TargetTalk

Bit of show and tell I guess. I was getting more and more frustrated with the size Large Rink grip which came with my used Pardini K10, especially the fore-aft measure which is somewhat too small, leading to a rather inconsistent grip shot-to-shot. So I finally stole some time from work to carve a maple grip properly fitting to my hand. Since I've used a similar grip on my 46m for nearly a year I know my hand feels comfortable at whatever times of day and from week to week, so no need to have an adjustable palm shelf. Took the $800 custom Pardini grip here as inspiration, sort of, leaving the finish largely rough with a small spoon gouge. Feels rock solid in my hand, and with about a 1.5 degree rotation and 2 degree cant change from the Rink the sights line themselves up - no more conscious rotation and tilting of the wrist to compensate. Shame the Pardini doesn't allow for the same sorts of 3D adjustments as the Steyr, but no matter, it worked out.





If anyone's thinking of carving a grip, I'd offer the recommendation that you take it slowly, go from the mortise fitting first then to shaping the 'sticker' side, then getting the sight area finished, then thumb web... then jockey back and forth between fingers and palm inside. Leaving the 'shelf' almost for last made sure I didn't remove too much wood there. So the thing really didn't fit at all until it was finished. Tricky, but I suppose the only alternatives are putty, or years of grip carving experience like the custom guys build up.

Beautiful work! Thank you for the show and tell. I wish my epoxy mold and grind looked nearly so good.

That's the thing. I work with fine woods every day, it's my job, so epoxy putties kind of go against the grain. I know they're practical, heck of a lot easier than carving, but most shooters will end up carving the putty anyway. So for me the all-wood thing just makes sense.

And it's not like I haven't tried putty. Made a saran wrap-putty-wrap sandwich on the Rink before doing this maple grip, to get a better idea of the lower 3 fingers in terms of angle and depth of the impressions. Came out a fair bit deeper than I'd expected and showed me a thing or two about how much I needed to increase the depth. As it worked out I added considerably to the inner palm area, so the fingers didn't go as far forward as if I'd just added putty to the Rink. Rough measures went up by 6.5, 13.5, and 11mm going from index down to pinkie finger. Had to move the trigger back about 3.3mm to compensate for the increased depth in the palm.

I actually used the stock 46m grip when I got that pistol as a platform for adding a LOT of putty layers as I figured out how it ought to fit, then finally carved a maple grip based on that rather beastly result... which I painted black just so I wouldn't have to look at the putty:



Then I carved the maple grip, which for reasons of laziness in finish carving and failure to apprehend the benefit in grip feel of a textured surface I then stained a dark grey-blue, since that seemed likely to hide some of the imperfections. I've since added a sprinkling of 90 grit silicon carbide lapping crystals using cyanoacrylate to adhere them. Just on the inner/upper palm area where it tends to get slippery with sweat. Stuff works great and doesn't get dull with use. The rest of the rearward contact areas I stippled - about an hour with a very sharp ice pick and a few shots of CA to harden the wood as I went to prevent the stippling from crumbling in use.

Impressive results; very nicely done!