How to Save Money When Buying Custom Hand Grips

If you own a pistol you probably wanted to change the grips to something customized as soon as you got it. Fortunately there are a bazillion companies that make grips out of just about any material. However buying something off the shelf doesn’t really mean ‘custom’. Making something that’s one-of-a-kind adds more to the pistol than the same exact grips thousands of other people have ordered from the ‘net. You may have looked at the grips and thought ‘I can make these’ and found making sawdust and wood scraps is much easier.

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There are two main points to making proper grips: correct bushing holes and working the wood. You make the holes with the left side of your brain and finish the wood with your right. The first half of these directions will focus on the holes and the next part will deal with the finish.

Tools required:

• Wood scales big enough for your grips. They need to be 4.5” Long x 1.5” Wide x ¼” thick.
• 15/64 and 9/32 brad tip drill bits. These are hard to find one at a time so might be better to get a whole set like this Pilot Point Assortment
• 15/64 Transfer Punch from a Transfer Punch Set
• Drill press or end mill

You will also need regular stuff like a sandpaper block, files, some sort of saw and maybe a dremel tool.

The first and most important point to consider during this step is the fact that for typical commander grips, the holes need to be centered 3 and 1/16th of an inch apart. It’s easy to drill the first hole but getting the second one perfectly centered is the clincher, otherwise the grips will not fit and you waste your wood. The second point is understanding the counter-bores. The main bushing hole is 15/64 wide, and the counterbores need to be 9/32 to fit nicely with the grip screw head and bushing base. The grip bushing is .175″ tall, you can see in the diagram how they all line up. You want the bottom of the screw head to touch the bottom of the top counter-bore just as it tightens against the bushing. Too shallow of a counter-bore and you crack the wood when you tighten the screw down. Too deep and the grip moves and flaps against the frame. It may take some trial and error to get it right where you want it. The bottom counter-bore can have a little extra width, it just needs to house the bushing base flange.

I got my blanks from woodcopier.com who will sell them pre-drilled and counter-bored for a small fee by request. If you go this route you can save money over buying all the tools you will need to do it yourself then you can just focus on the actual finish. So now we gather our tools and wood, and head over to the workbench. First, place your original grips against the back of your new scales, and outline the grips and screw holes. Mark the blanks left and right.

The first hole position is not really critical. Drill from the top (Which will be the visible side once done) in case the exit hole chips.

The second hole is the most important. I made this little jig to place my transfer punch.. You can use your original grip as a template for the transfer punch by placing your 15/64 bit shaft through hole #1, and marking the second hole with the transfer punch.

Once you have the second hole marked, carefully line up your 15/64 brad bit into the punch mark and drill slowly.

You should now have two 15/64 holes exactly 3 and 1/16 apart. Test fit it on the original or pistol bushings to be sure. Repeat for the other scale.

Once you are sure you have the right distance in your bushing holes, drilling the counter-bores takes some work. Start with the backs and using your 15/64 bit as a guide, line up one of the holes with your and clamp it to your drill press base.

Once you have it lined up, raise the bit and replace it with your 9/32 bit. Drill a counter-bore about 1MM deep. Repeat for all 4 backside counter-bores. If you trim off the top you can now test fit them flush against your pistol frame to see if you need to drill them any deeper to clear your bushing base flange. If you need to make them wider, use a slightly larger bit, maybe a 5/16 and widen the counter-bore.

The front side or outside bores are next OR you can wait until you finish the outside then drill them. Since the bottom of the outside counterbore must be .175 from the frame, we need to make your counterbore bit stop .175 from the drill press deck. You can do this by using your press’ depth stop, chucking the bit against something .175 thick or using the gauge on your hand feed lever to indicate where .175 is from your reference point. (7/40ths!) I say err on the side of making the counter bore not deep enough, you can always take more wood away later, you cannot add it back! Use the same technique of using a 15/64 bit to line up the holes, clamp the wood down, then counterbore with the 9/32. If you are adding these counterbores after finishing the grip, be sure to use something between your clamp and finished surface so you don’t ruin the finished surface. Once your holes are drilled and counterbored you can work, finish and even checker your grip.

Nearly every archer spends a large amount of money on buying a good bow. It’s important to allow your bow to then perform at it’s full potential by getting a grip that suits your hand. Yes, this takes time, experimentation and lots of patience. However, a great bow with a terrible grip will perform much worse than even a mediocre bow with a great grip that is suited to you.

Think of it this way, there are only two places where you touch the bow through your whole shot: the grip and the hook. Having a poor grip or poor bow hand technique can have a HUGE impact on your performance. If you have a grip which isn’t suited to you, it can make it very hard to get the correct bow hand position and direction through the shot.

Before diving into this guide, it’s important to clearly understand how to set your grip in the bow. Furthermore, you should understand how this should feel throughout the shot and how to direct the bow properly. Take a look at how the bow hand looks from different angles in the video below. You can read about this in detail in our dedicated technique section, Set (Hand Position).

Here’s what you need to get started:

1. Your original grip.

2. A knife.

3. Some putty.

4. A sander.

There are many different types of putty you can use, and most of them work well. My favourite is the Yellow-Grey Standard Milliput which is shown in the picture. If you want something a little bit harder you can use J-B WaterWeld Epoxy Putty. It does take a little longer to file down because it’s harder, so bear that in mind.

A belt sander like the one in the picture is ideal to file your grip down as it makes it much quicker than just using sand paper. Don’t worry if you don’t have one though, it’s perfectly possible to just use some sandpaper. You’ll just have to be more patient. If you don’t have an electric sander then it’s worth spending some extra time to get the original shape of your grip as close to what you want as possible. This will cut the amount of sanding timing down dramatically, especially if you’re using a harder material like the J-B WaterWeld.

The first thing you need to do is prepare the surface of the grip. This is always a good step to do to make sure the putty stays firmly stuck to the grip. Some manufacturers have a thin rubber layer on top of the plastic of the grip. This can make it hard for the putty to stick, and often the putty can fall off when you’re sanding it. Simply take a knife and score the grip to make a criss-cross pattern as you can see in Fig 1/2. The putty will go into these score marks when you shape it on the grip, and this will make sure the putty sticks properly. It might look like you’re destroying your grip, but it really does make a difference! It will all be covered up by the time you’re finished anyway, so there’s no need to worry about your bow looking a mess.

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Secondly, you need to prepare your putty. For the Milliput, take roughly 3cm of each part (see Fig. 3) and cut them from the main stick. Make sure to put away and seal the rest of the packet so it’s fresh for you to use in the future. You can make a good few grips from each packet of Milliput. Cut it down the middle (Fig 4) to make it a bit easier to mix. Then mix both parts together with your hands and spend a good 5-10mins blending it together. You know the putty is properly mixed when you can break it in half and the colour is completely uniform, with no spots (Fig 6).

Once you’ve fully mixed the putty, bring it all together and form a nice smooth ball with it. Place this onto the grip and push it firmly in so the putty fills the score marks you made in the grip. Push the ball into a rectangular shape to more closely fit the shape of the grip as shown in Fig. 7. Then use your fingers to mould the putty onto the grip as shown in Figs. 8/9. Make the shape slightly wider and higher (a larger angle to the grip) than you’re aiming for. It’s easier to sand away than it is to take it all off and start again. The putty should slope away as it meets the throat of the recurve grip and normally it shouldn’t go all the way into throat. You can see this in the pictures.

Finally, let the grip harden before you sand it down. Normally it’s good to leave it overnight, but depending on the material you may be able to do it more quickly. Every epoxy putty has instructions that will tell you how long it takes to set.

This stage is the most time consuming and the most messy! Get your belt sander or sandpaper and file the grip away. This stage takes a while and it’s best to be patient. Always use a dust mask and clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty. Also, when you sand your grip, always take it off your bow. Otherwise, all the dust will cover your bow completely and you risk sanding a bit of your bow by accident.

Follow this process to get a rough grip to start with:

1. Sand away the main face of the grip (visible in Fig 13). Using a belt sander is great because you can sand evenly. Try to get the surface as smooth as possible, and get rid of any bumps that were left from when you shaped the grip.

2. As you’re doing this, work on the height profile of the grip (see Fig. 12). Look for an even gradient that smoothes off into the throat of the grip. Keep the angle fairly high for now, as you will need to test this to find what works for you.

3. For the last part of this stage, slightly angle the grip left to right. For a right handed archer the grip should be slightly angled to the right (see Fig. 11).

4. Now, file in the sides of the grip. The original shape in Fig. 9 was far too wide and protruded far over the side of the grip. File the sides in a bit as shown in Fig. 10.

This will give you a starting point. Now it’s time to test!

This is the most important part of making your custom grip. It helps to have a coach take a look at you shooting when you use the grip, as they’ll be able to see if it helps you or not. However, you should also use your own feedback from how the grip feels. Once you test the grip, you should find out what you need to do, file it down some more and then test it again. So the real question is, how do you know if the grip is right for you? And how do you know what parts to file down?

There are some key metrics that are good to use when you’re testing the grip:

1. Does it allow you to position your hand properly and direct the bow through the thumb on release. See our Set (Hand Position) guide for more detail on this.

2. Does the grip help you rotate your bow arm elbow so that it’s vertical, and keep it there?

3. Does your bow fly out of your hand straight towards the target or does it jump one way. If this is hard for you to feel, you can watch or video the longrod on release.

4. How is your sight float? Is it more or less than the ‘standard’ grip?

5. Can you push the bow without torquing the grip when you do your expansion and direct the bow towards the target (see our Expansion – Recurve Archery Technique section).

6. What does your bow hand look like? Judge if you are able to position it properly by visually checking how it looks.

7. How is your grouping? Do you have any consistent errors that the grip could be causing? Has the grip helped to eliminate any errors that you used to have?

For beginners, we recommend you stick with the standard grip on your bow for a good while until you become more experienced. There will be much more important things to learn first of all.

Most commonly, if you are an intermediate archer you might not know what grip works for you. You might not know how to file the grip down in the first place so you get stuck with what to do. The key thing here is to try slightly different grip shapes within a reasonable range. Trying slightly different angles, widths and shapes of grips will vary your bow hand connection. Through this, not only will you learn what grip works well for you, you’ll also learn good bow hand technique more quickly. Changing grips is a good way to accelerate the learning of correct grip placement and bow hand direction through the shot.

As your technique improves over time, you will likely change grips. You’ll learn more about what a good shot should feel like and how the grip can help you achieve this. Unfortunately, it’s not a case of making one grip and sticking with it forever.

Finally, changing your grip can affect both your clicker position and bow tuning. So make sure you check these when you change your grip, especially before making any judgements about your grouping with a new grip!

I hope you enjoyed this article, thanks for reading! Please feel free to share this article with your archery friends if you found it useful!

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