I have another small batch of grips for sale— Maclura Pomifera, commonly called Osage Orange. I will have these only sporadically depending upon when I can get out and cut some.... these are made for me to a very high standard by Raasco Grips.

I think of it as an exotic wood although it grows right behind my house and these are made from wood that I have cut. It’s tough, tough stuff: on the Janka wood hardness scale it is harder and denser than ash and hickory, think baseball bats and axe handles. In the wood stove it really puts out the BTU’s, more than anything else on North America.

I also have a few sets in Black Locust, also locally cut—that’s the dark one in the middle. Also a set in Ash-- locally cut but not by me, it actually came out of my woodpile, as I was putting it in the stove I noticed what a beautiful piece it was. Ash might just be gone around here in a decade thanks to the Emerald Ash Borer.


I cropped this one up close hoping to show that Osage Orange really does have some character to it, which can sometimes be hard to see at first. Sometimes it comes off looking homogeneous with no grain, that’s just how tight it is. The interesting thing is that it gains character with use and exposure to light. The set on the right, I filled the grooves with modeling clay and left them in a window for a couple months and this is how much the sun darkened them. In the above pic, the one with the back showing was masked except for at the very top, The dark part is the result of exposure to light.


I also have a couple sets for the Officers length guns, one English Walnut, one Black Cherry, and one or two Osage Orange. All are "thin", all are double diamond FRAG, and all are $140 a set.

Here's a custom 1911 I did a couple years ago with these on it:
http://ltwguns.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9844