Why Stipple Your Glock?
I know, I know, you can stipple more than Glocks! That being said, Glocks are the most popular guns being stippled these days. Glocks lend themselves to being highly customizable, something other guns cannot really keep up with. Now to get started lets quickly go over why I would recommend someone spend hundreds on someone molding and stippling their gun. First off you do not want to mess it up. More than likely there are people more skilled than you. If you want to do it yourself, grab some cheap plastic AR-15 magazines and practice a bunch before attempting your Glock or pistol. So if you send it to a company or person who specializing in molding and stippling you will get options. Different patterns, cuts and options in general. I tell people to go to Light Fighter Innovations. Run by a Veteran, Chris, who really does an amazing job. He has done two Glocks for me. The first one I butchered, I have a video on it below, and he took it and made it awesome! I and many other people are impressed with his gun surgery skills. He is really like a plastic surgeon for guns. The main reason you want to mold and stipple your gun is control. Stippling is not just gaining traction, it is gaining control. There is more too it than putting dots on the grip areas so to speak. Lets talk about each of the areas in detail.
UNDERCUTS: Getting a high grip on your pistol is paramount to keeping it shoot flatter and gaining you more control. The first cut is where your pointer finger meets the front of the grip under the back of the trigger guard. Cutting this a little deeper than OEM will shift your grip slightly higher and give you the feeling your hand is "in" your gun. Think of it like a saddle. Once you shoot with and without this cut you will notice immediately how much better it feels with the saddle cut (as I call it). The second undercut is on the bottom of the trigger guard in front of the saddle undercut. This is for your support hand to have it's own saddle so to speak. Again seating your support hand slightly higher and gaining some extra control. While the previous saddle undercut is not stippled this one is stippled normally for added traction. What Nate Murr did with my first Glock I got stippled is he had me grip the Glock and with a sharpie he marked where my fingers laid. The undercuts done by Light Fighter Innovations are a more general cut and they lend themselves to all hand types very well.
REMOVING FINGER GROOVES: If your gun has finger grooves, like all my Gen 3 Glock 19's, you should seriously look into removing the finger grooves. What can happen if you conceal carry is in your draw of the gun your finger can get in between the grooves and it can mess up your draw. If your stippling your gun there is zero reason to keep the finger grooves in my opinion. You can adjust your grip is milliseconds without finger grooves, while with finger grooves there is interference if your grip is a little off. You get a better wrap on the gun without them as well. With finger grooves you cannot have your fingers as close together as they could be without them. I just say get rid of them.
THUMB SUPPORT: When you hold your gun in the manner almost every trainer is teaching now a days, your support hand thumb is straight and keeping the pistol straight. It lays against the front of the slide and on Glocks there is an area in particular it lays. This area is perfect for some molding/stippling to gain traction for that thumb. Some people will just stipple this area, which is more than sufficient. But another things that can be done is what is called a ledge, ramp or pedal. Depending on the company is depending on the name they use. We will just call it a pedal. Companies can carve out a little pedal you can use to put slight downward pressure to assist with keeping the pistol straight when recoil happens. Light Fighter Innovations did this with my most recent Glock that was modified. It is all personal preference.
STIPPLING: So here we are, finally talking about stippling! There are many patterns out there companies offer, but the most used is a simple dot pattern. It gains traction over the slippery OEM grip. But not too aggressive to irritate you while concealed carrying. Keep that in mind, when concealed carrying with a highly stippled gun it could cause some irritation on the skin. But with this basic dot pattern it really is not noticeable. Light Fighter Innovations on my recently modified Glock did their "Sprinkle" pattern. This is more aggressive than the dot pattern. So if you want higher traction I would go with that. Looking around each company offers different levels of traction. The thing is, if you do it yourself and fuck it up you will still have traction. I remember seeing a video with Jeff Bloovman talking about his Glock. He purposely said he doesn't care about looks and just scribbled on it with the soldering iron to get some traction. It might have looked like shit, but it worked for him. Same with my one Glock that Nate Murr did. It might not look amazing, but I shoot the gun very well and it has traction. Sexy looks are not everything sometimes as long as it is still fully functional!
In conclusion I say buy one gun and make it yours. Spend the money to make it what you want. Sights, RMR, stippling, magwell, etc. Whatever you want to do, do it. But do it with one gun. No reason, in my opinion, for tons of guns. Get one and make it yours. I believe people get too caught up in buying tons of guns versus making the guns they buy their own. Instead of buy multiple Glocks, buy one and spend the money you would on the other Glocks on modifying it to meet your needs.
