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Tandemkross

Author Topic: Review of TALON Grips  (Read 4131 times)

Offline GunLink

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Review of TALON Grips
« on: July 20, 2015, 11:20:06 AM »
Get a Grip – How to Keep Your Pistol Under Control




As any pistol shooter knows, having the proper grip on your firearm is important.  An improper hold can not only lead to missing your mark but can also allow the pistol to move around, requiring a grip adjustment between shots, slide bite on your hand, or even jams – the last thing you want if you ever need to use your firearm in a defensive situation... (continue reading)
« Last Edit: July 05, 2017, 07:20:40 PM by GunLink »

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Review of TALON Grips
« on: July 20, 2015, 11:20:06 AM »

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Offline GunLink

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Re: Review of TALON Grips on GunLink Blog
« Reply #1 on: July 20, 2015, 11:25:01 AM »
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« Last Edit: July 05, 2017, 11:09:07 AM by GunLink »

Offline GunLink

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Re: Review of TALON Grips on GunLink Blog
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2017, 12:12:39 PM »
Time for a follow-up on our original review of the TALON Grips after a couple years of use.

We currently have both rubber and granulate type TALON grips installed on various firearms, including a few Gen 3 Glocks, a pocket-carried Ruger LCP, and our project Keltec P-11.

In the original review, we noted that Talon rep Adam had informed us that the expected lifespan of the grips could be anywhere from one to three years.  Now that we have had a couple of years with our original grips, that window sounds about right for heavy use.

How they hold up

The original grips that we installed were rubberized grips on a Generation 3 Glock 19 (my personal EDC CCW) and a Kel-Tec P11.  The Glock pistol gets carried through blisteringly cold Great Lakes winter days to hot southern summers, gets sweated on, slept on, stuck in cold cargo holds at 40,000 feet, taken to dusty and muddy pistol courses, passed around at frequent range days, banged into door frames, seatbelts, and chair arms, and generally subjected to all of the other hardships that an all-day every-day carry gun gets to endure.

The Adhesive
After a few weeks of carry, the tails of the grip started to peel loose from the back of the pistol grip.  If you are not familiar with Glocks, this is the only part of a Gen 3 Glock that has any aggressiveness to its texture, and it has pretty deep grooves with small peaks that come to points that are spaced about 1/8" apart, not leaving much surface area for the Talon Grips to hold on to.  With a little pocket knife surgery, I trimmed well above the part of the tails that were peeling.

After excising the problematic heel portion of the grips on the Glock, there has been no additional peeling at the tail or on the outside bottom edge that gets the most contact with clothing, seats, and obstacles.  The current condition of the heel after more than two years of carry is shown below (the original length of the tails can be seen in the Glock photos from the original review)



None of the other Talon-equipped firearms see nearly as much use as this G19, but the LCP is probably the next most frequently carried among them, and under different conditions.  The LCP has also made a few trips in cold cargo holds and hot vehicles to be carried in wide temperature and humidity ranges.  When it does get carried, it is almost always pocket carried in a sticky holster or, far less frequently, IWB.  As such, it probably sees arguably harsher conditions on the grip as it is in constant contact with clothing on both sides and gets sat on and rubbed with each step or movement.  Despite that, the adhesive is still holding on as if it were new.  Most of the other firearms with Talon grips spend most of their time in various safes or night stands when they aren't on the range, so they do not see much use at all and are holding up fine.


The Materials
Since the adhesive appears to hold up really well, the only other thing to worry about on Talon Grips is the actual grip material -
 either the rubber or granular surface. 

After a little more than a year of fairly rugged (almost) every day carry of the Glock, we noticed the rubber beginning to harden, but still performing pretty well - although not nearly as well as when they were first applied.  We contacted Adam to see if he had seen this before, and he had not.  He did advise to try the first steps of a "light wipe down with a cloth moistened with isopropyl alcohol to remove dirt and oil," which we had already tried.  After some discussion, we decided that I would experiment with trying to roughen up the rubber with light sanding.  In different spots on the grip, I tried 120, 220, and 320 grit sandpaper followed by a wipe-down with alcohol and various cleaners.  While 120 + alcohol seemed to do the best at breathing a little bit of new life into the grips, they still did not perform as well as when they were new. 

Now, a little more than two years into EDC with the Talon Grips, they have continued to harden and loose the friction that one looks for in this application.  They are still probably marginally better the stock Gen 3 Glock texture in most spots (some of the smoother sanded spots are just about useless), but I think they have reached the end of their life span.  They are supposed to be very easy to cleanly remove, so watch for an update here on that process.

On the rest of the firearms with Talon grips, the material is holding up well on both rubberized and granular models - which mirrors Adam's reports of longevity for his firearms that see roughly the same amount of action.  We do have another Gen 3 G19 with the granular version, and the grip that you can achieve on it is outstanding.  I would like to see how well they hold up under similar use; however, I would not want to EDC it due to the  abrasive nature of them and the discomfort they would yield with IWB carry.


The Verdict
All of the Talon Grips on our non-EDC pistols has held up great through casual use in range-toy, occasional carry, or home defense roles.  Even though the rubberized grips on the EDC pistol have reached the end of their useful life, up to this point they have performed very well and we are quite pleased with them overall. 

As mentioned above, the grips are supposed to come off cleanly and easily, so we plan on replacing the worn-out grips with another set just like them and we will report back on that process.  The only bad part is that we just missed out on the Fourth of July sale that Talon ran on their grips.