Sounds like a Goldilocks story.
This bed is too soft...
sounds like you found the one that was "just right".
Over the years I went through various iterations.
It originally started when I was shooting my 442 during BUG quals and after all, showing coworkers that they were in fact accurate further out than they realize. We shot rifles out to 50 yards so I would shoot out to 50 with the 442. But a problem that occurred semi frequently is that I have very dry hands and the upper rear part of the frame would tear the skin of web of my hand causing it to bleed during long shooting sessions.
One day sitting at my desk at work (yeah I flew a desk at the time, I was in investigations, so I was a professional typist) I was cleaning my gun and decided to take an orange ear plug and cut it in half and glue it on the back strap as a "temporary" fix. That ended up working well enough that I colored it with a sharpie, and that thing stayed on there for the longest time until I pounded the thing flat from use.
Here is a pic of that thing. It is mostly flat at by the time the pic was taken.
Then I tried some EVA foam from a mat. Work in progress.
That worked slick but was as ugly as Hillary naked (ok maybe not that bad).
Trimmed down, it actually works extremely well and is super soft.
.
In fact the EVA foam is quite handy and material was free from the pieces of exercise mat.
Finally I settled on the strip of leather, though it is not as cushiony as the foam it does a good job and softens up the recoil just enough to make it tolerable as compared to the exposed metal backstrap.
![]()
LR, always a pleasure to read your thoughts on snubs and see your well-loved guns. Your 148gr wadcutters have solved the problem of finding clean, reliable, and AVAILABLE ammo that performs well in these little guns.
They should just round the backstrap enough to break the corner, that’s where it seems to really get you.
Question for the pros.. How does goon tape compare to gaffer tape? I have gaffer tape. I also have VZ G10 grips on my 642 and finally got to shoot it the other day. The +P 135 Gold Dots hurt. Those grips are hard! Also slick.
Anybody chrono'd S&B wadcutters out of an Airweight? They were a ton better and I'm not finding much Fed, Rem or Win wadcutters anywhere. I suspect I have a serious case a carpal tunnel that's going to have to be addressed and soon. Anyway I have gaffer tape...
I recall them chronographing below 600fps a couple different places. I think Lucky Gunner had a similar velocity posted in one of their snubby articles as well. They are soft as hell, but iME were pretty dirty, powder wise and leading wise, though I only fired 50 rounds.
Speaking of snubs, I dryfired my 442 UC for about 15 minutes tonight, after adding some medical tape and a small hunk of Limbsaver pad to the grip up high, ala Lost Rivers ear plug/foam pad. I really like the shape and feel of the VZ grips, but I wish they had offered the checkered version as the OEM style for the UC guns. I have to grip the gun super hard if I don't want it squirming around when I shoot anything hotter than wadcutters. This is a temporary experiment. I kinda wish I hadn't sent my LG-405's down the road with my old 442 when I sold it.
I really need to figure out why I toss shots high right, and I think grip is probably at least part of the reason.