After yesterday’s AT-2 class I shot my snub revolver with the Hip-Grips on it.

I shot 5 rounds of my carry ammo.

I shot only 5 rounds of my carry ammo because that’s all I could stand to shoot.

Ouch.

It hurt. Bad. 😦

The first shot? It hurt like hell. The second shot? I missed my target (an 18″ x 24″ steel plate at about 12 yards). There’s no excuse for missing that plate…. other than I pulled so bad because I was anticipating the recoil and associated pain so much. 😦

I shot the remaining 3, and missed one of those as well. That’s all I shot. I had more than enough. You know that part of your hand where the index finger phlanges meet the metacarpal bone? That joint? Their “pad” then on the palm? That still hurt when I was getting in bed last night. It’s from how the gun recoiled and how that part of the hand rests against the hook of the Hip Grip.

You know, I like the Hip-Grip concept, but ouch ouch ouch.

Now, this really isn’t totally the fault of the Hip-Grip itself. That is, the Hip-Grip is really just a bare-bones grip around the small frame of the revolver. If you had any other sort of hard, minimal grip like that the effect would be the same. The small grip doesn’t fill my hand, so the snub rocks around during recoil. There’s nothing on the backstrap, so my hand gets to absorb everything. It just plain hurts. The one thing I can say about the Hip-Grip is the hook portion, the way it rests against my palm (as I mentioned above) does seem to cause me a little more pain. But this is me… I’ve got my own hand issues as it is.

I’m still waiting for the T-Grip to come in. I think that will help some because it will fill the grip out and should help it fit better in my hand. But Justin was saying that really won’t help with the recoil back into the web of my hand. I’ll wait and see how it works for me.

Some may say that the pain won’t matter because in a real situation you won’t feel it. Perhaps. I’m concerned about recoil moving the gun around too much because I can’t get a complete grip on the gun, but perhaps the T-Grip will help that. But moreso, I do not want to practice with this setup (I didn’t bother trying out my plinking loads, but I should have). If I don’t want to practice, what good is that? So switch to better grips for practice? No, because I should practice with what I carry.

I will say, I kept thinking what I like about the Hip-Grip is that appendix location. Before I became aware of this carry mode I had thought about getting an appendix holster and using that. Who knows. I may try going back to the Pachmayr grips and an appendix holster instead. We’ll see. If nothing else, the exploring and experimenting is fun. Have to find what works for me.