Hello all, I have lurked on here and benefited in the past from all the info onboard. Usually pre-existing threads answer most of my questions, but I do not know what to do with my FA97.
The gun is a .45 Colt with the 4.25" barrel and micarta grips, standard shape. For whatever reason, I can barely hang onto this gun with any of the Ruger loads. One of the major factors for that is how slick the micarta grips are, but I also don't get the feeling that they fit me well. Even though they are "not supposed to", this gun rolls on me hard and cuts up the web of my hand despite the grip shape. I have tried holding it high, low, and normal on the grip, but anything short of a full-force death grip will cut me before half a box is through.
Regarding the possibility of custom grips, (and I guess the main thing I hope to learn) is how do I tell if the current grips are a bad fit for me or not? I don't think I like the slimming of the micarta from top to bottom regarding the thickness of the panels (grip width), but I am not sure if I would rather have it fatter at the top, skinnier or the bottom, or some mix of the two. I know some of the better grip makers like Scott Kolar have you send in a drawing of your hand. Does anyone know what these guys are looking for to size your new panels? I'm thinking that if perhaps I knew how the grip was supposed to fit, maybe I could determine myself if a custom grip could fit any better than what I have now. Basically see if there is any room for improvement.
I wear a Medium or Large glove, but I guess I have never considered myself to have large hands as they are pretty bony, but somehow the FA97 grip still feels a little small to me. I still like the gun, but I was hoping to be able to feed it longer sessions with hard loads. I am not a big-bore, big-recoil afficianado or anything, but I have shot all the way up the Hodgdon data to the 360s in my .45 Ruger Bisley without any real problems.