In search of the perfect grips for a Dirty Harry Special .44 Magnum

When I first bought my S&W 29-3 .44 Magnum 4" barrel (at left), I found the factory target grips (at right on a S&W 21 .44 Special that I foolishly traded away) were a bit rough on my soft office-worker hands when firing magnums. So I bought a set of Pachmayr Decelerator grips for the 29 and put the 29 grips on the 21.

The round-butt Rosewood grips that came on the 21 were not to my liking and the 29 square-butt grips made it feel better in my hand. They were fine for shooting .44 Specials, but not magnums. And then I found a dealer who had a Sig P226 .357 Sig he was willing to trade for the S&W 21 and it was gone. That was my first Sig pistol and since I now have four more, I should call that trade a success. But I still miss that Model 21 and will probably get another one some day.

But as good as the Pachmayr grips shoot, they sure ain't pretty, so I continued to seek some nice-looking wood grips for the 29 that would also shoot good. I know that Herrett's makes custom grips for the 29, but they just cost too much for this poor boy. And even though Dirty Harry had some Herrett's grips for his 29, I just couldn't bring myself to spend more than $100 for a set of grips.

Then a customer traded in a S&W 29 with the factory target grips customized for his hand. I tried them out and they fit my hand, too. They've been carved and sanded down into finger-groove grips and whoever did the work did a very nice job. I traded the shop my factory target grips for this custom-carved pair and we were both happy. It's hard to sell a gun with custom anything done to it. The custom work may have been just what the previous owner wanted, but it usually isn't what anybody else really wants.

In this case, the grips felt good to me, but I found that while they're fine for shooting .44 Specials, there just ain't enough wood there to hold onto when shooting .44 Magnums. Back to the drawing board.

Then I finally tried something I shoulda thunk uv to start with, I looked on the S&W website for grips and found these N-frame square-butt Rosewood combat grips with S&W medallions. And only $79!

They look great, they feel great and come Saturday I'll try them out to see if they shoot great. I'm betting they will. Every now and then, even a blind hog finds an acorn. S&W grips from S&W, why didn't I think of that?

Pistol grips that work and grips that don't: Pretty wood vs. ugly rubber

There are grips that work and grips that don't. Just cause a set of grips looks good has no bearing whatsover on whether they actually work, that is feel good in the hand when you do what you're supposed to do with a handgun, shoot it.

Exhibit 1: Smith & Wesson 29-3 .44 Magnum. Came with a beautiful set of factory walnut checkered target grips.

The beauty lasted until I touched off the first round of .44 Magnum. Ouch! The checkering dug into my palm and the steel frame bit the web of my hand. Off came the factory grips and a set of square-butt Pachmayr Decelerator took out the bite completely. Not as pretty, but a lot more comfortable.

Not having any need for the factory grips, I donated them to the cause at the gun shop when we got a S&W 29 that had a set of hand-carved factory grips courtesy of the previous owner. Factory target grips sell S&W revolvers, anything else, including custom-carved factory grips, detract from sale value.

So I traded grips and brought the hand-carved ones home for a try. They had been slimmed down to finger-groove grips on the front and smoothed down from the aggressive checkering. Look a bit weird but they passed the big test. I shot them last Saturday with some full-house .44 Specials and they felt great. Haven't tried .44 Magnums yet, but so far so good.

Exhibit 2: My Charter Southpaw .38 Special came with a set of factory rubber grips. Shot fine. But I had this set of Charter wood grips I bought just because I saw them on the Charter site and they looked good.

So I tried them on the Charter Southpaw last Saturday same time I shot the S&W 29. Fail.

The knuckle of my middle finger took a beating. I might need that finger for obscene gestures, so off came the wood grips and back on go the rubber grips.

Just cause it looks good is no good reason to have grips that don't shoot good. But now I have no idea what I'll do with the Charter wood grips.

Wait, I got an idea. Charter makes .22 revolvers. They even have a convertible .22LR/.22 Magnum in a 4" barrel target model. I bet those wood grips would look good and shoot good on a .22 Charter, whataya bet? I predict there's a Charter .22 somewhere in my future. But not right now until I can get though my S&W Nightguard obsession phase.

Pau Ferro takes a back seat to Sig P229 Elite wood grips

Is there anything more pleasant than an unexpected gift? When I ordered a Sig P229 SAS Gen2 .357 Sig pistol from Sig Sauer back in February, the Sig factory rep promised the boss lady at the gun shop he would see if he could find me a set of the nice wood grips they used on the Generation 1 SAS model that were phased out for Generation 2.

That's the promised grips on the Sig Gen1 in the top photo, stolen from the Sig site where it's no longer to be found.

So when my new Sig 229 SAS Gen2 arrived May 1, it had black composite grips on it, as shown in the second photo. Nice and functional but not nearly as sexy as those SAS Gen1 grips.

So I figured maybe they'd arrive in a week or two. I waited. Then I waited some more.

After a month, my patience ran out. I've never been long on patience so a month is probably close to a record for me actually waiting for something.

So I googled wood grips for Sig P229s and found a nice set of Hogue Pau Ferro grips. Who is Pau Ferro, you may ask, and why can't he spell Paul?

Actually, Pau Ferro ain't a he, it's a Bolivian hardwood and quite a beautiful one at that.

My new Hogue Pau Ferro grips arrived in late June, I installed them, tested them at the range and was happy as a pig in deep mud.

And then, lo and behold, as King James often says, today that pleasant unexpected surprise arrived.

A package from Sig for me was thrown in with an order of various accessories, the long-promised but now forgotten Sig P229 Elite grips, as the package billed them.

The Sig Elite series is an all-stainless steel line of their various models and the grips are exactly the same as the former SAS Gen1 grips I so admired.

So today, I removed the Pau Ferro grips and installed the new Elite grips. Ain't they prettier than a speckled pup?

Now I gotta get me another P229 so I can have something to put my Pau Ferro grips on. And it just so happens that we have a CPO, which is Sig lingo for Certified Previously Owned, Sig P229 .357 Sig which someone traded in at a recent gun show. It's all Nitron black with a rail, vs. the 2-tone slicked-up Sig-Anti-Snag SAS, but I bet those Pau Ferro grips will dress it right up.

I shall ascribe to the wisdom of Clint Smith, the famed gunwriter and chief shootist of Thunder Ranch, who says if you have a pistol you really like, get two of them. Then if the one you carry has to go out of action for any reason, you've got a backup ready to step up to the plate.

Sounds like a perfectly good reason to get another P229 .357 Sig pistol to me.

And another little unexpected surprise also popped up last week. We have so many long guns at the gun shop that the boss marked a bunch of them down and set them out on racks out front to move them out of there.

And lo and behold again, there's a little Marlin .22LR semi-auto carbine that's the twin brother of one I had years ago. I shot the whee out that little Marlin when I was living on a farm and appointed myself the designated slayer of snapping turtles in a big pond in a pasture out in my front yard.

When I moved off the farm, I gave that little Marlin .22LR to my son and it's still being shot by him and his two grandsons. And here was another just like it, marked down to $85! As they used to say at the tobacco warehouses, "Sold American!" I bought myself an early birthday present.

Haven't been to the range lately, but I'll be there Saturday teaching my first NRA Basic Pistol Class, so the little Marlin is going along for the ride and its baptism by fire. It's gonna be fun.