Jay Scott Grips

[ithacaartist]

Howdy All,

A few months back I won a lot on Gunbroker that was a pair of P08 grips, NIB, of the faux-stag style. They are well made, with a real wood layer that rides against the grip frame, and a layer of plastic molded and finished to look like stag horn material. They seem to fit well, save about one or two swipes with a file which would be needed on one corner for the grip to slip right in place. Generally, they seem high quality and well-finished.

My problem with them is that each one is about a 1/2" thick. This makes the grip way too chunky for my hands. I once described my experience holding my 29/70 Mauser with grips of the relatively thick and squarish version, with coarse pattern checkering, as akin to holding a rough cut 2" X 4". Well, these are like holding a 4" X 4"! Well, at least it feels like it was planed and sanded.

Since there's no way I'm going to use these things as-is, what should I do with these monsters? The two ideas I have come up with are to either re-sell them (perhaps to King Kong!), or do something like grind them down and smooth or checker the plastic.

I guess what would determine this is their value or collectability. Although I've seen other Jay Scott grips go by before, I'm generally unfamiliar with his stuff--whether it's common as water, or treasured and appreciated by someone. These were pretty cheap, under $20, so I suspect the former; but I don't know for certain. They came in their original box, including brochure.

All advice and comments--the wilder, the better--welcome...

David Parker

[sheepherder]

I had a set of those in imitation pearl, for a 1911 clone. I thought they would be all pearl, but they were bonded to some brown composite...I couldn't thin them because the edges were beveled...

I finally shoved them in a 'rummage box' for the gun shows...

[Ron Wood]

I filed mine down and polished them. They look a bit like ivory (I might even scrimshaw them!) and they are comfortable for shooting.

[ithacaartist]

I googled around a little bit after I posted. Boy, the S & W forum doesn't give them much, although a few lucked out and like them. Late 60's-early 70"s, inexpensive. The backers on these are wood--maybe walnut, maybe rosewood--which looks like composite on the finished edges, and this part is almost as thick as an ordinary walnut grip; then they added on the fake horn/plastic. The bevels make it unlikely that thinning them from the back side will result in a fit; but there's plenty of plastic that I could hog off the face for whatever surface treatment. The combination of dark wood and whitish plastic is gonna look weird. So, since I won't be "destroying history" in the process, Ive decided to reduce the face and practice some more checkering. I'll try to get some pics up to show the transition when I get around to doing this.

[sheepherder]

Now you've done it! You got me thinking...

I have some old boxes in the basement left over from our gun show days [70's/80's], when me & 3 friends (2 with FFLs) used to rent a table or two and sell stuff/guns at the regional show, 3 times a year...

I found a set of Jay Scott grips for a 1911, along with a Tyler grip for same...The Scott grips are what he called "Black Pearl" IIRC...The Tyler grip was 'imitation Ivory'...(The Tyler Ivory came with a warning about breathing the dust if you worked it, leading me to wonder just how 'imitation' they were...made from real Ivory grindings/sanding dust maybe?)...

The 'Black Pearl' doesn't photo well; it has 'depth'...The 'Ivory' grips were solid white when I got them; the instruction sheet mentioned that they would 'age' to yellow just like real ivory...They sure did...And they now show 'plies'...Very strange...

The Scott grips are only 5/16" thick; but that backing was/is really annoying...

I was into Colt medallions back then; I milled my grips to take them...The Black Pearl grips here have stainless discs inset...I guess I ran out of medallions...

[padredan]

best to ebay em, i have sold a few on there and brought a fair price

[John Sabato]

Some strange people actually COLLECT Jay Scott grips... I am not one of them. I agree with Padredan... ebay them.

[ithacaartist]

Nah , too late. I've already belt sanded one of them down to leave about 1/8" of the plastic still on top of the wood backer. I'll hold off on the other one until I get some pics of it to show how outrageously thick they start out, comparing them to an original, on edge. They are worth more to me as practice pieces for checkering than to go thru the auction drill from this end.

When the thickness of the plastic had been reduced, I'd successfully removed all the "stag" stuff, leaving a single, brown pinhole towards its bottom--this has about a 50/50 chance of being removed by the checkering process; maybe I can actually plan its layout to achieve this for certain. Also, when reduced, the plastic readily showed that it was no longer bonded totally to the wood. In the effort to separate the two layers for cleanup and re-bonding, I, of course, wound up breaking the old plastic into two pieces. Whatever adhesive it is is tenacious in whatever it is still holding together, and it is detectably, slightly rubbery and flexible, which makes it hard to remove from either surface once they are separated. I'm hoping that the inevitable hairlines will hide among the checkering pattern, but at any rate, they will be good for practice and, I hope, shooting.

Someone collects these things? I guess they have appreciators, after all. Who'd-a-thunk?