CITES-Compliant Elephant-Hide Grips for R9

[Richard S]

Last November MRC posted a link to the work of BMS52 over on the Seecamp Forum creating grips from exotic leathers:

http://www.rohrbaughforum.com/index.php?topic=6617.msg77720#msg77720

Being a confirmed "grip junkie," I couldn't resist the opportunity to try for some CITES-compliant elephant-hide grips for my R9. I therefore contacted BMS52 through his profile page on the Seecamp Forum:

http://www.seecamp.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?action=viewprofile;username=BMS52

Brian is a true gentleman and extraordinary craftsman with whom it was a pleasure to do business.  Here are photographs of what he produced for me:

And here is my R9 with its new grips in its Milt Sparks elephant-hide holster:

The elephant hide is overlaid on a pair of Hogue G10 grips. The hide adds only a small amount of width to the grips, about the same as that of the palm swell of a pair of VZ grips. To take up the extra width, I simply used two of John's ("Yankee") O-rings under the head of each of the four grip screws. Finally, the elephant hide provides a very tactile surface allowing a firm and controlled grip of the pistol.

Brian advises that he is about out of elephant hide for the time being but that he has some remarkable stingray leather on hand and actually prefers to work with that medium. You can see some stunning examples of stingray grips by following the links to Brian's work in MRC's initial post.

I have some monogrammed old ivory grips for my R9, but they spend most of the time in my gun safe due to their value and relative fragility. These new elephant-hide grips have now replaced the VZ G10s in Hyena Brown that I have been using for the past several months, and I suspect that they are going to become the EDC grips for No. 132.

[dddonkey]

Looks very nice, let us know how the pup handles when fired. I am interested to see how functional they are as far 'traction' and how they hold up over time?

[MRC]

If someone would have asked me to guess who would be the first shooter with Elephant Hide grips on a Rohrbaugh, it would have been an easy question for me to answer Richard.  Very impressive!

Where's the Bar-B-Q?

[Richard S]

* * *
Where's the Bar-B-Q?

Critter Creek, July 4, 2013.   

[jeffgraham]

What does "CITIES Compliant" mean?

[Richard S]

What does "CITIES Compliant" mean?

"CITES" is the acronymn for Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. If a certain material or item is "CITES compliant," it has been acquired in accordance with the terms of that Convention.

 http://www.cites.org/

[Reinz]

OUTSTANDING Richard.

[Richard S]

Thank you, Reinz. My collection will never equal yours, but I try to keep it interesting.

That storm system you had down there the other day is now coming into East Tennessee.

[backupr9]

Got back from 7 week in sunny and warm Florida just in time for the new front to come through...wife is not a happy camper, but my blue stingray grips from Brian should arrive soon, and I hear my Boberg XR9L may be on the way...also need to put a few rounds through the R9...glad to be home (don't tell my wife I said that).
John