Gary Reeder
I showed a pic of it to Roy Huntington, one of the
Thursday, September 28, 2023, 18:03

head honchos at American Handgunner. He said a fellow named Croft did pretty much what we did, but he did it in 1929 and came up with Keith's #5 gripframe. Roy said as far as he knows there haven't been any completely new gripframes developed since then.

He was right, mostly. We actually did come up with our Lawman gripframe that Magnum Research is using on their revolvers these days. Our Lawman gripframe was out 5 years before it was used by any other company other than us, in 2008. I wanted a gripframe that had much the same angle as the Bisley but for someone with small hands. That became our Lawman gripframe. It was featured in a couple of full page ads in several gun magazines.



One other that we designed that Ruger asked me to send them a couple of our Tombstone Classics for them to take a look at the Tombstone gripframe. They did and then a month or so later sent the guns back with a thank you note and that they were going to put out a Vaquero with our Tombstone gripframe and they are still using it today. That was in 1995.




Our Tombstone Classic had what sorta became a trademark for our guns, a hanging man on the backstrap.




As the Tombstone Classic gripframe became more and more popular we built the gripframe on all kinds of guns including Ruger Blackhawks and Super Blackhawks.

We even designed another gripframe that was the same as the Tombstone but larger. This one was based on the Bisley gripframe modified. It became our Trail Rider gripframe and is still popular.

We have developed other gripframes such as the Doc Holliday gripframe, rounded front and rear and made smaller for an inside coat holster in our Doc Holliday Classic.




We had another the cowboy shooters liked, called the Bandit. I didn't design this one. I copied a Colt revolver from 50 years or so ago. I just sorta changed the angle of the dangle a bit to work with a single action revolver..






We also had a tiny little gripframe we called the Gambler Gripframe.


This one was designed as a hide out gun for the cowboy shoots. The pics were copies of a full page ad from years ago and the prices do not exist today.
One other that was unusual was the Gunfighter Grip on the Schofield revolvers. It was our Border Classic. They had a fairly sharp back edge and needed a little TLC. So we did our Gunfighter Grip on them. Not much but enough to make them a bit more comfortable.






There have been others that we have developed thru the years but most were just modifications of the Ruger gripframe. One thing I feel good about is good friend Bob Baker of Freedom Arms stopped me at the SCI or SHOT shows and asked me if I would be pissed off if he used our Gunfighter Grip on some of his top of the line revolvers. I gladly told him I would be proud if he put my Gunfighter Grip on his revolvers and he did.
Our original Gunfighter Grip is one we designed back in 1987 on our original Black Widow and is still very popular today. It is a design that can be done to just about any revolver and we also did it to some custom 1911s. It was a simple design, just rounded on the back of the gripframe to keep the sharp edges from gouging the palm of your hand. We slightly rounded the front also to make it fit the hand better and to keep your knuckle from the back of the trigger guard.
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Anyway it is sorta neat that no complete new gripframe has been developed since 1929 (that I know of) except for our Half Breed gripframe..And WB was right. The Half Breed is part of 3 different gripframes melded together into one of the best feeling revolvers we have ever built. And I hope you guys (and ladies) like it too.