OK, I am going to refocus on 1911s and my new carry blaster is a Wilson Lightweight

[Det-Sog]

Ken Hackathorn uses ivory stocks on his carry guns and has stated that they've helped him develop a very strong grip.

Interesting. Being new to 1911s (swore for 30+ years I'd never have one, but now LOVE them) I thought the opposite. I have more research to do. THANK YOU. So much to learn on this forum.

[Gary1911A1]

Fake ivory grips while I ponder pricey investment in real thing

Untitled by stoiclawyer, on Flickr

Ken Hackathorn also mention these fake VZ Ivory Grips that have some texture on a video I watched. Can't find it now, but here's a link to them: https://vzgrips.com/pistol-grips/191.../320-ivory-g10 I purchased a set and I like them and plan on getting another set the next sale.

[The Dumb Gun Collector]

I am not going pretend that my main reason for white grips isn't that I just like the look. I like the look. HOWEVER, there are at least two advantages as I see it: (1) they don't snag on your clothes, especially when drawing. I had a M&P 2.0 compact that had an incredibly "sticky" grip. The texture, which was excellent for shooting, was terrible on the draw and I snagged my cover garment while drawing and the gun "turned in" and pointed towards my hip. I keep my finger off the trigger so it was fine, but its definitely concerned me. (2) smooth grips are FASTER on the draw. I can sink in a repeatable grip on the draw better with slick grips than heavily textured grips. Your hand just slides into place.

That being said, after you start shooting, the lack of side texture requires a very firm grip (always good with a handgun anyway). Fortunately, this gun has excellent front and rear checkering.

I got ANOTHER set of white grips. These are from wood caliber. I like them because they will make the grips to spec. These are non Ambi compact with Magwell grips made of Holly. I prefer them to the duragrips because they don't shine quite as bright and have a more natural yellow tint. However, the duragrips were $25 and the real wood grips were $80 so that is a big difference for a pretty minor difference.

Untitled by stoiclawyer, on Flickr

[Sam]

Black gun and white grips do go together quite nicely.

After a weekend of carrying my old CQB around, the checkered grips chaffed my love handle, they actually put imprints of the checkering on my flab. It was a super hot weekend so I didn't wear an undershirt. I decided to put the set of go to town ivory on the piece and it felt much better. Took it to the range and ran some drills with it and it felt satisfactory. I'll leave it on until at least winter. It's not the first time I put the ivory on this gun, I change grips like little girls change accessories on her barbie doll.

[The Dumb Gun Collector]

I did a little comparison shooting with my G19 today. I always find comparisons difficult because the gun that gets shot first is usually the weakest performer, so I usually try and rotate the guns every few mags. That probably reduces over-all performance with both guns, but it makes comparisons a little fairer. I did 6/6/6 drills, bill drills and El Prez and honestly, neither gun has any speed advantage, except a slight advantage for the 1911 on the bill drill due to split speed (and that is really, really small). The only real area of performance where I found that either gun had an advantage was accuracy. I am far more likely to miss on my small steel plates (smaller than a shoebox) at speed with the Glock. On my larger IPSC sized torso targets there is no difference.

I really enjoyed my new pimp Holly grips. And the gun performed without issue, although I only fired 100 rounds of Blazer brass. The Glock didn't jam but it does have a weird idiosyncrasy where the last case out of the gun is often spinning on top of the slide when it locks back. Weird.

Untitled by stoiclawyer, on Flickr

Untitled by stoiclawyer, on Flickr

[Hunter Rose]

Seems like a good plan. In a similar vein, maybe you've seen the thread over on pistol-forum about going back to carrying a 1911. I was surprised when the thread started, I expected all the Glock fanbois to come out of the woodwork and do a beatdown on the guy with all the usual tired cliches (design outdated, the 1911 is like a chick you dated in high school but now...., blah blah). But really few did, was actually glad to see that. Which points out that folks are realizing the 1911 has some virtues of its own. First and foremost (and as you said): you can shoot it fast and accurately.

As the one who started that thread on Pistol-Forum, I was surprised as well to see how it went. It seems we've finally come off the "anything but a Glock 19 will get you killed" mentality, and more folks are willing to acknowledge different pistols have different pros/cons.

While trying to get back in to the 1911 did not work out for me, and oddly enough led me back to the HK USP series, I'm interested to see how Greg's experience goes. I value reliability most, so when looking at the 1911 I was only considering 5" 1911s in .45 Auto. Curious to see how the Wilson 9mm does in reliability, as a CCO sized 9mm seems like it makes a very concealable while still easily shootable pistol.

[Arik]

Edit. Wrong topic

[Pappabear]

Black gun and white grips do go together quite nicely.

After a weekend of carrying my old CQB around, the checkered grips chaffed my love handle, they actually put imprints of the checkering on my flab. It was a super hot weekend so I didn't wear an undershirt. I decided to put the set of go to town ivory on the piece and it felt much better. Took it to the range and ran some drills with it and it felt satisfactory. I'll leave it on until at least winter. It's not the first time I put the ivory on this gun, I change grips like little girls change accessories on her barbie doll.

Sam , those grips look amazing. Is the major draw to Ivory grips "looks cool as Patton" kinda thing? Ive never had a set of ivory grips. What do they cost, on average? Do I have to go poach a wild animal in Africa? Educate an amigo about Ivories.

PB

[Sam]

PB:

Thanks. I like it because it looks cool, yes, maybe Patton had some influence but mostly I like it even if Patton didn't like them. The grips are way more beautiful in person.

Here goes my limited knowledge of ivory, did I say limited, yes, very limited.

My set were made from mammoth ivory, which I think are perfectly legal to own, sell, trade, etc. They are quite expensive, right around $400 from 8 or 9 years ago. Elephant ivories are even more expensive. How did I justify it? we have $2000 or more custom 1911s, so what's another $400 on grips? I'm sure some glock, Lorcin, Davis and high point owners would stroke out on the cost of ivory grips that cost more than multiple of their guns.

It's weird that parts from extinct animal is legal to deal with but parts from currently living animal is not. I believe several states don't allow the transaction of elephant ivories and of course you can't go to Africa and poach them. How are you going to bring the pieces back to the US through custom?

I read that if the ivories were obtained before 1947, they are legal to own, sell, trade. How do they know when such ivories were harvested?

Like Greg mentioned, there are much cheaper alternatives that look like ivory. That material he has sure look nice and very close to real ivory, I would need to look at it in person. G10 materials are also good substitute but doesn't feel like ivory.

That's what I think I know. I'm sure someone will come along and say I'm full of s h i t.

[opngrnd]

I did a little comparison shooting with my G19 today. I always find comparisons difficult because the gun that gets shot first is usually the weakest performer, so I usually try and rotate the guns every few mags. That probably reduces over-all performance with both guns, but it makes comparisons a little fairer. I did 6/6/6 drills, bill drills and El Prez and honestly, neither gun has any speed advantage, except a slight advantage for the 1911 on the bill drill due to split speed (and that is really, really small). The only real area of performance where I found that either gun had an advantage was accuracy. I am far more likely to miss on my small steel plates (smaller than a shoebox) at speed with the Glock. On my larger IPSC sized torso targets there is no difference.

I really enjoyed my new pimp Holly grips. And the gun performed without issue, although I only fired 100 rounds of Blazer brass. The Glock didn't jam but it does have a weird idiosyncrasy where the last case out of the gun is often spinning on top of the slide when it locks back. Weird.

Untitled by stoiclawyer, on Flickr

Untitled by stoiclawyer, on Flickr

In my opinion, those "smaller than a shoebox" targets are where the real value is at. People's vitals are pretty small.
Story time- I used to shoot with a couple guys who were on the "Glock only, speed draw, full size silhouette steel targets, blah blah..." train. Great 3 gun types. They always ran courses like shoot once/reload/shoot once on full silhouette steel. Or double tap three full size silhouettes from 15 yards, then reload and repeat.

One day I set up the same courses with appropriate 1/3 size reduced silhouettes and watched them run mags dry. Double tap three 8"x12" targets from 15 yards with a timer going? Nope, it's going to take most, if not all, of the 17 round mag. The "light bulb" moment was when one of the speed focused guys became offended because someone else made a Glock joke, so he challenged the joker to the Vickers 10-10-10 drill. (Joker has never heard of the drill before.) The joker scored as high as the offended dudes 1st and 2nd score combined, and then the offended dude blamed ME for making him look bad!


Moral of the story? Practice the small hard stuff.