I'm on the hunt for stocks on my 2.5" Model 19 that's due back from Robar in June. At this point I'm down to the Pachmayr Compacs (which are also on my other 2.5" 19-5), Karl Nill SW039, or a set of ALTAI grips from Altamont Company. The Pachmayr's are a known quality to me, but wood looks really nice. The Karl Nills look the most aesthetically pleasing but have finger grooves and are crazy expensive compared to the Altamonts. Whatever I get, they'll be fitted to the Combat Magnum with a matte black frame/barrel and NP3 cylinder. As you might have noticed from these 3 choices, I'm looking for something functional but compact in-between full size grips and boot grips, and I tend to dislike finger grooves because they are uncomfortable pressure points if they don't like up perfectly with my hands, which given the odds and vast differences between peoples' hands and gripping styles, they probably wont.
Thoughts on these particular choices? I didn't see anything from Ahrend or Hogue that caught my eye, not to mention Ahrend's ordering process apparently hasn't advanced to the 21st century.
What are your favorite grips, and why? I see that smooth grips are fairly popular, which strikes me as odd because I would think they'd be slippery. My prior 4" 19-4 had smoothed out coke bottles, which were very pretty but also slippery when I started sweating.
I searched but didn't see a general revolver stocks thread, so let's go ahead and open this up to anything about grips for any revolver....