jordan advocated a grip with a back surface having a single, convex curve to direct recoil into the palm of the hand, rather than a concave curve at the top which directs recoil into the web between the thumb and index finger. If such a grip fits, this makes a lot of sense. For a long time, this shape was a feature I sought when I selected revolver grips. I looked at the grips supplied by many manufacturers, and could only wonder what they could have been thinking.

Jordan was 6' 7" tall. I am 5' 8" tall, and wear a medium size glove.

More recently, doing a bunch of practice with my SIRT pistol has made me realize the importance of gripping a gun so that the barrel is lined with the longitudinal axis of my forearm when viewed from the top. This grip seems to ensure that the front sight is most likely to end up in the rear sight during a drawstroke. I also find that this grip helps me to squeeze the trigger straight back while minimizing movement of the gun.

The vast majority of my shooting over the past several years has been with semiautos, but I am beginning to revisit revolvers. In doing so, I discovered that the grips I had on some of my revolvers just barely allowed me to reach the trigger when the barrel is lined up with my forearm. I now find that for any gun larger than a Colt D-frame, I need a grip with an exposed backstrap. The original wood grips supplied by the manufacturer are going back on some of my guns, and I find that they are better than I used to think.

There are exceptions. The rubber grips formerly sold by Michaels of Oregon fit my hand quite well. The thin covering of the backstrap is an ideal marriage of recoil control and trigger reach, and the finger grooves fit my hand well. It has been a long time since I had a Ruger GP100 or SP101 in my hand, but I suspect that I would continue to like the factory grips as well.

I wonder how much more quickly my shooting would have progressed over the years had little details like this, and their importance, been learned sooner.

[JonInWA]

Bill, another nice, recently re-introduced option on the GP100s are the two Ruger rubber grips (full-size and compact) with wood inserts. That gives a user the ability to tune the index to your physiology, while retaining the benefits of the recoil-absorbing/dissipating excellent Ruger grips.

I've long been preferential to the compact GP100 grips, for they're combination of index, feel and concealability; but were I to shoot full-house heavy .357 magnum loads in mine for hunting or for the field, I'd consider going with the full-size grip (or at least experimenting with it with those loads). (My normal carry/competition loads for both my GP100 and Security Six are .38 Special 125 gr +P). With my Backhawk, however, which used primarily for hunting, I use exclusively 158 gr .357 magnum (or 9mm with the 9mm convertible cylinder) for both practice and hunting carry.

Best, Jon

[Malamute]

Ive always liked the dished spot at the top of the grip frame on Smiths, they keep the hand indexed the same all the time and keep the gun from rolling back when shooting magnum loads DA in the 29s.

The biggest problems Ive had with revolver grips has been the blocky feel that many factory grips have. The Smith target grips from the 50s to 70s in good examples were like night and day to me. I started filing on grips to try to duplicate the shape and feel, and is what Ive used the most. Nearly all aftermarket grips, including ones often well liked by many other folks, feel way too thin at the top rear, giving very narrow area to deal with recoil, which didnt feel good, and feels awkward to me. Guess it may be largely a matter of what youre used to after finding something you like at some point.

Several people have felt the grips Ive hacked up and commented about how different they felt from "normal" factory targets, some have said they were the best feeling grips theyve felt. I was just trying to copy the best feeling older ones Ive had on various guns. Oval-ish shaped, and not too thin at the top rear or too chunky behind the trigger guard and down the front strap.

I file the grips back to the red lines on front and back, file them back some where the arrows are and on smooth targets cut the bottom off about 5/16". Smooths give more room to shape them the way you want, the checkering often makes it hard to get the oval shape pulled far enough toward the center. The grips Lost River has on many of his Smiths look pretty similar to what mine end up like, but I'm not sure how wide his are at the top. think wider is more comfortable for taking recoil, but not being blocky at the back helps a lot with the feel.

[Sherman A. House DDS]

I'm 6'4" and I wear XL gloves. I have Jordan stocks (Pachmayr version) for K and N frames. I can handle the K but the N's are too big for me.

Stocks are very personal. Even gun to gun. I have a stick preference on Airweight J frames (UM Boot grip) that varies from the ones I use on steel frame J frames (PGS Hideout grips). I've found the best (for me) across the board are the old Rogers (Safariland) grips or the newer round to square conversion Hogue Monogrips sans finger grooves.


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[OlongJohnson]

I'm also 6'4" and wear gloves ranging from XL to "XXXL are still too small," depending on manufacturer. But yeah, big hands.

I like the S&W 500 grips, but the revolver I've shot the most is my GP100 with the Hogue NFG grip.


(Photo is Hogue stock photo, being used to positively discuss their product.)

I've done some minor tuning, mostly making a little more space for speed loaders and slimming the left side of the wraparound at the very top. I'm thinking about slimming the top on the right side a little bit, and maybe flattening the hump out of the backstrap a bit. I've realized that even though I'm hiked up to the top of the wraparound, I don't have as much pressure at the top of the backstrap to control recoil as I do with my semis.

I also keep trolling GB for a low price on a 6-inch half-lug GP, but that's another topic.

[revchuck38]

I'm 6'2" with average hands for my height, and have standardized on Craig Speigel Boot + grips for my K, L, and N frames. It's probably been ten years since I bought a set and I don't know whether he's still producing them. I can get by with Hogue Monogrips as a substitute, or the small size of Pachmayr Presentation grips. Anything with more material behind the back strap than the Pachmayrs is too much for double action shooting for me.

[Wyoming Shooter]

I removed the finger grooves from VZ 320 grips on a S&W 66. I find it much easier to get a proper firing grip on the revolver now. Best, ELN.

[BillSWPA]

Finger grooves are great if and only if they fit your hand. The finger grooves on the former Michaels of Oregon grips fit my hands quite well, and Pachmayr finger grooves are not a bad fit. Some guns come with finger grooves that are too big for my fingers, making it more difficult for me to get higher on the grip. Someone with big or small hands would probably dislike what I like.

I do find that filling in at least some of the space behind the trigger guard helps, one point on which I agree with Jordan's thoughts on grips.

[RevolverRob]

Ive always liked the dished spot at the top of the grip frame on Smiths, they keep the hand indexed the same all the time and keep the gun from rolling back when shooting magnum loads DA in the 29s.

The biggest problems Ive had with revolver grips has been the blocky feel that many factory grips have. The Smith target grips from the 50s to 70s in good examples were like night and day to me. I started filing on grips to try to duplicate the shape and feel, and is what Ive used the most. Nearly all aftermarket grips, including ones often well liked by many other folks, feel way too thin at the top rear, giving very narrow area to deal with recoil, which didnt feel good, and feels awkward to me. Guess it may be largely a matter of what youre used to after finding something you like at some point.

Several people have felt the grips Ive hacked up and commented about how different they felt from "normal" factory targets, some have said they were the best feeling grips theyve felt. I was just trying to copy the best feeling older ones Ive had on various guns. Oval-ish shaped, and not too thin at the top rear or too chunky behind the trigger guard and down the front strap.

I file the grips back to the red lines on front and back, file them back some where the arrows are and on smooth targets cut the bottom off about 5/16". Smooths give more room to shape them the way you want, the checkering often makes it hard to get the oval shape pulled far enough toward the center. The grips Lost River has on many of his Smiths look pretty similar to what mine end up like, but I'm not sure how wide his are at the top. think wider is more comfortable for taking recoil, but not being blocky at the back helps a lot with the feel.

What you described forming is very similar to the older Fitz Ten-O-Grips without thumb rests. Not quite as wide in the back as you are proposing, but very similar shape.






I bought these several years ago for a Colt D-Frame. They've been discontinued since the 1960s, but are easily the most comfortable pair of stocks, I've ever had on any gun, ever. Tapered in all the right ways, hand filling, and generally amazing.

I've thought hard about reproducing them to a degree, flaring them more at the top for a better fit in the web of the hand, and making them out of a proper material of course (Micarta/G10/synthetic of some type). The plastic these are molded out of is mediocre at best, it flexes a lot in the hand, and worst of all, it fits like shit against any given frame. My plan is to laser scan these stocks, these are D-Frames, so it makes sense to do that first, but eventually, I'd like to make these for K-Frames, N-Frames, and maybe even Ruger frames (which will require much more extensive engineering, obviously), scaling them as necessary, but also trying to not lose the feel of the stocks.

But I can promise this - No finger grooves! Ever.

[Malamute]

Ive thought about having some grips copied by 3D printing. It needs to be done with a good grade of material. The local hardware store does 3D printing of things, but the grade of plastic used isnt very dense.

Few more pics that show the shape from different angles. The one from the bottom you can see how much of the squared blocky shape is gone. Theres an L frame on the left, N on the right in the pics with two.

Wish I had a real camera, Id take some of the old smooth targets that are my all time favorites.