Thumbrest grips on a 22 semi-auto--Advantages?

[tazman]

Please excuse a possibly uneducated question. While I have been shooting handguns for a lot of years, I have never had one with a thumbrest grip on it before.
I just got my Ruger MarkII Competition from the gun shop and am going to the range tomorrow with it for the first time. It currently sports a set of wood grips with a thumbrest on the left side suitable for a right handed shooter(I am a righty). This fest feel very different from what I am used to. Not uncomfortable, just different.
What advantages are there to having the thumbrest as opposed to the standard flat panel grips?
I will be using this pistol for target for the most part.

[country gent]

I have a ruger mk2 with volquestrian target grips and a S&W 41 with the target grips that are very comfortable and easy to shoot good groups with. Some like the thumbrest or swell to help keep them from bumping safteys or slide locks under recoil. For some it allows a more relaxed grip and more consistant trigger pull. If you competition or shooting works both hands the thumb rest grips tend to be less user friendly to off side shooting.

[tazman]

I tried them out and you were right about the thumbrest being poor for the off hand. I picked up a set of faux ivory grips for it that look very nice. I may just leave them on it after I try things out.
Here is a picture of the "ivory" grips.
156939

[Blackwater]

It was once thought that the thumb rest helped one get a straight back trigger pull for competition shooting. And it does to some extent, at least for many shooters. The really good shooters do the straight back thing with any grip, but the thumb rest pokes the shooting hand's thumb out further to the left, thus enhancing the liklihood of a straight back trigger pull. This was once widely accepted and understood by anyone who did much match type shooting, but it one of the many principles that have lost ground over time and been pretty well abandoned and forgotten. There really is great advantage in that straight back trigger pull, but many thumbrest grips today are more stylized for looks than functional, and I think the ones by Ruger kind'a fall at least a little into that category. The problem with many is that while they tend to eliminate the cross pressure that is often induced on the gun by the thumb, the knuckle of the thumb intrudes with some of these type grips. But that's just with my hand, and every set of hands is different in size, thickness and the way it's jointed, so ... the search for the "perfect grips" will likely continue forever. Just try them, and pay attention to what kind of pressures your thumb wants to inflict on the gun while shooting them. Sometimes, a little sandpaper and some slight sanding can do wonders for a set of grips, including the thumbrest type. You can, with a little effort, fit them exclusively to your hand. Just note where the hand tends to produce unwanted side pressures, and figure out how best to eliminate that, but go slow. It really only takes a bare few thousandths to make a grip feel different. I'm betting you'll like them, different or not.

[saleen322]

Real target pistols made for precision match shooting have target grips that include a thumb rest. With some experience, your scores with target grips will always be better than without them. Precision shooting is difficult and not as popular now as it was in the past. Below are some examples of good pistols with various target grips. Hope this helps.

http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt98/saleen322/22%20Pistols/PardiniFPM-1_zps8e8fa167.jpg http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt98/saleen322/22%20Pistols/Hammerli208.jpg http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt98/saleen322/22%20Pistols/Benelli-Trophy-1.jpg

[tazman]

Those look like they were custom fit to your particular hand.
I expect that was the entire point. It would make your grip as close to exactly the same each shot as possible.

[saleen322]

Those look like they were custom fit to your particular hand.
I expect that was the entire point. It would make your grip as close to exactly the same each shot as possible.

They are not really custom, they come is sizes like gloves. Usually small, medium, large and X-large in right or left hand. The palm shelf is what really helps and most have some adjustment range. What you want is to get the size that is correct for your hand. All of the pistols shown have stock, off-the-shelf target grips. Morini has even more, 7 sizes and below is a link to the size chart to give you an idea of how they work.

http://www.morini.ch/product.php?cat=5

[Guesser]

I've used a Ruger Standard Model 22 Semi Auto dated from the 60's with Ruger after market target thumbrest grips for almost 40 years. They help....a lot.

[rfd]

it's a subjectively personal thing, no more or less.

it just feels better on my comp mark III, to me, and that's all that matters.

http://i.imgur.com/7KqQkN5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/MBDpxT5.jpg

[Mk42gunner]

With a properly designed and fitting thumbrest, you don't need a vermin strangling grip on the pistol to control it.

I more or less taught myself how to shoot a .22 pistol with my Dad's 3rd model Colt Woodsman, and got good enough I could cut blackberry briars with it. Not saying how far away I could do it, but I wish I had that pistol back.

Robert

[tazman]

I took it to the range today and gave it a workout. I can say for sure that it shoots better than I do(which isn't terribly encouraging in itself actually). I did shoot it from a rest at 10 yards with the iron sights and got consistent dime size groups with almost any ammo I ran through it.
It really likes the Norma match and Federal auto match but did nearly as well with thunderbolts. I dug out an old box of Federal standard target bullets which have been stored in an ammo can for a couple of decades. It did extremely well with those but they are not something I can't replace so they will get shot for practice. I also had some Remington hi velocity(old style 40gr) and CCI standard velocity that shot well. I may be lucky and the gun likes everything so far. No malfunctions but the Norma match was barely working the action enough to feed and fire the gun. It consistently failed to lock open after the last shot with all the target loads. It may be that I need to clean it better. It will get that today.
The range I go to shoots leagues so I shot my league score today. Unfortunately I had to shoot my other pistol as this week we were required to shoot weak hand only. That thumbrest makes that difficult as was mentioned earlier.
I will have to shoot it again with and without the thumbrest and see how it does. for me. In this league you never know what target or hand position you will be shooting till you walk in so I may need to switch out the grips. Decision time is still a ways away yet.

[Hawks Feather]

I am glad that it likes a variety of ammo. The one I have does the same thing. In fact many that I have seen at the indoor range get similar results - not all, but most.

[bedbugbilly]

My Dad had a High Standard Sport King 22 that had thumbnuts grips on it. It was his "sock drawer" gun and I don't believe he shot it more than a couple of times. After he passed, I took it out a few times to give it a workout. The grips weren't fancy - plastic stock grips for a right hander. After shooting BP revolvers, etc. for so many years, I had a heck of a time getting used to them . . didn't care for them at all . . . but that's just me. I ended up selling the pistol as it always had feeding issues and the various gunsmiths I took it to couldn't take care of it . . . it was just too frustrating to put up with. A few years back, I had a chance to buy a Ruger MKIII Target with the bull barrel. Standard grips on it and I found it very easy to shoot it with those grips. I personally think that the grips and how well you can use them depend on your training? And I suppose if a person had a good shooter who was used to the thumb grips work with you, you could pick up a lot of "tips" on using them. Around where I am, I just didn't know any serious target shooters who used them that I could learn from.

Those faux ivories do look nice on that pistol!

[tazman]

Thanks. I like them too.
I think I am going to change out the thumbrest grips for the ivory grips for a while and see how I do with it. I can always switch back.

[Markbo]

I shoot 1911s with a high thumb grip so the Ruger MK target grips feel very natural to me. Having a tight rolled over thumb is only comfortable to me on large bore revolvers.

Hey Taz...maybe you'll want to get a 2nd pistol with left hand thumbrest for those offhand days, huh? : D

[tazman]

That's as good an excuse to buy another gun as I have heard in a while. I like that idea.

[contender1]

Like I've preached many times when I teach,,, each person's grip is different. You have to find what works in YOUR hands.
For many the thumbrest helps,,, & others,,, they don't fit.