Grip Adjustment Medium for Customization
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:59 am
I have just tried a new (to me) product for customizing grips on pistol, rifle, shotgun etc. It is called "Rat Pads", why that name is a mystery to me. It does, however, work really well.
The anatomic grips that come with the high quality European guns are Universal... that is, they universally do not fit anyone! Traditional fillers such as Bon-do, fiberglass paste etc are very hard to work with and a good personal fit is difficult to achieve.
The Rat Pads (ratgrips.com) are some type of thermoplastic material that comes in sheets that can be cut and trimmed to any shape grip. Once cut out in the general shape needed, one then puts a heat gun on the piece of material and heats it up to over 160 degrees F.
At the 160 temperature (or higher, if need be) the material acts like a very thick liquid... a very hot (!) thick liquid.
The material is then placed on the cleaned grip surface and molded by hand (fingers) in to the shape required. It must be very hot to adhere to the grip and can be reheated when on the grip with the heat gun.
I used the enclosed glove to get the shape I needed on my FWB 65 and on my Steyr LP-10.
My approach was to get a comfortable grip that, when raised to my sighting eye, aligned perfectly on the aiming area with no futzing with the manual grip.
On the LP-10 only a silver dollar sized piece needed to be added to the back of the grip to bring the alignment where needed.
The FWB required several pieces to get the alignment.
The result has been an improvement in group size and less strain in getting the sights aligned.
Now, Aesthetics. The stuff comes in half a dozen colors; I used brown to more or less match the grip color - well, not so much.
The result is Butt-ugly (Fugly?) AND extremely effective!!!
Heck, it is not expensive - especially compared to the gun/grips we use the on and is easily removable with no residue remaining on the grip.
My final caveat is the the stuff must be VERY HOT to adhere to the grips and be moldable to your liking. Too hot is probably not hot enough.
Tillman
(Copying to Olympic Pistol as well)
The anatomic grips that come with the high quality European guns are Universal... that is, they universally do not fit anyone! Traditional fillers such as Bon-do, fiberglass paste etc are very hard to work with and a good personal fit is difficult to achieve.
The Rat Pads (ratgrips.com) are some type of thermoplastic material that comes in sheets that can be cut and trimmed to any shape grip. Once cut out in the general shape needed, one then puts a heat gun on the piece of material and heats it up to over 160 degrees F.
At the 160 temperature (or higher, if need be) the material acts like a very thick liquid... a very hot (!) thick liquid.
The material is then placed on the cleaned grip surface and molded by hand (fingers) in to the shape required. It must be very hot to adhere to the grip and can be reheated when on the grip with the heat gun.
I used the enclosed glove to get the shape I needed on my FWB 65 and on my Steyr LP-10.
My approach was to get a comfortable grip that, when raised to my sighting eye, aligned perfectly on the aiming area with no futzing with the manual grip.
On the LP-10 only a silver dollar sized piece needed to be added to the back of the grip to bring the alignment where needed.
The FWB required several pieces to get the alignment.
The result has been an improvement in group size and less strain in getting the sights aligned.
Now, Aesthetics. The stuff comes in half a dozen colors; I used brown to more or less match the grip color - well, not so much.
The result is Butt-ugly (Fugly?) AND extremely effective!!!
Heck, it is not expensive - especially compared to the gun/grips we use the on and is easily removable with no residue remaining on the grip.
My final caveat is the the stuff must be VERY HOT to adhere to the grips and be moldable to your liking. Too hot is probably not hot enough.
Tillman
(Copying to Olympic Pistol as well)