44 mag grips

Contact S&W and get a set of X frame grips. A friend did that and it made a world of difference.

Hogue hardwoods for me

I have some strong opinions about grips. I got my first big bore revolver 30yrs ago and have been obsessed with them ever since. It was a Redhawk .44Mag and I soon found out how uncomfortable the factory grips were. Like everyone else, I had heard that rubber was the answer. Except the Hogue and Pachmayr grips were even worse. It wasn't until years, dozens of guns and dozens of grips later that I figured out why. The material has very, very little to do with shooting comfort. People 'think' soft rubber cushions the blow and therefore is more comfortable. It's marketing nonsense. It's the shape that makes all the difference in the world. The rubbers tend to be too long front to back and too narrow side to side. Then Hogue has that atrocious ambidextrous palm swell. That palm swell rubbed a hole in my palm with the Redhawk. With the .480 Super Redhawk below, I developed a flinch. I had people shoot it with my 355gr handloads that swore it was worse than their custom .500's. I thought it was me but it was the monogrip. It's simply a terrible shape. Rather than distributing recoil along the whole palm, it is concentrated into the palm swell. Because it's narrow everywhere else, it leaves voids between the hand and the gun. That is not conducive to the comfortable handling of recoil.




It's a funny thing because most of what applies to double actions, also applies to single actions. For me, Roper style grips slightly thicker than factory with little to no taper from top to bottom, that completely fill the hand with no voids, have no fingergrooves and very little palm swell, are infinitely more comfortable than anything rubber. Be it Ruger.....





Or S&W.

Are my pictures not showing up?

Double post.

CraigC said:

Are my pictures not showing up?

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I can’t see them.

Definitely some good lookin' wheelies!

Tips from a pro.

Speedo66 said:

I can’t see them.

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I see them now but they weren't showing up before. Didn't do anything different with the way I post them.

Like Craig, I’ve always felt that design of the grips is more important than the composition.

I am new on this forum, but have the same gun, 629 5" that the original poster is describing. I have average sized hands and I think the factory rubber grips are too narrow across the back also. I ordered a set of factory wood grips from S&W that come only on the 6 1/2 bbl guns to try and they should be here any day. Probably have about 1000 rounds of medium loaded cast bullets down the barrel in the past year and I really like the gun and its accuracy so far. I think the 5 inch barrel is a perfect compromise, although I may get another 29 with a longer barrel if I see one reasonably priced.

Reinz said:

Like Craig, I’ve always felt that design of the grips is more important than the composition.

Click to expand...

Depends on the revolver and chambering, too. The rubber Hogue monogrips are fine for a mid-size .38Spl or even a mid-size .357Mag so long as you're not loading up for bear (literally).

On this Official Police, they're very comfortable even for large hands. On a RBH or 629 loaded for business, they're torture devices.

I ruined the factory grips on my Lawman Mk.V a long time ago and replaced them with Pachmayr Grippers. They were good grips but, eventually moisture and sweat got to the screw and I had to cut them off to clean under the rubber. I replaced them with wood Hogues (Lamo Camo finger groove) just a couple of months ago and I'm wondering now why it took so long. I need to put together a photo of my wood vs. rubber grips.

I guess you could say when it comes to grips i'm bipartisan.

https://www.opticsplanet.com/hogue-smith-wesson-round-butt-rubber-tamer-conversion-monogrip.html
With more padding at the web of your palm and on the backstrap, expect a longer trigger reach.