I went through this a bit when I had a holster company, but the increasing availability of dummy guns was a real help there. Some of the manufacturers, if you asked them nicely, would provide de-activated dummy guns for holster makers using frames that were slightly out of spec or otherwise rejected. Of course, this is an imposition on them and they have to make sure they are in compliance with all federal laws, etc. -- so it is definitely doing you a favor. Depending on how small your operation is, and depending on the size of the company you are dealing with, they may not have a lot of incentive to help. With a couple companies we were able to trade a couple of holsters for the favor of providing the dummy gun. I am sure those holsters probably went into a personal collection of whoever was doing us the favor...
In your case, as you say, they could probably chop up a frame and just sent you the grip portion to avoid any problems with federal law. I just wonder how many will do this anymore?
