Skateboard Tape

Good morning everybody:

Like everybody else, I am getting older.  Hopefully I am getting wiser as I age.  

Last year or so, my scores have been in a slow decline, and I also suspect that my hand is decreasing in size as well.  

Was consistently shooting close to master scores but they have deteriorated to a low expert, even struggling to retain expert scores.    Plus, the heal shoe was digging into my hand so I was steadily removing material until they became comfortable.  

Got a new pair of grips for my Pardini from Jon Eulette (thank you Jon!) that are a little bit smaller than my old grips, although Jon advertised them as size large, which is the same size as my old grips, but they are smaller.  What interested me was that the new grips did not have a heal plate. The new grips felt better but there was no improvement in my scores. For what it is worth, I had to move the trigger about 3/8th of a inch forward to get a correct trigger purchase.  Figured I was gripping the pistol tighter, but my wobble was getting worse.

Experimented with "Stickum" spray and saw a improvement in scores but did not like the glue-like material on my hands which migrated to the carrying handle of my box, target pins, etc.  

Yesterday, I got some Skateboard Tape, the kind with the sand embedded in the surface and applied a number of small strips to my grips.   Found that I could get a secure grip with a reasonable amount of pressure.  Discovered that my wobble had decreased significantly.  

Shot a 568 out of 600 yesterday!

Putting this up there so maybe others can benefit. 


Regards, 
George

Dear Cranky,

I "had a hand in those grips", so to speak, even though I never actually touched them! I will reveal all if we meet in the summer!

Anyhow. That really gritty tape is amazing. I experimented with it a lot last fall on a Rink ISSF Pardini grip in training for International Center-fire. I was surprised to discover that the tape "walked" during rapid fire. I used instant epoxy to fix it in place. Wound up the heel nice and firm. Then I used the same glue to fix a narrow strip along the "thumb groove". Made a huge difference and, after quite a lot of training, I shot a decent CF score in the match. Happy with that.

Against JE's advice, I apply quite a lot of pressure with thumb and pinky - I kind of balance them - but if the gun is flopping around in your hand during recoil then it is all for nought!

I am almost inclined to "cut and shut" a grip to as close as possible to my "grip", then dip or spray it in really sticky epoxy and "powder coat" it in the most aggressive abrasive powder I can find!

I have a mixture of abrasive sand additive for paint, epoxy, and shoe polish (for color), on my 208s grip.

I don't think that I own any pistols that don't have abrasive tape on the grip somewhere!

Definitely preferred to front strap checkering for functionality.

Darius “Doc” Young had Cesare Morini make his grips, then Doc would coat them with an abrasive sand type material. That gun was going no where! You needed callouses for those grips.
Jon

I use grip tape on quite a few of my guns. Once you find the level of aggressiveness that you like, I suggest keeping some on hand in your shooting kit as it will wear out. On my primary guns I probably change the tape out every match or 2 depending on the gun (45 gets replaced more than the 22).

I have screwed around with grips forever. Tried adding material(putty), tried removing material(sanding) and have used abrasive tape as well.  All have worked to some degree but sooner or later I was back at trying to get the grip just right.

In all of my trial and errors the one thing that was always there - I was conscious of my alteration - even though it felt good.

And of course shooting in warm weather your hand is one size then in the cold it is different again, no matter how hard I try to not let this bother me(just get your hand positioned firmly on the grip and shoot) it does.

My latest endeavor to put and end to this - I had Andrew from Precision Target Pistol Grips make me some grips.  I was clueless trying to articulate to him exactly what I wanted.  Best I could tell him was I just wanted to pickup the gun and my hand would be exactly on the grip in the exact position - every time.  Didn't want to have to grab the muzzle end of barrel and wiggle my hand into place.

You know what I mean I wanted the grip to fit me like a glove.

After 1 zoom session and several emails he sent me the first grip.  It was pretty close but it was not perfect.  A few emails and a few pictures later and he sent me version 2.  

The grip seems to be perfect - my hand position is now repeatable - I have the upswept palm rest - took time to get this measurement right - my hand is locked in place - I never had an upswept palm before - I'm left handed and was using stock Pardini grip - no upswept palm available for lefties.

I can't say for certain that I won't mess with these grips in the future but so far my hand does not move.

I was having trouble with timed and rapid fire, I could feel my hand moving and my scores indicated I was having trouble.

I'm not throwing away my pound of putty or sandpaper or tape just yet, but I'm hoping I don't need the stuff.

Now what do you guys have for failing eyes??

Would you happen to have a photo you could post? I’d like to see the design.

BruceV wrote:
Now what do you guys have for failing eyes??

Are you shooting sights or Dot?

I just had some Decot prescription shooting glasses made for sights.
Decot Hy-Wyd - Buy The Best Handmade Shooting Glasses Made In USA

Some of the information I referenced when looking for better front sight vision:

Dr. Norman Wong Articles as posted to the Bullseye List (starreloaders.com)

Vertex Distance, Optimum Vision or Not? | An NRA Shooting Sports Journal (ssusa.org)

WATCH: Bullseye Pistol Vision with Brian Zins | An NRA Shooting Sports Journal (ssusa.org)

Is Your Front Sight A Blur? Let Decot Clear It Up! - Decot Hy-Wyd Sport Glasses, Inc.

Old Pistol Shooters Don't Give Up, They Just Lose Their Sights - Decot Hy-Wyd Sport Glasses, Inc.

DECOTS are excellent, but quite expensive.

Champion, Knobloch, Vertex (and possibly others that I do not own) are also excellent.

Tinted lens, diopter/iris, corrective lens for shooting eye can all be very important. Especially if one is older with somewhat defective eyesight.

The problem is, in my experience, that one does not discover what really works, till you suddenly discover what does actually work!

RoadRunnerWill wrote:Would you happen to have a photo you could post? I’d like to see the design.

Here you go.  Nothing special to look at - I personally don't care what they look like, only concern is function.  The fit/placement of my hand is as close to perfect I've ever had.

Jon Eulette wrote:Darius “Doc” Young had Cesare Morini make his grips, then Doc would coat them with an abrasive sand type material. That gun was going no where! You needed callouses for those grips.
Jon

I believe that was super glue and sand.   Very tough material.  I have a grip from Doc that had it.

the 

BruceV wrote:

RoadRunnerWill wrote:Would you happen to have a photo you could post? I’d like to see the design.

Here you go.  Nothing special to look at - I personally don't care what they look like, only concern is function.  The fit/placement of my hand is as close to perfect I've ever had.

Thanks!  I like it. I’m with ya on function over form. I have that discussion with Mrs. RoadRunner on a daily basis!

RoadRunnerWill wrote:the 

BruceV wrote:

RoadRunnerWill wrote:Would you happen to have a photo you could post? I’d like to see the design.

Here you go.  Nothing special to look at - I personally don't care what they look like, only concern is function.  The fit/placement of my hand is as close to perfect I've ever had.

Thanks!  I like it. I’m with ya on function over form. I have that discussion with Mrs. RoadRunner on a daily basis!

That right there is funny. I don’t care who you are…

shanneba wrote:

BruceV wrote:
Now what do you guys have for failing eyes??

Are you shooting sights or Dot?

I just had some Decot prescription shooting glasses made for sights.
Decot Hy-Wyd - Buy The Best Handmade Shooting Glasses Made In USA

Some of the information I referenced when looking for better front sight vision:

Dr. Norman Wong Articles as posted to the Bullseye List (starreloaders.com)

Vertex Distance, Optimum Vision or Not? | An NRA Shooting Sports Journal (ssusa.org)

WATCH: Bullseye Pistol Vision with Brian Zins | An NRA Shooting Sports Journal (ssusa.org)

Is Your Front Sight A Blur? Let Decot Clear It Up! - Decot Hy-Wyd Sport Glasses, Inc.

Old Pistol Shooters Don't Give Up, They Just Lose Their Sights - Decot Hy-Wyd Sport Glasses, Inc.

My days shooting without a dot are long gone.

BruceV wrote:
My days shooting without a dot are long gone.

Curious - specifically what is it about your vision that doesn't allow you to align the steel sights?
Or, is it something else.

the KISS method of grip improvement:
Get the right size bicycle inner tube - Cut a 2"± section - with a paper punch, punch staggered rows of holes in it - stretch it over the grip.

mikemyers wrote:

BruceV wrote:
My days shooting without a dot are long gone.

Curious - specifically what is it about your vision that doesn't allow you to align the steel sights?
Or, is it something else.

I guess I should have stated my days of having a clear sight picture, front/rear and target all in focus are gone.  I can shoot iron sights but the sight picture is not great and the dot is much better - not perfect but pretty darn good.

I have glasses that I can see the front sight good - rear sight not too bad - target so blurry it messes me up.  If I can see the target then forget the gun sights.

I have always shot with both eyes open, if I close my right eye I can see the sights on the gun pretty good and the target somewhat.

It does not feel right closing an eye, I kind of tense up.

Not to mention I have a pretty good astigmatism and I have a good size floater dead center which bugs me all the time.

Most days I do fine with the dot - some days the problem is deciding which dot I should concentrate on - yes sometimes I see what appears to be two blurry dots.

"I have glasses that I can see the front sight good - rear sight not too bad - target so blurry it messes me up.  If I can see the target then forget the gun sights."


You are confusing me.  What you just wrote is exactly what we are supposed to see with open sights, the only thing in our view is a sharp, clear, front sight, with blurry rear sight, and blurry target.  The more blurry the target is, the better, so we don't unconsciously focus on it.

Both eyes open is good.  If you can't block out the view from the other eye, you can buy a flip-up "occluder", so your non-shooting eye doesn't notice any detail.

Astigmatism - I thought corrective lenses in your eyeglasses can correct that. 

The floater - not much can be done, and having it removed is potentially dangerous.  I have floaters too, but mine, well, float, and move around, and quickly flicking my eyes away, then back, causes the ^%$^&*!! thing to temporarily move out of my line of sight, but it comes back.   :-(

Having a pair of distance glasses, that correct the astigmatism, I think is the easiest "fix", but I'm too stubborn to give up on open sights.

"Yes, glasses can correct astigmatism and dramatically clarify your eyesight. Glasses for astigmatism are fitted with corrective cylindrical lenses that help to properly refract light onto the retina of the eye. "

mikemyers wrote:
You are confusing me.  What you just wrote is exactly what we are supposed to see with open sights, the only thing in our view is a sharp, clear, front sight, with blurry rear sight, and blurry target.  The more blurry the target is, the better, so we don't unconsciously focus on it.

I understand but when I say blurry I mean so much that I can't get the sight picture I need to make the shot. Way back when I started shooting (1975) like many of us, my eyes worked perfectly.  Then somewhere around 2000 they started to fail at first no too bad, by 2010 they have been challenging.

Shooting is not the only sport that messes me up, I ride sport bikes (racetrack only) my depth of perception sucks, gets interesting when several bikes are very close to you at speed, 1 bike is breaking, 1 bike is passing you, 2 bikes are on your line a few feet in front of you, and you may be going 40 mph or 150 mph.

I have no issues growing old - I have great issue growing old and falling apart.

Just a quick question. How did this post go from skateboard tape to vision problems and solutions?

whitez06 wrote:Just a quick question. How did this post go from skateboard tape to vision problems and solutions?

My fault - sorry!!

Have you tried to increase the depth of field with an iris?  (Not for biking, of course.)  You can do a simple test to see if it works before buying one, by making a small hole in an opaque piece of material and looking through the hole at your sight picture.  A league mate drilled a hole in a cheap set of sunglasses and did well with that arrangement.  I, myself, have a variable iris with a 0.75 diopter lens mounted on it that gives me a good balance of focus and adjustable depth.  I use the same setup with my dot when I want to clear it up.

Most radical thread drift I ever saw