Making your own pistol grips

BigGameHunter

BigGameHunter

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Has anyone on here made a set of nice wood grips for there revolver or auto?

My father and I are thinking of making some grips out of spalted maple for a SW 357 I got for christmas. Right now it only has a one handed target grip it came with so I would like to make a more conventional and classy set of grips for it. I will post pictures when I have completed these.

I have a few other types of wood as well so a couple pairs may be in the works as I also have an older 38 that may benefit from an update as well.

The Spalted Maple has a very unique grain pattern due to the minerals in the wood and when a clear or light stain is applied to it, it gives the impression of a marbled appearance. Should be very interesting.


Here is the wood along with the gun to showcase the grain structure. Feel free to post any grips/handles you have made even stocks as well. I would really like to see what some of you have made.



 
It's being done, but you need a great deal of patience and skill. Don't have either myself. Pistol grips are easier, of course.
 
The trick with a S&W will be making the inside faces accurately because they are dual level. If you guys can manage that then the outside is more or less a free form shaping session to make it fit your hand in a happy manner.

For myself I've yet to do any but I'm going to. I'm likely going to make up a router template jig for cutting the inside faces.

Spalted maple does look superb when oil finished. Best of luck with your own grips project.

If you "shop" online at grip makers and Ebay you'll find pictures of the inside faces of the K frame grips that will show you what I mean about how the shapes have to be.
 
Yeah I know what you mean. I have an older SW that I am using the grips for a template as they are stock grips with that shape you are saying. These will be more minimalist grips in the sense it will not have all the target features more just a thicker stock grip with finger grooves. Me and my dad are drawing the rough templates up right now with the grips. Once we actually do some more work on them I will post it and you can let me know what you think. Thanks and hope all of your christmas' were great!
 
Here is what we have made so far. It just needs to have a few touch ups done to it (already did some fill work but another screw may need to be added for stability. I think it is coming along good. What do you guys think? The button might look like it is uneven but it was the only place where to could go through as there is a steel band inside but I like it as it is. Initially it was far too large and after convincing my dad we thinned it out along the back. He has rather large hands and I have medium sized hands so when he said it felt slightly small in his hand I knew it was perfect size. I may build another set of grips from the same material for my other SW to allow them to match keeping the original grips for it though just something different.

 
spalted is my favorite wood, you could've screwed to whole block to the gun it would've still looked good.

There is not a better feeling than DIY
 
I have never made my own but I have bought grips from this guy in Hungary.
Marschalgrips..com ( they have a web site) for cheap even with shipping to Canada. I think my CZ grips were $47 US shipped to my door. The wood selections, stains and other options are quite good. If one is looking to make their own grips it would be worth taking a look at their site as it would help with wood selection, styles...etc
 
Nice work but I'm seeing a couple of oddities. First is the location of your top rear hook so far back. I'd think that this would make holding the grip properly and reaching the trigger decently a real chore. Second is what appears to be a rather big opening just behind the trigger guard. Did you relieve that inside too far and then get carried away with the outer shaping?
 
I don't know if the picture is making it look like that or what but its not like i lengthened the distance between the frame and trigger guard. The back of the grip exposes the metal of the gun so I don't know how you would get it any closer without altering the structure of the gun. The grip was fitted to my hand as we were making it. My dad actually thinks its too small for his hand and I have smaller hands and I can shoot it just fine.

The spalted Maple is a really neat wood to use and when it is completely finished I will take a final photo of it. I don't see how I got carried away with the shaping it looks exactly how I plotted it out before it was made adn I am more than happy with it. I like having several different grips for my handguns as some are more for looks and some are for shooting. This grip was designed more with look involved but I will definately be shooting it as it fits my hand better than the other 2 grips I have for it.

Thanks

BCRider said:
Nice work but I'm seeing a couple of oddities. First is the location of your top rear hook so far back. I'd think that this would make holding the grip properly and reaching the trigger decently a real chore. Second is what appears to be a rather big opening just behind the trigger guard. Did you relieve that inside too far and then get carried away with the outer shaping?
Click to expand...
 
Ah.. I see what you did now. You followed the back strap up like most S&W grips but put a lower hook on the gun so you're holding it down lower. Most of us put the grips up higher as per this picture...

Revolvers.jpg


See how the hooks of the grips coincides with the hook on the frames? This allows me to place my hands higher on the gun and there's less lift in the muzzle due to recoil that way. Putting the hook on your grips down further is sort of swimming against the stream of normal thinking about holding this style of gun.

But give 'em a try and see if it works for you. I've found that a large part of why I can shoot revolvers so well is the fact that I DO have to reach forward AND down for the trigger. In your case the pull will be more of a straight back thing. This may or may not work out in the end. But certainly you should give them a chance.

And yeah, they DO look positively superb.
 
If anyone is interested in having some grips made for auto/revolvers or target guns in small batches of around 5-10 sets minumum, I can give greater discounts on small production runs if I have enough fellows to pre pay for certain grip styles, cheers Dale Z in T-Bay
 
Yeah I made them to fit my hand. My buddy said the same thing however when I hold it the grip mates my hand the way I wanted the grip to. To each his own I guess but thank you.
 
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