Spacers to put regular grips on thin bushings?

[sbeatty1983]

My pistol has thin grips on it right now. It would be great if I could switch back and forth between thick and thin grips without changing the bushings. Are there any kind of spacers or washers that could go between the bushing and the grip where I could use my regular grips?

[John Harrison]

You don't need spacers, just a set of full size grip screws. The thin bushings will work with standard thickness grips.

[sbeatty1983]

yeah i was just worried about over tightening and pulling the screw through the little shoulder inside the grip.

[John Harrison]

That's something you want to avoid with any grip/screw/bushing combination. The shoulder in the grip panel that the underside of the screw head tightens against is farther away from the frame than the tip of the grip screw bushing. If you over-tighten any screw you can crush the shoulder down until you are tightening against the tip of the bushing. At that point, the grips will work loose under the screw, you tighten even more and at some point, you jam the screw head so tight against the bushing that, when you try to take out the screw, the bushing comes out of the frame instead and is stuck behind the grip panel.

One way to avoid this is to use an o-ring under the screw head. This will let you keep using grips that has had the shoulder crushed and it will keep a new set of grips from getting crushed in the first place. The rubber in the o-ring will also keep the screws from loosening in normal use.

[crashoverrideplik]

The O ring John is talking about is the #60. They can be found in your plumbing asile at Home Depot/Lowes, etc.