Ruger Forum

Smithy · October 18th, 2012, 10:05 PM

When I went through my department's academy so many moons ago, we trained and carried a S&W model 67 in 38 special and a Mini 14 in .223. Now the company owned the guns which stayed at the department all were sighted by their armorer so that all sights were the same. If an officer went down, his partner could retrieve his gun and know where the gun was hitting. (or so went the theory). We were allowed to personalize/change the grips. That meant we had just two choices other than custom grips: Pachmyer's or Hogue's. The Hogue grips at that time were either expensive hand carved fancy wood's or their original nylon grip. I liked their nylon grip and that's what I chose for my gun.

Today and speaking of Ruger's: You get a nice pair of rubber Hogue grips or their fancier rubber model in their Tamer grips. Looking to acquire my carry permit I had some issues with the large rubber grips and saw an ad on ebay for a hard polymer small grip for the S&W model 60 round butt. The grip just barely covered the entire metal frame with slight finger grooves, but was as slick as you'd want not to have your shirt hike up the grip of your gun to expose it to others. Great one gun taken care of.

Now I had two Rugers to wonder about. The ebay man had nothing to offer for those models and I had just assumed that Hogue had moved on from the nylon to all rubber since that was the only ones I saw available in the stores.
Little did I know the Hogue is indeed still making their original nylon grips and for a lot of models. I was able to pick up a smaller pair for my SP101 and a slightly larger pair for my GP100. I had to go to Hogue directly to find them, but I now have them and they are going to work out like a champ.

Is anyone out there using a hard polymer grip on their guns or more specifically a nylon Hogue grip. Interested in hearing from you all. Smithy.

RAC55 · October 18th, 2012, 10:33 PM

Wow, you got me there. I would have to see these nylon grips you are talking about. I have some real old hand guns from the late 1800s and early 1900s that have what they called 'hard rubber' grips. They have the consistency of what I would consider modern nylon or plastic. You have me interested now, even though I'm kinda' partial to fancy wood grips on revolvers. Any pics?

3482jl · October 19th, 2012, 03:39 AM

One of my older snubbies wears a pair of faux wood nylon grips. They fit me great, look good, and are indestructable. But I don't know if they're Hogues ( they're at least 20 years old). I'll do some research.

bearcatter · October 19th, 2012, 10:04 AM

Many Berettas come with glass filled nylon grips. The factory Mark III grips are Delrin, and I think the current black Single-Six grips are, too.

I wish someone made black nylon or Delrin for my Bearcats.

Clayton · October 21st, 2012, 04:40 PM

I've got some of the hogue hard nylons on an SP101. I like them pretty well, but plan on making a set of wooden ones that fit my hand better. I'm not crazy about rubber grips. The nice thing about the hard ones is that you can reshape them a bit.

Smithy · October 21st, 2012, 06:33 PM

Thanks guys! I was glad to hear that I'm not the only one. I do have the original Hogue Tamer grips on my Ruger Alaskan, but that's my house gun and not carry worries to deal with. I use to live in Hogue country and during a couple of visits to their plant was provided with an excellent impromptu tour of their facilities. Very interesting stuff. All of their synthetic grips involve a series of injection molding and several molds to produce just one pair of grips. The nylon versions I now talking about involved two injection molds. The first to produce a very dense polymer structure or skeleton/frame. That piece is then transferred to another mold that surrounds the skeleton with the outer black nylon with some bearing metal bushings at the screw area and some without.

The rubber grips involve even more molds and layering of elements to produce the finished grips. The Tammer grip is an excellent example of this: With a frame piece and at least two types of rubber. One for the grip area and another for the recoil cushioning section of the grip. It's amazing to see their factory in the various stages of producing what we end up with as a terrific grip. The grips benefit from some CNC prep of the wood, but then are all handled with care from expert craftsmen to produce a beautiful and functional grip. Yes as you can tell, I'm kind of partial to Hogue grips and now I have a couple of pairs in their original nylon to serve as my carry grips. Smithy.