Chet from Montana’s pocket dump includes a Glock 42 in a CYA Supply Co. holster, a Benchmade folder, and a Streamlight Protac. The Glock 42 has narrow strips of grip tape wrapped around it, which brings up this question: Do you cover your grips with something and if so do you cover the entire grip or just parts? There are a lot of options out there designed to improve your grip and comfort level from Hogue grips to grip tape… you name it, it probably exists.

What do you use on you grip?

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41 COMMENTS

    • Yea.

      On my skateboard.

      When I was 10.

      We’re talking guns here not bicycle handlebars.

      Grip tape.

      Only thing dummer is Grip Zone.

  2. Have Talon rubber on my Glock 43 (not sandpapered).

    Don’t care much for it. It does help on grippiness but doesn’t fill in my palm.

    So I am still griping mainly the front and backstrap.

    We put a Hogue handle w/Beavertail on my wifes 43. Works much better.

    I also like the finger groove. It helps cinch the gun in a high hold.

    I’m looking to go to a 43x as I like the slightly thicker grip. Still slimmer than a 26 though.

    • Now I’m intrigued let your freak flag fly.

      A little humor is always appreciated and JD may not post on this one.

      • Well, as a lady, I have limited experience of grip covers. But people talk to me a lot about their grips, and so forth.

        Many prefer an uncovered grip. But it depends. If the grip has some heft to it a nice firm clasp seems to do the trick with or without an additional cover.

        Other, more adventurous souls prefer grips covered in chocolate, mint jelly, coconut oil, or black latex. Depending on the preferences of the end user, or perhaps the recipient of a nice grip, all or just parts may be covered.

        • A “Coconut Oil Grip Shooting Challenge” would be highly entertaining, and dangerous AF. I guess they could do it with Airsoft, or BB guns…

        • “A “Coconut Oil Grip Shooting Challenge” would be highly entertaining, and dangerous AF. “

          This actually came up a few years ago and I told JWM I’d test it out and write it up. Unfortunately I had some health issues that got in the way of the actual write up but I did do the testing.

          The question came up as to why a guy in a jewelry store shootout in California swapped guns when his hands were covered in blood, switching from a semi-auto to a wheel gun. There were a bunch of hypotheses thrown out by various commentors on TTAG at the time.

          I tested this with baby oil (and a wide array of pistols and revolvers) because it’s about the same lubricity as blood. I did a variety of tests trying to foul the gun, make my grip not work, lose my grip etc etc. I did it all dry firing before moving to a live ammo test.

          What I found is that shooting the gun is perfectly safe and effective even if you dump baby oil on everything in massive amounts and completely coat your hands in it but what having slippery liquid all over the place does is make the controls other than the trigger and the mag release impossible to manipulate. Things like the pistol’s grip don’t matter because you have a wide enough area to create enough friction to keep a hold of the gun but trying to thumb back a hammer or something your fingers slide right off the control.

          As such, a stoppage or running out of ammo take the gun out of the fight. You can’t pull back the slide, hit the slide release, pop out a cylinder from a revolver etc. In fact, if there’s a decent amount of this kind of liquid it gets EVERYWHERE when the gun fires, including all over your rear sight so you can’t even use an object around you or your boot to get the gun to go back into battery because the sight just slides off the object even if it has a sharp-ish edge that *should* easily grip the rear sight. Rear sight design also doesn’t matter. Slanted or vertical you just can’t get it to hold on to anything.

          Until you can wash your hands and the gun it’s useless once it stops firing. You can drop the old mag and pop in a new one but you will find it almost impossible to chamber another round with a semiauto and with a wheel gun you won’t even get the cylinder out of the gun to attempt a reload (this actually surprised me) and with a revolver that uses a reloading gate you’re just as screwed. Switches and levers, no matter how aggressively checkered just become useless.

          As such, you won’t find any safety issues with this kind of slippery stuff everywhere (other than maybe falling on your ass if you’re on a smoothish floor) but your only option once the gun runs out of ammo is a NY reload.

          My conclusion based on the testing was that the blood almost certainly didn’t cause a malfunction in the jewelry store guy’s gun, but rather he ran out of ammo or had a malfunction, couldn’t deal with it and grabbed a backup piece which in his case just happened to work out as him dumping a semi-auto and grabbing a revolver.

  4. I typically use nothing unless the grip is too small for my hands, which happens plenty.
    I put a Pachmayr slip-on on my FNX-45 because it made it more comfy.

  5. I had an opportunity to shoot a friends Glock (in .45 cal.) and did noticed the rough grip texture did bother me. I own numerous older semi-autos that do not have those types of grips (colt 1911A1’s, Lugers, Detonics, Walthers, etc.) which feel far more comfortable to me. Possibly if one fires Glocks frequently enough maybe your hands ‘toughen’ up to the point where it doesn’t bother them.

  6. Dammit…. forgot to post on the dump….got sidetracked by the baiting.

    Nice dump….looks a lot like mine …except I just carry a Streamlight Stylus Pro…not the mondeo ProTac.

    Good stuff.

  7. I’ve kept the standard grip on all my handguns, works fine for me. My ARs and AK I switched over to hogue though, like how it feels in my hand and a bit more grippy when it’s wet out, I’d recommend it if someone were considering.

  9. I’ll own a handgun for a while before considering grips.
    Last 2 Talons were disappointing and I’ve tried Tractiongrips with good luck.

  10. All my magnum revolvers wear Pachmyers of some description. Semi-autos everything from exotic hardwood to ivory, or just factory. Wait! One Colt SAA has ivory also. Plastic pistols are as issued. No tape. No grip sleeves. On anything. It must have been around ’93-’94 when I got my instructor certification. Part of the class was to do an internship with a recruit class during their firearms training. One student had a grip sleeve on his pistol which he had to adjust after each time he shot. It was driving me crazy. On the third day, as he was making yet another adjustment, I approached him. I said, “Clear and hand me your weapon.” He did so. I removed the grip sleeve and said, “Let me show you what to do with this.” I tossed it over my shoulder. The lead firearms instructor called a ceasefire and gathered all the students around me and said, “Do that again.” So I did. He asked why I had done it. I replied, “Accessories are not a substitute for skill. Learn to shoot first then think about what accessories you may want. And think real hard.” After close of business that day he told me, “I wish I had said that.” We became close friends. After retiring he traveled intentionally training others. South Africa security forces, etc. I was lucky to study under him.

  11. I prefer a grip that my shirt or cover garment wont stick to. Rubber is probably the worst for that.

  12. I have Talon rubberized grips on my Beretta Nano and my Springfield Armory XD40. They do make a good difference..

  13. All my magnum revolvers wear Pachmyers of some description. Semi-autos everything from exotic hardwood to ivory, or just factory. Wait! One Colt SAA has ivory also. Plastic pistols are as issued. No tape. No grip sleeves. On anything. It must have been around ’93-’94 when I got my instructor certification. Part of the class was to do an internship with a recruit class during their firearms training. One student had a grip sleeve on his pistol which he had to adjust after each time he shot. It was driving me crazy. On the third day, as he was making yet another adjustment, I approached him. I said, “Clear and hand me your weapon.” He did so. I removed the grip sleeve and said, “Let me show you what to do with this.” I tossed it over my shoulder. The lead firearms instructor called a ceasefire and gathered all the students around me and said, “Do that again.” So I did. He asked why I had done it. I replied, “Accessories are not a substitute for skill. Learn to shoot first then think about what accessories you may want. And think real hard.” After close of business that day he told me, “I wish I had said that.” We became close friends. After retiring he traveled internationally training others. South Africa security forces, etc. I was lucky to study under him.

  14. Back a few years revolvers came from the factory with wood one size fits all grips. They did not. I routinely changed those grips to an after market version of one type or another. I’ve never modded the grips of any semi auto pistol I’ve owned. I’ve just adjusted my hand to fit them. My new g19 has the finger grooves. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about them but they seem to fit my hand alright.

    I put electrical tape on the riser of my bow. The wood was too slick, especially in warm weather. Works a charm.

  15. I use decal grips on my Glock 43’s. I just like the feel of something rough when I pull that trigger. LOL.

  16. Just a heads up to all firearms owners in Illinois. Governor Pritzer and the rest of the democrat Illinois legislator just announced new firearm laws to be voted on. It calls for the complete banishment of all firearms designated as assault weapons. Keep Your Powder Dry…

    • That seems fair. There is no such thing as a definition of an “assault weapon”, so banning all “assault weapons” can’t be too bad.

  18. I don’t use grip modifications as I’ve never seen the need other than to change out the entire grip on my Tarus Ultra-Lite 85 which wasn’t really an issue with accuracy or grip but rather that I just felt awkward with the tiny grip Taurus put on it.

    Also, nice knife.

  23. Section of bike tire inner-tube works very well and stays put. Tried one of those grip tape jobs and it kept loosening up with heat and sweat.

  24. What do I like in my gun grip while shooting…?

    – That’s an awful personal question.

    – Is that an offer?

    – Why, you have something in mind?

    – Depends, long slide or short slide…

    – Whatever’s handy.

  25. Hogue rubber sleeves or grips all day.

    I literally have them on everything, even recently on my BCM (B5 and Hogue sleeve; the Hogue AR grip was not vertical enough for me…). Since desert heat can make the sleeve shift a lot, this Christmas I switched it to a K2+ rubber grip. I do have one pistol with G10 LOK grips… but it’s because Hogue didn’t make grips for it, the LOKs are better than a floppy sleeve.

    Sometimes it is for the rubber grip… polymer can be slippery (e.g., the shitty PX4 grip comes to mind). Sometimes it can be for the palm swell (e.g., the LC9S is so absurdly skinny, there is no grip). Sometimes it is because I am so used to the Hogue rubber-finger-groove-palm-swell feel that it’s almost been part of a standard manual of arms over 25+ years.

    What I don’t have are any Hogue knives… but when I see them, I think, “These are nice, I should get one.”

  27. Got grip tape for my XDs .45 some years back, to TAME the grip texture. Decided against it, ultimately. Got used to it, so now I have one more piece of gun stuff laying around. I feel like many grip modifications are faddish. The one change I made that I meant was to swap stock S&W rubber stocks on my 686 to some nice Ahrends wooden ones. (Primarily for cosmetic reasons, TBH.)

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