American Handgunner May/June 1978

Base for the new grips was made from scrapl/d-inch hardwood plywood and rough sanded.Wood glue is applied to panel and slightly .!oversize piece of hide is pressed in place.The Beauty of These Grips is Only Skin DeepBut Their Functional Quality is Unique.ANDGUN grips are usually fashionedH from wood or plastic. PersonallyI've always preferred wood, because thesubtle flow of fine wood grain is more attractivethan the finest plastic, to mymind. I've been making my own grips foryears, and well-dried woods can be shapedand finished precisely with ordinary tools,as plastics cannot. Unfortunately, woodhas its drawbacks, too.I've made grips from French andAmerican walnut, rosewood, and tigerwood.As I recall, years ago I paid only adollar or two for my first pistol grip blankof French walnut with a fine grain figure.If you've priced blanks lately, you knowthat $10 is areasonable price for just fairwalnut or rosewood, and a really fineblank may run to a double sawbuck andmore. A slip of the router or drill at thewrong time, and the blank and all of yourtime and work go into the waste bin.Great as fancy wood grips are in appearnceand utility, if properly inletted,shaped and finished, wood may warp orbecome dented and scratched, especiallywhen carried in a holster. On heavy-recoilinghandguns, thin grips often crack andsplit. So when I heard about the leathercoveredstocks used on rifles by Tikka ofBy V. R. GAERTNERFinland, I began thinking.Leather is tough enough for coats, saddies,holsters and boots. It can be very attractive,and its surface should provide asecure hand hold. Besides its obvious advantages,the cost of leather is not muchof a factor. An old jacket, suitcase, orladies' handbag might be recycled at noexpense. The grip forms themselveswould not require as much care in themaking and sanding, since they will becovered. Even cheap plywood should beusable, and stronger than solid woodacross the grain.Having decided to try the idea, myquestions were: can leather or hide be attachedpermanently to plywood, and can itbe made to cover smoothly the complexcontours of handgun grips without expensiveforming machinery? The solutionsturned-out to be easier than I expected.Leather is as diverse as the animalsfrom which it comes. Years ago, I wasgiven an unusual reptile skin, that of aJana Ring lizard from South America,used for shoes before its hunting wasbanned. The skin had not been tanned,but it was scraped thin and supple. Thinkingthat water would make the skin moreworkable, I soaked a small cutting. Thiswas a disaster, the hide shrank and becamerubbery, rather than flexible. Ondrying, it thickened and stiffened.The original skin proved to be ideal formy purposes, however, having a spotteddark pattern on the back fading almost towhiteon the underbelly (the edges of theopened skin) with finely spotted darkstreaks suggesting finger memory grooveson handgun grips. Semi-auto grip panelsseemed to be the simplest type to demon-IGlue is applied to the top edge andbevel to hold down the loose flap.28 AMERICAN HANDGUNNER