The Colt Meets The Dragon

Back in August after revisiting Xavier's post about the grips he purchased from Mr. Kim Son in Vietnam, I got to admiring the 1911 grips in water buffalo with the hand-carved dragon on them. I had to have them, you see I like dragons, they've fascinated me be it in my early days of RPG gaming or my love of aircraft. At the time I figured they'd look great on my Kimber Eclipse CLE II (they probably would), but they never got a chance to appear on the Kimber. A month later, I ran across the Colt MKIV at the PVR swap meet and picked it up as I've always wanted a Colt 1911 in stainless. The following week, the dragon grips arrived from Vietnam and thus the Colt meets the Dragon.

The first thing I noticed about the grips when I unpacked them is that the carving reveals the inner beauty of the water buffalo horn and gives the carving an almost golden appearance. I was pretty stoked about getting these grips on my newest baby, so I removed the stock Colt grips and dropped on the Dragons. To say they fit is understating the matter quite a bit. These grips appeared to almost suction onto the frame of the MKIV, I find that the come off just as easy, but there's no wiggle in them even without the grip screws installed. Like Xavier, I find this amazing given that Mr. Kim Son doesn't actually have access to a 1911 frame. The grips even fit over the new over-sized plunger tube I installed.

One thing I had hoped the carving would do is provide purchase to maintain a good grip while shooting and after shooting it last Saturday at PVR, I can say that the purchase is good, not up to snuff with checkered rubber, but then what is? It does allow clothing to slip over and off of the pistol while in carry mode and I don't see it ruining clothes like some of the agressive grips or skater tape will do.

As you can see in the pictures I took, the grips fit the frame VERY well and leave almost no gap with the grips landing just shy of the end of the grip frame. The only thing I find about these grips in particular that I don't really like is that the grip screws don't sit flush with the grips, they protrude a small amount, I don't know if there are screws available that have thinner heads and will sit flush, I might try some of the low profile grip screws to see, but it certainly doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for these grips.

In all, I think I've been very lucky to have ordered these grips and found a Colt that I've been wanting, perhaps I'm living right, who knows but I know that I'm pretty darned happy with this package.