DIY: Plastic More Fantastic
This is what happens when I get truly, genuinely bored.
I’m sure most of my gun savvy readership has seen ad’s in the slick gun mags for Glock grip reductions, grip stippling and the like for polymer framed weapons. I’ve been intrigued with the idea for some time, but I couldn’t make myself send my XD40 out for a couple of weeks, pay the freight charges and spend $150-200 bucks for someone to work on it. I guess I’m just weird like that.
Tonight, on my way home from work, I got a WAUMA. A wild hair. A stroke of mischievous genius.
I got home, walked the dog and ate my dinner. Then I set about fulfilling my plans.
It started with a simple scavenger hunt. “Where the hell did I put that soldering iron?”
Upon finding both soldering guns but not the pen, I kept looking until I found an old wood burning iron with replaceable tips. Bingo.
Then, I set about to disassemble my XD. 20 seconds later, I was ready.
I let the iron warm for about 5 minutes whilst contemplating the fate of my gun. Would this be genius, or was I to fuck up a $500 piece of equipment, the first handgun I’d ever bought in fact? Sentimental value, you see.
Screw it, lets do this thing.
I started small, to make sure it would work correctly.
The thumb rest. Thats a good place to start. Well, it turns out I was using the right tool, and I seem to be able to get my shit straight, so lets keep it up.
I did the other side, then decided to move on to the trigger guard.
Hey, this is easy.
What else could I think of to make it more “grippy”? How about a spot on the frame to rest my trigger finger?
That done, I got really ambitious.
Hmmmm…it’s 8:30. I’ve been at this for half an hour. Wonder if I can do the whole grip?
20 minutes in.
One side done. 45 minutes in.
Dammit! This is taking too long. Oh, look, an email! NO! Must finish the job!
Getting up into the curve of the frame was a bitch. An hour in now.
All done! A job well and truly finished deserves a beer. An hour and a half saves me $200? Deserves two beers.
Found some very, very fine sandpaper in my garage to knock some of the peaks off. I found early on that the key is a soft, consistent touch. The tip of the tool was hot enough and dull enough not to make deep holes in the polymer, and wide enough to spread the material around if I fucked up, so there weren’t many mountains of material that needed to be taken down.
All finished. Ain’t it a beaut?
I decided to leave the checkering on the front and back straps alone. I don’t hate it, but I don’t like it that much. Unfortunately, it’s so deep and wide that I don’t think I could stipple it without moving much more of the material than I’d like. It’s like with a Glock - I wouldn’t be so ambitious to think I could rid myself of the finger grooves, but I could make them grippier!
And, I’m spent. I got this little annoying dog running around barking for attention that probably needs a walk before he pees on my favorite chair.
If anyone if considering doing something like this - do it. It’s worth it. Going to the range tomorrow night to test my job.
Watching a chihuahua for a friend thats out of town is not worth it, however…
RANGE TEST UPDATE
Well, I’d say it shoots a bit. I was pretty happy, all things considered. I fired about 150 rounds without gloves (chest) then another hundred or so (head) wearing my Southwest Motorsports shootin’ grobes, including the 40 rounds I keep in mags at the bedside. All shots were taken as quickly as I thought I could get away with - basically as fast as I could acquire and squeeze - at 25 feet.
I “chased” the groups out a little bit, cuz I like seeing little bits of paper fly around. *grinz*
A few of the fliers, I can explain. There was a guy shooting next to me, some handcannon I thought, that produced such a muzzle blast that everytime I happened to be shooting at the same instant, I flinched. I know, I know…bad juju. Turns out, when he packed up to leave, I saw that the culprit firearm was - A Springfield M1A SOCOM. No freakin’ wonder.
Still, the groups looked pretty good to me. I got a compliment from the cute girl working at the counter, so thats nice. Something to the effect of “These other guys can’t even hit the backstop.”
Yup. I’d say the stippling helped quite a lot. Words cannot describe how impressed with myself I am right now. If I didn’t have to sit to type, I’d be striking the Captain Morgan pose.
Gratuitous extra pic, just cuz it’s dirty and I like it that way.
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