Rink Ambidextrous grips

I figured I'd do a quick write up for folks who are not familiar with some other grip options from Thomas Rink. Having collected walnut furniture from several grip/stock makers I think I can compare a few products in case others are interested.

Sometime early in the six years I have been shooting I bought a used S&W M41 at a reasonable price from a plastic pistol and black rifle shop. The gun did not run well and the factory grip looked like the previous owner/s would get frustrated and beat the grip on the bench. A friend had Herrett Trainers on his M41 but I didn't really care for the shape. Somewhere, (maybe Larry's Guns Inc) I bought a set of Herrett H41s.



http://www.herrettstocks.com/h41.htm

Great stuff, happy hand. Except the backstrap was smooth and the pistol would move around in my hand as I was shooting. Rut-roh. 

Fortunately Herretts is a fantastic company and after some communication I sent my stocks in to have the backstrap checkered at a reasonable price for hand craftsmanship. I was warned the checkering would not be perfect but they would do their best to match the hand checkering to the original machine checkering. Delores was the name of the artist and the results were very good aesthetically and for function. Very grippy, happier hand.

I also had a Hammerli X-esse and was playing musical grips. I wasn't comfortable with anatomic grips and was using a CMM 1911 adapter. Good stuff but when I saw the Rink Ambidextrous grip for it at Larry's Guns website I bought a set.



Very nice, thick and happy hand like the Herrett M41s. Like the CMM grip adapters the part of the grip that fits in the window of the frame has to be fitted but after that they are securely attached. A few file strokes and the front strap matched the metal frame.

After I got the itch to own a 22 with an adjustable length trigger and decided Hammerli 208S/215S were singing my siren song of being expensive, out of production, hard to get parts and hard to get service support so I bought an Feinwerkbau AW93. The factory large grip was a disaster so.... I bought a Rink Ambidextrous for it.

 

https://www.formgriffe.de/en/shpSR.php?p1=400&p2=436

This time we didn't get along. The grip felt like two anatomical grip halves put together. The backstrap was weird. After connecting with my inner Igor would shoot a match or 100 shots in training and then removed whatever wood bothered me. At times I was using a rasp to get the shape right for me. I have a tack hammer with some nails attached to it to duplicate the stippling and some Scherell's oil hid the work when done.

After some work we got along. I like the wood Rink uses as I find it easy to work with and easy to hide my work. So far I have been able to remove wood to get to where I wanted to be. On the FWB factory grip I had to use a lot of epoxy putty to keep it from moving in my hand. Ugly but effective.

Most people only know of Rink anatomical grips so I wanted to mention some other options. Ordering from the website has worked for me.

I have a SIG Trailside with the Rink Ambidextrous grip on it that I too bought from Larry's. Feels a bit (and looks a lot) better than that cheap plastic grip that the gun came with.

I'm curious about the CMM 1911 adaptor, at the time I almost bought the Rink version of this instead of the grips that you have in the picture above.  I'm still wondering if that would have been better for me.  Would you please add a few thoughts on the CMM 1911 grip?  Why were you not satisfied with it?

thanks,
Doug

Doug Tiedt wrote:... Would you please add a few thoughts on the CMM 1911 grip?  Why were you not satisfied with it?
...

Good question. The quality of the CMM grip adapter kit is very good. It is a very clever piece of gear but if I remember the sequence of "trying to buy points" I also bought a Nelson Custom Guns conversion kit and had a lower made for it soon after as that was the latest Bullseye Gun-Of-The-Month craze/fashion. After taking delivery of the conversion why have a near grip with a hinged trigger when I had a 1911 conversion that had almost the same weight, balance, grip, sight picture and trigger as my 45?

I sold the CMM kit to a friend who is very happy with it. Since my X-esse is no longer pretending to be a 1911 I like a hand-filling Rink grip (for my hand).