Wonder how much better the GP might have done if the massive hand-swallowing Hogue had been swapped out for one of the styles more favored for CC?Originally Posted by URIT
I read all three of the articles. It's interesting that the G19 comes out at or near the top in all three. Still a good default starting point.
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Not another dime.
The Hogue grip, visible in the illustration of that GP100, is most certainly a bad choice for many hands, and not just female hands. Those finger grooves seem to have been intended for oversized make fingers. IIRC, the palm swell is also shaped for someone with quite large palms, and therefore too low for smaller hands, but my memory is a bit fuzzy on that part, by now. One thing is certain, I passionately hate the Hogue finger-grooved grip for the GP100 grip, made by Hogue, and I wear male glove size L, as I have long but not wide palms, with some long-ish and some medium-ish fingers, with short pinkies and thumbs. (Yes, I am a male, with girl-ish pinkies and thumbs.)
It is not a simple matter of grinding or belt-sanding the rubber. I tried that with a Hogue grip for an S&W revolver, and quickly reached an inner skeleton, made of slippery plastic.
For a while, after it seemed all GP100 revolvers were being shipped with Hogues, I started searching evil-bay, and accumulated a few extra original-pattern GP100 factory-style grips. Now, fortunately, Ruger has largely returned to shipping the the GP100 with the original-pattern grips.
Notably, however, the “compact” GP100 grip, non/pre-Hogue, does not mitigrate recoil as well, at least for me, as the original-pattern factory grip. For shooting Magnum loads, I have long preferred to use the original-pattern GP100 grip. At least for my hands, when I last tried the GP100 “compact” grip, it was better to shoot Magnums with the SP101, with its factory grip.
Women who have shot my revolvers have all wanted to steal my SP101 fiveguns, which have factory grips.
I have also noticed that women, and men, who are inexperienced with revolvers, tend to hold them far too low on the grip, which makes muzzle flip worse than it should be. There seems to be nothing intuitive about holding high, so it must be coached.
Last edited by Rex G; 10-13-2019 at 06:33 AM.
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
For reference, my wife favors K-Frames, and is not too picky about grips, not needing to swap for small-profile grips. She is 5’ 7”, and does not have dainty-sized hands. (She will steal my gloves and boots, if I am not careful.)
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
Did you ever compare the compact or full size grip, to the no figure groove Hogue? If I am reading this correctly, you didn't like the compact grips, but the full sized, and am left wondering about the Hogues without fingers.
Thanks
My only experience with Hogue revolver grips, without finger grooves, is the wooden version, as found on the Super GP100. These wooden Hogues, without finger grooves, have more material in the back-strap area, than the original-pattern GP100 grips, so have a longer reach to the trigger, which I have yet to determine is going to be too big. I bought my Super GP100 only two days before my father recently passed, so shooting this revolver has been put on the back burner. I plan to try original-pattern Ruger, as well as the wooden Hogue. I may, depending upon how that goes, then try removing some material from the Hogue, to re-shape the top rear of the grip to slope more toward the frame.
One thing about the wooden Hogue grip is that the palm swell seems less-pronounced, and more like-able, than I remember from handling the rubber finger-groove version.
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
The GP100 grip I saw was the plain black Hogue, right? Like this https://ruger.com/products/gp100/specSheets/1705.html right?
That grip is not really huge at all. My wife, who has tiny hands uses that grip just fine.
I think the "problem" is simply that revolvers are really tough to shoot double action well. The article did say the revolvers were polarizing--testers either loved or hated them with nothing in between, which I find very believable. I also understand the lower ranking of the K6S. I don't like to shoot that with regular ammo, and I'm 6' 1".
I did find the low ranking of the VP9 variants interesting too. That's my wife's favorite semi.
It is not so much that the rubber Hogue is large, as that the fingers grooves are sized for very large fingers, and if one tries grinding-down the hills, between the valleys, one reaches the internal hard plastic skeleton.
With my hands, the groove/valley intended for the middle finger is too big for my middle finger, which is not a problem, itself, but not large enough to fit both my middle and ring fingers, and that causes the ill fit. My ring finger and pinkie have no secure place to grab, so are just along for the ride, which means sub-optimal control and comfort.
For a size reference, I can get my middle, ring, and pinkie fingers firmly onto the factory grip of an SP101. My skinny ring finger used to easily fit into a size 8 ring!
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
It's not always grips.
My wife has RA and hates revolvers because they "hurt" her. The recoil impulse is just too harsh for her. Like most people who haven't shot she loved the airweight 642 and picked it over the steel Colt DS. Until she shot it that is. After shooting both she still didn't like them but was truly perplexed by why the Colt was so different since she loaded the same ammunition in both. I had to give her a physics lesson.
She picked the S&W Shield 9mm. I really want to get her to try the 4" Model 15 with HBWCs, she might like that combo.
Last edited by Spartan1980; 10-16-2019 at 03:04 PM.
I've posted in other threads about the no finger groove Hogues. I've modified mine substantially, both removing rubber and adding thicknesses of cloth tape (gaffer tape, but think hockey tape and you'll be close). It's pretty darn good at this point. Works a lot better for me than the Altamont panels. I have big hands and long fingers, and my birdie knuckle ends up right at the trigger guard in a lot of cases. The Hogues have a deeper filler than the Altamonts, and that's a good thing for me. I also like the opportunity for a straighter backstrap with a longer reach.
The NFG Hogue is big, though. In side profile, it's basically the same as the S&W X-frame grip without finger grooves.
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Not another dime.
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