Brass grip frames by Ronnie Wells
Dec 28, 2019 13:18:32 GMT -5
magnumwheelman, bentnail, and 1 more like this
Post by RDW on Dec 28, 2019 13:18:32 GMT -5
My only hands on with a #5 style grip was a TLA and I though it was great.
What a great opportunity to give an explanation for the difference! And thank you CAS, Shout out man, great question!
In The previous threads i have given a small profile of myself and why, How long, And what spurred me the directions in life that i have gone!
Most of all, why i decided to undertake something like this, has always been to try and take the single action to the next level of progress. The grandson of a gunsmith in southern Arizona, the son of an
automotive engineer and business man, and a machine tool engineer slash builder as an adult.
I grew up tinkering with the gifts passed on to me, namely single actions. Swapping parts and modifieing those guns so that my smaller adolescent hands could hang on to them with. Desperately changing
loads and experimenting to improve my accuracy and power. After realizing in my teens that accuracy cannot be obtained when you are not comfortable with the recoil and the fact that i was in a continual
state of growth did not help when all i could get my hands on were less than half a dozen frame styles. Having access to many various types of machinetools i went to work to improve that! My first serious
improvement was when a friend of my fathers substituted unique, for blackpowder in a old army and handed me a box of shrapnel as a joke. Knowing that i had already completed several fine blackhawks
he challenged me to repair it. I of course as stated in an earlier thread that i had installed the brass dragoon on to my midframe and so it began. I have shaken hands with no less that a hundred thousand
men in the 56 years i have been here any where from the businesses i have been involved with, to the race tracks.Trust me, when you are part of the professional Top fuel and Nitro funny car world, you
meet thousands of fine people that spend there hard earned money to come and watch you go 300 miles per hour. Those same very fine people need to be acknowledged, because they feed our kids. Lets
face it, if it were not for our fans and spectators we have nothing, and i wish to meet everyone that comes to our PIT to watch us thrash on that monster!
If you have never been to a national NHRA meet, i strongly urge you to do so. You think a firing line is loud, wait till you watch two 12,000 horse power beasts go from a dead stop to 340 miles per hour in
less that 4 seconds. It wiil remind you that you are alive. Those that have, know what im talking about. In shaking all of those peoples hands you realize that our hands are like a finger print. ALL DIFFERENT!
What better way to improve comfort and marksmanship than to eliminate pain and discomfort, eliminate flinch and inconsistency, than a handle that FITS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That combined with aesthetics is the primary goal.
As a young boy reading all of the fine articles from gun mags, i always had a thing for the keith # 5, i guess because it was supposed to be the cutting edge. Many would beg to differ.
And none were available.
My first Keith # 5 was a Train wreck. It was made with a tig and a bridgeport mill and uglier than a pile of Mashed Ass! not to mention i had nothing but pictures to go by for dimensional proportion!
As the years progressed and i became a Cnc Guru, my chances to improve it got better as well as my programming skills. Then the software. once throughout the ninetys we began to see softwares that allowed
us to take a picture! Scale it. And build accurate geometry i could then push forward with an accurate copy of the Harold Kroft/Elmer Keith Number five! I found problems for instance, how will we make a grip.
We all have a Ruger Bisley and there are grips available. The round grip panel boss on the original K#5 that the grip panel mates to on the upper part of the Grip Frame is .625 5/8s of an inch.
The Ruger Bisley is .700 thousandths. Right in between 5/8s and 3/4. So a decision had to be made. Many grip makers have a good patern for the Bisley to work off of but not a number five because everybodys
version is a little different. Therefore making a standard Keith # 5 grip panel is a crap shoot. I have noticed that all of the sanding drums for dremels and what not are as well either a half inch or 3/4.
Nothing in between, and i like a perfect fit. So to ease in matching a grip i chose to stick with the 5/8s on the Keith 5 so it looked accurate and was easily fit. it is set in the center so a cut can be made to your grip
panel at the left or right corner depending on which pane,l with a 5/8 endmill and then 90° away from the center left, right or down away from the boss for a perfect cut. Then tickle it with a sanding drum. Or if a
bridgeport is not available it is still centered so you can make a nice 90° corner and then sand out the same corner to 5/8s and wallaaah! It fits. the corner will be larger than the half inch dremell sanders so you
have some breathing room. if i made it .700 like the bisley, and i used to, it looks odd!
In other words i modeled it after the Keith 5, but i made it easy to panel up in case the customer was in his garage with minimal tools. There is an art to grip making let me assure you!
My standard Keith 5 is a compromise between the Ruger bisley and the original design, as well as the shape that i have found fits every one better on average. its compact and very cool!
However for the purists, and i can on occasion be very guilty of that. There is The Original. Just a couple of features make it differ, for instance. The grip panel Boss is located further up than my standard. It is still
5/8s but in the original location. Slight and very slight variations in geometry to match the original design. But its dead on and manipulated to fit the Ruger Chassis.
It has more meat toward the rear than the regular K5 to more accurately match the original.
My Standard keith # 5 is a kinda Hot Rod. It comes in a couple of different forms. In standard trigger guard form or it can be a mid pin, It can also be had with a Bisley Trigger guard(for use with Bisley Trigger Only)
that is located further forward than the colt style trigger guard and offers more knuckle room. or with a Standard black hawk or colt trigger guard that is larger for gloved fingers
It has extra meat in the right spots so that you can make it all you own and still retain the keith 5 styling! However the rear thumb web is more rounded like the Ruger Bisley!
I am in the process of finishing the panel making machine so that i can offer inexpensive black and white Micarta panels for you, either for use or a good pattern to start with!
As well i am fixing to reach out to all the grip makers and offer the geometry and screw placement so they can get us some good wood action going on here if they are interested.
It would be great to enhance there capabilities as well i think! Hell you guys know what your doing.
There are a lot of descriptions for these issues in the past threads. CNC Brass bisley grip Frames ( whats it worth to you)! Getting ready for the rollout of RW Grip Frames!
But i think The Keith # 5 issues are something we have touched on but not been very thorough and i thank you for the oportunity here CAS.
Any questions or if an area has been missed let me know guys! We are in this together.
And i love a new challenge! We are gonna make this work fellas but we are in new territory and we are making it up as we go based on empirical evidence and everyones experiences.
So lets get it on!
Reminder
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Thanks Guys
Ronnie
