Grip Preferences
This is an interesting thread that KMB has started. The past six months of reading this forum, drooling over the pictures of beautiful revolvers with different grips, reading about other shooters’ grip preferences, my range time, and an accumulation of different revolvers; has all influenced how I “grip” my guns. So this input is about individual tastes.
Factory grips certainly seem to be visually correct. To me the S&W medallion is important. Target grips look best on those revolvers with adjustable sights; magnas on those with fixed sights. Rubber grips, factory or aftermarket, are immediately replaced with wood. The visual and textural appeal of wood and steel together seem important - the same as with upland double guns and with a quality bolt action rifle.
For me how grips feel in hand is an overriding consideration: as much as the visual appeal. The S&W target grips and any rubber grips do not feel good to me, so they are replaced with Ahrends’ Retro Combat grips on the long barreled guns that are shot single action. On the short 2 & 3” barreled double action shooters, the magnas and the Tyler grip adapter provide the preferred look and feel. If the grips are original to the gun, so much the better. Accuracy concerns are sort of secondary, since old eyes and relative inexperience will not permit 2” groups anyhow. The feel of the oil-finished smooth grips is preferred on the long barrels. Checkered and smaller grips seem functionally and proportionally correct for the 2 and 3” guns. In either case an 8” paper plate at 15 yards absorbs nearly all the rounds, with most near center for the 6 & 8 inchers. The distance for the 3” and shorter barrels is limited to the 7 yard range.
The revolvers with 4” barrels can go either way – Retro Combats, Targets or Magnas all seem appealing. For Christmas, Santa brought a set of Kurac Targets in Coco Bolo with the S&W medallion. They are beautiful and will go on a blued Model 15. I can’t wait to see how they feel on the range. I have no “safe queens”.
Fortunately, as individuals we get to make choices, and we are not all so similar in our tastes as to make things boring.
