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Custome S&W grips
Frontiersman101
Member Posts: 3,259
Anyone know where I can get hand mold grips for my S&W 586? Also what it ruffly would cost? Thanks.
Comments
Contact www.herrett-stocks.com
I dont think they have what I am looking for. I think there are places that you put your hand around the material, and it makes a mold of your hand.
Go to the web site and check out the order form.
W.D.
I think there are places that you put your hand around the material, and it makes a mold of your hand.
Consider that your 586 is built on the Smith L frame, which uses the same grips as the Smith K frame. This is probably the single most popular revolver frame in the world.
Rather than entirely re-invent the wheel, you might simply start by checking out mass-produced grips by various manufacturers to see if you can find one you like. Pachmayr, in particular has a variety of off the shelf grips in different forms, one of which might fit you. Also, there are a number of custom or semi-custom grip makers than can work with you (eg Herrett's, Randall Fung) that have nice orthopedic off the shelf products.
While I think it would be pretty cool to have a true custom grip designed in the way you suggest, (and I've actually thought about doing it myself), I'm not aware of any outfit that actually does it that way. Nor have I ever actually seen a grip that was purportedly manufactured this way. I'm sure its been done. . .I've just never seen any examples.
Most of the "name" custom grip makers work from a hand tracing. They use the tracing to determine key measurements like the grip width and overall length, etc.
This will give you an excellent grip likely better than any off-the-shelf one, though still probably not an absolutely perfect one, as the tracing can't portray individual characteristics like the exact location and depth of your palm-depression (for a palm swell), etc.
If you actually wanted to mold your own grip using your hand, there are several ways you could go. EG:
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=142996308
I have no idea how good this stuff is, and can't endorse it. The "poor man's" version might be to just rough out some grips using bondo. They'd be pretty ugly, but pretty cheap and easy.
If you wanted to do this this right, you'd have to first create a model of the grip you wanted using a gun, your hand, and some pliable material (eg modelling clay).
Note that you still have to make some fundamental decisions about grip angle, width, trigger pull length, whether or not you want a thumb rest, palm-shelf, finger grooves, etc. You might want to start off with a grip that you like as a guide.
Then after creating your grip model, you have to remove it from the gun, and use it to create a split casting mold (eg from silicone rubber, or some other suitable mold-making material). You *might* be able to get away with a one-piece grip depending on the gun in question. You might add checkering here.
Then you'd have to use the mold to actually cast the grips using casting resin or some other suitable casting substance that was durable enough to work as gun grips.
You also have to figure out a way to securely attach the grips to the gun. Ordinary grip screws could work, but you'd either have to get the metal grommets that hold them aligned properly into your grips when you were casting them, or carefully drill and install them afterwards.
Finally, depending on the quality of your casting, you may have to do a final finish/polish to ensure a precise fit and eliminate casting marks or lines. Now might be a time to add stippling if you wanted it (and this would probably work/look better on a plastic grip than checkering).
There is a lot of hand work involved in doing this (pardon the pun), and your actual hand has to be physically present, probably explaining why nobody is doing this commercially. I can't comment on how nice this would look, but I think you probably could turn out a reasonably good-looking grip this way if you knew what you were doing and took care.
Some of these videos might give you an idea of whats involved, and I'm sure you can find similar ones on you tube:
http://www.freemansupply.com/video.htm
By the way, if you do ever find anyone who does this, please post about it here!
quote:Originally posted by Frontiersman101
I think there are places that you put your hand around the material, and it makes a mold of your hand.
Consider that your 586 is built on the Smith L frame, which uses the same grips as the Smith K frame. This is probably the single most popular revolver frame in the world.
Rather than entirely re-invent the wheel, you might simply start by checking out mass-produced grips by various manufacturers to see if you can find one you like. Pachmayr, in particular has a variety of off the shelf grips in different forms, one of which might fit you. Also, there are a number of custom or semi-custom grip makers than can work with you (eg Herrett's, Randall Fung) that have nice orthopedic off the shelf products.
While I think it would be pretty cool to have a true custom grip designed in the way you suggest, (and I've actually thought about doing it myself), I'm not aware of any outfit that actually does it that way. Nor have I ever actually seen a grip that was purportedly manufactured this way. I'm sure its been done. . .I've just never seen any examples.
Most of the "name" custom grip makers work from a hand tracing. They use the tracing to determine key measurements like the grip width and overall length, etc.
This will give you an excellent grip likely better than any off-the-shelf one, though still probably not an absolutely perfect one, as the tracing can't portray individual characteristics like the exact location and depth of your palm-depression (for a palm swell), etc.
If you actually wanted to mold your own grip using your hand, there are several ways you could go. EG:
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=142996308
I have no idea how good this stuff is, and can't endorse it. The "poor man's" version might be to just rough out some grips using bondo. They'd be pretty ugly, but pretty cheap and easy.
If you wanted to do this this right, you'd have to first create a model of the grip you wanted using a gun, your hand, and some pliable material (eg modelling clay).
Note that you still have to make some fundamental decisions about grip angle, width, trigger pull length, whether or not you want a thumb rest, palm-shelf, finger grooves, etc. You might want to start off with a grip that you like as a guide.
Then after creating your grip model, you have to remove it from the gun, and use it to create a split casting mold (eg from silicone rubber, or some other suitable mold-making material). You *might* be able to get away with a one-piece grip depending on the gun in question. You might add checkering here.
Then you'd have to use the mold to actually cast the grips using casting resin or some other suitable casting substance that was durable enough to work as gun grips.
You also have to figure out a way to securely attach the grips to the gun. Ordinary grip screws could work, but you'd either have to get the metal grommets that hold them aligned properly into your grips when you were casting them, or carefully drill and install them afterwards.
Finally, depending on the quality of your casting, you may have to do a final finish/polish to ensure a precise fit and eliminate casting marks or lines. Now might be a time to add stippling if you wanted it (and this would probably work/look better on a plastic grip than checkering).
There is a lot of hand work involved in doing this (pardon the pun), and your actual hand has to be physically present, probably explaining why nobody is doing this commercially. I can't comment on how nice this would look, but I think you probably could turn out a reasonably good-looking grip this way if you knew what you were doing and took care.
Some of these videos might give you an idea of whats involved, and I'm sure you can find similar ones on you tube:
http://www.freemansupply.com/video.htm
By the way, if you do ever find anyone who does this, please post about it here!
Will do! Thanks for the info.
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?a606c303e1.jpg
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?7b8e4af619.jpg