Of all the fundamentals of pistol shooting, one of the most important is grip. This is in terms of technique and equipment. A solid grip determines everything from recoil control and fast follow-up shots, to sight alignment and smooth trigger press. Without the grip, all of these actions are significantly harder to master. Grip also plays a major role in determining which gun you purchase, or which side you choose in the eternal Glock vs. 1911 debate.

Think about it. How many of you have purchased a gun simply because it felt right? How many choose one carry piece over all others, because that particular gun is the one that feels the most comfortable shooting? What quality drives that decision?

Chances are it’s the way the gun felt in your hand. It’s the grip. Some of the better innovations common among modern polymer pistols are the interchangeable grip panels, which allow shooters to customize the grip to fit their needs. However, if you don’t own one of those pistols, your only choices are custom gunsmithing or aftermarket add-ons.

Now, aftermarket doodads aren’t going to correct your technique errors for you. However, next to changing your sights, grip modifications are one of the easiest ways to alter your handguns to suit your preferences. And once the gun feels better in your hand, you’ll be much more likely to spend time shooting it, right?

Before you start shopping, you first need to consider what you need in a grip, or whether you even need new grips at all.  Many a shooter, after spending serious money on a set of aftermarket grips, has reluctantly re-installed his factory checkered wood or plastic grips after discovering that his new purchase not only failed to cure his shooting ills, but actually worsened them.

Carefully consider how grips will alter the fit and function of your handgun before making a purchase. Contemplate if you need to change your grip profile, or if you are looking for a better grip adhesion, for those long range sessions with sweaty hands. There are a variety of options available to suit your needs, but a little careful consideration and planning beforehand will save you disappointment and dollars along the way.

For instance, adding oversized rubber grips to many revolvers will interfere with using a speed-loader, especially if they have significant palm swell or a thumb rest. Soft rubber grips may provide better adhesion for sweaty hands, but they also tend to snag on clothing. This causes interference with a smooth draw. Some oversized grips may also interfere with the fit of a retention holster. With many of those rubber grips, cover garments will not drape as well as they would over harder, slick grips, making printing more likely.

Over time, soft, tacky rubber grips will often harden and grow slick with heavy use. Rather than replacing them, you can restore the tackiness by running them through a dishwasher cycle with very hot water. This may save you from having to replace your grips at all. However, in the event that you do need to change them out, we have compiled a list of things to look for.

Grip Appliques
Adhesive appliques such as grip tape can provide extra adhesion without altering your gun or changing the grip profile. The simplest of these is a sheet of skateboard tape, such as Black Widow Grip Tape, which comes in a variety of colors.

Simply cut the Black Widow tape in the shape you want, peel off the backing, and place it where you think it will do the most good. The front strap of the firearm is a common choice.

I advise against purchasing skateboard tape sight unseen. Some of these tapes can be quite abrasive, and your hands may bear the trauma after a long day at the range. Visit your local skate shop and try a sample before you buy.

Another choice is AGrip from Brooks Tactical Systems. It comes pre-cut to fit the 1911 and most popular polymer semi-autos. The AGrip provides a rubberized, wrap-around grip that offers extra adhesion without being abrasive or altering your grip profile.

Insta Grip is another choice. This is an inexpensive solution you can cut to fit your handgun. It is available in medium or heavy texture, and comes in a variety of configurations.

Grip Sleeves
Grip sleeves can provide extra bond while altering the grip profile somewhat. Depending on which product you choose, the change can add a subtle palm swell, or radically change the size and feel of your grip.

TheHogue Handall is a popular grip sleeve available for most semi-autos. It can enhance comfort and recoil control while providing that extra little bit of tactile adhesion. The soft rubber Handall provides finger grooves over the front strap and an excellent tacky feel, at the expense of adding noticeable thickness to your grip profile. Having shot numerous Glocks fitted with Hogue Handalls, I can attest to their comfort and durability.

The Handall is available in back or OD green, sized to fit all Glock Pistols, Smith & Wesson M&P series, Springfield XD/XDM series and similar-sized semi-autos. The Handall Junior is sized to fit most .22 LR and .25 ACP pocket pistols.

If finger grooves aren’t your thing, Pachmayr Tactical Grip Glove may be worth trying out. These come in both grooved and non-grooved versions. It seems most users enjoy the feel of the glove, but question the flimsiness of the rubber. However, they do sport a low price. This comes in handy when the wise bet is to consider these wear items that require regular replacement.

Grip and Magazine Extensions
As a big guy with large hands and fat fingers, the two banes of my existence are smart phone keypads and compact handgun grips. If you have the same problem, unfortunately, I can’t help you with your text message typos, but will provide a tip that helps me. Using an extended magazine or magazine grip extension for your concealed carry semi-auto will give you some place to put your little finger. I carry the 8-round extended magazine with grip extension in my Kahr CW9. I also added a Pearce Grip Extensions to all my magazines for my Taurus 709, without adding weight or sacrificing the ability to conceal.

Pearce also makes magazine extensions for Glock and Springfield XD series, as well as the Browning Hi Power and Beretta 92. The extensions can add from one to three rounds to your standard magazine capacity, depending upon the model you choose.

When considering functional modifications to existing factory magazines, the standard admonition caveat emptor applies. Considering that magazine failures are the most common reason for feeding issues in semi-auto handguns, I generally draw the line at adding a grip extender. If you want more capacity, I advise you to choose the factory extended magazines whenever available.

Grip Panels and Over-Molded Grips
1911 shooters can choose from a smorgasbord of grip panels made from aluminum, carbon fiber or rubber, to a plethora of exotic woods.  Whether you‘re changing your grip for functional or aesthetic reasons, you can take your pick. There are hundreds of options available for 1911 grips alone.

When it came time to add grips to my recently customized Hi Standard 1911, I chose a blend of function and aesthetics. I added a set of stippled EMS Star of Life grips in exotic paduak wood from Rimfire Designs to my gun. If you can envision a 1911 grip concept, Mark at Rimfire Designs can probably make it happen.

Hogue grips have long been a popular choice among revolver shooters, and for good reason. Hogue’s soft rubber Monogrip provide excellent adhesion and a pleasing palm swell far superior to many factory revolver grips, but Hogue doesn’t stop there. It also offers custom grips for revolvers and semi-autos in a broad variety of textures and materials.

Pachmayr has been a respected name in aftermarket stocks for so long that, for many people, black rubber handgun grips are simply known as “Pachmayrs,” much like “Kleenex” is synonymous with facial tissues and “Xerox” is synonymous with photocopiers. The company still offers a variety of wraparound grips to fit common revolver and semi-auto handguns, including 1911 pattern pistols with grip safeties. Pachmayr offers models with or without finger grooves, and its open backstrap Gripper Professional Series offers the recoil control and improved adhesion of a finger-grooved, soft rubber grip, sized to fit individuals with smaller hands.

I recently had an opportunity to shoot a friend’s Colt Gold Cup 1911 fitted with Pachmayr’s American Legend Series grips, and I was quite impressed. Blending the pleasing aesthetics of wood grips with the enhanced recoil control of rubber finger grooves over the front strap, the pistol felt and shot great. I’m a fan.

We hope this little primer gives you a bit of a head start on researching which aftermarket grip options are best for you. Just remember, doodads will never replace technique, but a pistol that feels good in your hand is a pistol you’re more likely to shoot. If a little aftermarket customization makes you more likely to do that, then go for it. Happy shooting!

These days choosing a scope is almost as important to prospective shooters as choosing a rifle. In addition to allowing a shooter to obtain better accuracy with the slower “old school” style cartridges, which pre-date the use of glass on guns, the telescopic sight allows us to make use of all the fast, flat-shooting modern cartridges that would hardly be worth having around without scopes. While an entire book could easily be written on choosing the best rifle scope out of the literally thousands of options, the modern buyer has to choose from, there are a few considerations that haven’t changed in decades and probably never will. Here we’ll take a look at the major factors to keep in mind when selecting a scope to give the prospective buyer a solid foundation to build on.

Magnification
As the whole point of a telescopic sight is to make objects look bigger, it may be tempting to the prospective buyer to look for a scope with the highest magnification available. In theory, this makes sense, but the reality is a bit different.

Two of the more important things to keep in mind when considering magnification levels are: the condition of your own eyes and the type of shooting the rifle or scope combination is to be used for.

If you constantly have people complimenting your vision and you tend to see things at long distances with good clarity, high magnification levels are probably not required for your riflescope, if big game hunting is the intended use. Naturally, varmint hunting or shooting at small targets from long distances should require a bit more magnification even with perfect 20/20 vision. That being said, 8X magnification is usually ample.

So, why skimp on magnification? Like anything else in this world, magnification costs money. It is much more difficult to build a good high magnification scope than it is to build a good low magnification scope, and the costs reflect this. A quick look at today’s market will show a good number of low cost (under $200) high magnification scopes, but the rub with cheap scopes is that at the highest magnification of, for instance, a 4-12 power scope, the image is often so blurry that it is of no use. So, what you actually have in the example above is an effective 4-10 power that maybe suspect in a few other areas that we will cover later. Quality 3-9X scopes can often be had for close to the prices of the cheap high magnification scopes and they represent a much better value.

It seems like most scope buyers place too high a premium on magnification. We’re a little addicted to it these days, but it should be remembered that WWII-era snipers only utilized 4- 6 power scopes in most cases and by the Vietnam War the Army had only moved up to 8x scopes. Higher magnification does not necessarily lead to better shooting. In most cases, if the buyer settles for lower magnification and redirects the saved money into a higher overall quality scope, they will be much happier in the long run.

Fixed Power vs. Variable Power
This question may not really be worth asking anymore. The fixed power scope had its heyday and remained popular for many decades, but it is now more or less on its way out due to the ascendancy of the reliable, durable variable power scope. That being said, the fixed power was, and still is, a perfectly useful implement, which originally was far more dependable than the variable power scope and offered greater accuracy. In the early days of scopes, a shooter’s point of aim would move around a bit when shifting between magnification levels on variable power scopes. Big game hunters cared about this less, because their targets are always at least the size of a pie plate, but the fixed power offered definite advantages to snipers and varmint hunters who are pickier about point of aim. As time passed, the kinks were worked out of variable power scopes and this shifting in point of aim has now been almost completely eliminated. The fixed power held on for some time, it was still cheaper to build. However, as manufacturing costs for variable power scopes came down the fixed power scopes eventually became the more expensive of the two options.

Currently, the only thing the fixed power scope really has going for it is that it has fewer parts. This means it has fewer things to break. The level of dependability that the modern variable power has achieved has somewhat diminishes that advantage, though. Both are useful, and preference usually determines choice in this area.

Adjustments
All scopes have adjustments for elevation (up and down) and windage (left and right), but not all are created equal. For starters, some scopes use different adjustment increments to move the point of aim different distances. These increments are usually defined in minutes of angle (MOA), a measurement that translates to pretty close to one inch at 100 yards. Some scopes designed for close shooting with shotguns, safari rifles or muzzleloaders have 1 MOA adjustments. These days, most basic big game hunting scopes have ½ MOA adjustments and higher-end scopes feature ¼ MOA adjustments. A basic rule of thumb is that as price increases these adjustments become more accurate (actually moving point of impact the amount they’re supposed to) and dependable (the setting remains where it is supposed to).

While 1 MOA adjustment can be a little vexing at the range, they are perfectly applicable to big game hunting. The ½ MOA adjustments are a bit easier to work with and allow for a bit more confidence in most cases, and the ¼ MOA adjustments are nicer still but are hardly necessary for big game hunting and are better suited to varmint hunting where a ¼ of an inch is of more concern.

Up until recently scope caps had to be removed to adjust elevation and windage. These days, more accessible adjustments are becoming popular. The traditional caps are replaced with turrets that the shooter can get make adjustments to with little effort. Some companies even offer the ability to have turrets adjusted to a particular ammunition load, which allows a shooter to adjust their scope in real time, if they know the range so that no on-the-fly drop estimation is necessary. While these have found great favor with the long range hunting crowd and target shooters, these scopes can’t really be recommended for the average hunter or shooter. If you feel the need for them later on, you can always add one. However, until then, it is just one more way to get confused as to the actual point of impact if you make adjustments and then forget them.

Reticles
The sheer number of choices of reticles (or crosshairs, as they are commonly known), can be a little overwhelming. They are available in varying thickness, design, range estimation intervals and many can even be had with integral range finders or drop compensators. This is not too big of a concern, though, because the reticle of a scope is one of the things you aren’t really stuck with. Most quality scope manufactures are more than willing to switch out reticles for a modest fee if you decide you truly hate what you see every time you look through your scope.

When it comes to picking a reticle initially the best advice is to keep things simple. Standard crosshairs are fine and have been for the better part of a century. Duplex style crosshairs offer a bit more clarity to some and center dot reticles appeal to others. Obviously, finer crosshairs are better for finer work like varmint shooting, but some people do fine work on small targets with thick crosshairs. It takes a bit of practicing to decide which you like best in the field. So take it easy and find out what works for you through trial and error. The range finders and drop compensators can always be added later if you feel you need them.

Objective Size
The front objective of a scope, or the front “bell”, can be had in different sizes. Some scopes have no front bell, 30mm or 40mm bells are considered fairly standard and larger ones up to 50mm or bigger are available. What’s the difference? The front objective is how light gets into the scope. The bigger the objective the more light it takes in, and this extra light makes the view through the scope both brighter and clearer to the shooter.

The extra brightness afforded by a larger objective is something some shooters feel they need. Most find the 40mm objective to be bright enough while still allowing for normal scope mounting. Obviously, if the front end of the scope is bigger the entire unit must be mounted higher, which tends to bring the scope out of proper alignment with the shooter’s eye. Some shooters go with the larger 50mm objective, mount the scope high and then affix an aftermarket cheek rest to the rifle to solve the alignment problem. There are also scope models currently available that have 50mm objectives with curves built into the bottom to accommodate lower mounting and normal alignment. These scopes offer some increased light gathering, but one wonders if the surface area lost to the curve leaves the shooter with anything more than a placebo effect when compared to a 40mm objective.

The best course of action is to select a scope that seems bright and presents crisp clear images. If the front objective happens to be larger on the desired scope then make adjustments accordingly. Larger objectives and cheek rests can often have a poor effect on the aesthetics of a rifle, but the shooter can generally learn to live with it if accuracy takes precedence over looks.