At the 2013 NRA Show I found the Ergo Grip Delta Grip and was very favorably impressed. I asked about getting a set for evaluation and testing, but they were still in the pre production stage and none were available. I exchanged email addresses with the very friendly people at the Ergo booth and was told that I could get a set as soon as they came out.

Production delays, which I take to mean that they wanted to make sure they got the grips right before they were released to the public, pushed things back several months and I lost track of what was going on with the product.

At this year’s show, I saw the Ergo people again and found out that the grips were in production. The nice Ergo people arranged to send me a set of grips to try and I promised to write a review.

One thing lead to another and here we are at the end of August and I’m just getting around to writing the review. Actually this will be the first part, I’ll do another review as soon as I can get a friend who is an infrequent shooter to try my S&W 642 out with the Delta Grips. He has a S&W 442 and part of the reason is that he is an infrequent shooter is that he hates the recoil produced by the lightweight J frame. Not that I’m a big fan of the recoil from such lightweight guns, but I always put up with it so that I could maintain some degree of proficiency.  My plan is to have him shoot his gun, then shoot my gun and compare the two. The  problem being coordinating our schedules so that we can get to the range at the same time. It is, as the saying goes, a work in progress.

In the mean time, I’m going to publish my experiences and post some pictures.

That distaste for recoil lead me to put several different types of grips on my little revolver over the years I’ve owned it. Since I prefer to pocket carry the gun inside a Mika holster, I want something small enough to be concealable yet large enough not to stick out or print when the firearm is in my pocket. Good luck with that, as the saying goes.

Apparently there is enough of a market that Ergo decided to address the problem. Their solution works well, at least for me, and I’m going to guess it will work for a lot of people.

Here is a “before” picture of the 642. These grips came from Brownell’s and were very good for pocket carry. The problem being that they not very comfortable for shooting. A high grip on the back strap resulted in the gun “biting” the web of my hand. Which was not  a particularly pleasant experience.

A picture of the grips out of the package before installation. One almost constant criticism of the grips is that they are “ugly”. I won’t comment on the aesthetics other than to say that this is a case of form following function. They are designed to achieve a specific end and as a result they don’t look like traditional revolver grips. Since these guns spend a lot of time in pockets or other concealed locations, I don’t think that too many people are really going to be concerned about that part.

A shot of the inside of the grips. The grips are composed of a hard plastic frame with the soft rubber compound gripping surface molded onto it. They appeared to be very well constructed and installed quite easily with the supplied screw. It probably took all of three minutes to remove the old grips and install the new ones.

As installed on the 642. Aesthetics aside, you can see the concept of the Delta Grip. It uses “space” that is normally a void to increase the size of the gripping area without increasing noticeable bulk to the grip area and decrease concealability. The result is a more sure grip on the gun and more comfort when firing. Both of those factors made shooting the gun more comfortable and in my case at least, increased accuracy at twenty one feet. My expectation for shooting an air weight gun with an under two inch barrel accurately at that distance is to keep the rounds on a nine inch paper plate. Not exactly marksman like accuracy, but for self defense purposes, it’s likely to be sufficient.

I don’t have target pictures to post, so you’ll have to take my word for it that my grouping improved with the Delta Grip installed. As luck would have it there was another shooter at the range introducing new shooters to a variety of different firearms. His students were from Aruba, where there is no gun ownership for civilians by and large. Both were shooting for the first time and I asked their host if they would be interested in shooting the 642 to see how they liked it. They all agreed and I let them have it. Both were enthusiastic shooters, and one of them seemed to have a natural ability to shoot. Both were able to keep the rounds on the paper plate and neither thought that the recoil was particularly harsh. Although informal, I thought that was a good indication that Delta had achieved it’s goal of making a concealable grip that is comfortable (relatively) to shoot.

This is how the gun looks in a Mika pocket holster. The only negative is that is is not quite as easy to draw from the holster as it is with the smaller grips. I’m giving some thought to emailing Robert Mika and seeing if he’s interested in slightly modifying the holster to work with the new grips. In the mean time, I’m also practicing (with an empty gun) drawing from my pocket with the new grips.

Looks aside, the Delta Grips do their job making J frame revolvers easy to pocket carry and be as comfortable as possible to shoot.

I’ll post more when I can get my friend to the range and see how he likes the grips.