S&W Grips Journey

[Oninotaki]

Hello everybody, I just thought some of you might find my experiences with grips for my S&W Governor to be interesting. It took my 4 different pairs before I found a set that I liked. With the Governor I found the biggest challenge to be blending style with functionality. I love wood grips and I even have a favorite style of them that you can find in this thread https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/do-you-have-a-favorite-grip-cause-i-got-mine.915007/

However those grips aren’t made for the S&W frame the Governor uses, so I had to start from scratch. These are my results.

-1 Stock Grips: Small in my hands, comfortable when shooting .45 acp, and .45 colt cowboy loads, miserable in the webbing when shooting .410, ugly.

-2 Pachmayr Wood Grips: Look great, felt better in the hand than stock grips until I shot more than a cylinder, then they were too slippery and really hard to maintain a grip with.

-3 Crimson Trace Laser Grips: Good grip, comfortable to shoot with the exposed back strap, less slippery than Pachmayr, more slipper than stock grips. Biggest problem was that my hands are too big to activate the laser with the button located in the finger grooves without contorting my hands. This essentially made the laser useless.

-4 Altamont Falconia Combat Grip w/ Insert: Perfect. Look good, feels great. Not slippery, not too tacky. Exposed back strap is very comfortable in thumb webbing no matter what I shoot out of the Governor. Hands down no contest worth the months of wait time and 3 cancellations from Altamont saying they were not sure when they would be available again. 10/10.

 

[Riomouse911]

Cool! It seems like finding grips that check all the boxes is rare. They seem to function well but look blah (synthetics) or look great but beat you up under recoil (various woods). Custom grips are great, but they are expensive and, if you can find a maker, seem to take a while to get done.

Those look very nice and functional, the wood insert sets off the synthetic grip nicely.

The proof is in the grouping. If it shoots better than it did before you swapped grips, then you really hit a home run.

Stay safe.

 

[Oninotaki]

Cool! It seems like finding grips that check all the boxes is rare. They seem to function well but look blah (synthetics) or look great but beat you up under recoil (various woods). Custom grips are great, but they are expensive and, if you can find a maker, seem to take a while to get done.

Those look very nice and functional, the wood insert sets off the synthetic grip nicely.

The proof is in the grouping. If it shoots better than it did before you swapped grips, then you really hit a home run.

Stay safe.

I really did hit a home run. This pair of grips did check all the boxes. My follow up shots are more accurate and faster, my hand feels fine after a trip to the range, they are comfortable to draw with, and the Governor looks sharp with them on.

I couldn't be happier with a set of grips.