You know what they say about men with small hands....

Monday, November 06, 2006 Filed in: Revolvers, Accessories, Techniques & Training
..and it isn't what you think!

As you may have gathered from hints in my previous writings, I'm of somewhat shorter stature than the average American male. Because of this, my hands are proportionally smaller; I have short, relatively thin fingers. Heck, my wife's hands are bigger than mine!

It goes without saying that finding guns that fit is a challenge. Even a S&W "K" frame, which very few people would describe as being "big", are on the outer edge of comfort for me. Your basic "N" frame? Not even close!

I've discovered that I'm not alone. One well known instructor of my acquaintance is a much larger fellow than I, yet he has small hands as well. There are a lot of us who have trouble finding guns that are comfortable to handle and shoot. Happily, we're not restricted to small-frame revolvers, as there is a good option in a larger gun.

That gun is the Ruger GP-100. It's a large frame .357 Magnum revolver, but they've done some superb engineering to make it fit a wide variety of hands. Ruger ships the guns with two different grips, depending on the gun's features - adjustable sight models come with the standard (large) grip, while the fixed sight versions ship with the "compact" (small grip.) The great thing is that the grips are completely interchangeable between models, easily changed, and cheap!

The compact grip fits even my small hands well, and makes for terrific concealment. Of course, it's of the same construction as the standard GP-100 grip - soft rubber with wood inserts. This makes it comfortable to shoot with the stoutest loads, but less likely to grab onto a concealing garment. They are, in my estimation, the best factory grips available on any revolver.

Want a pair of the Ruger compact grips? You can get them from Brownells - only $23.70!

-=[ Grant ]=-
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