Getting a Grip

Among the Easter festivities, we celebrated my birthday a little early yesterday. My parents gave me a check and my brother gave me some new grips for my 1911. He bought me a pretty cheap set of rubber grips and a more expensive set of pachmayr signature wrap-arounds. I swapped both on my 1911 last night and did a little dry firing to see how they felt.

The cheap grips felt ok, about the same as the cheap wood grips they were replacing, but the Pachmayr's really were remarkable. Unlike the cheap rubber grips, the pachmayr's have a slightly tacky feel to them. Like they're stuck to your hand and don't want to let go. The gun feels really planted in your hand and I like it a lot. I can see why some people don't like rubber grips on carry guns though, that same tackiness that holds it in your hand also might make the gun print on your clothes.

I kept the Pachmayr's on the 1911 and I'll see whether I like them even more after a range session this weekend (if weather permits). If I do like them, I may switch my hipower over to a similar set of pachmayr grips. They're currently sporting the same rubber grips that come on the Mark III Hipower. I actually had to order the current grips from Brownells because the original grips were cheap awful plastic.