stippling Archives

I have previously stippled the detachable backstrap of the M&P9 with a soldering iron. It added some grippiness to the gun, but one a big portion of the M&P9 that is part of my “grip” is still very smooth (e.g., the portion that meets the meaty part of the palm). So I finally went for the full frame with a wood burner (fine tip).

Scale pattern on the backstrap done using soldering iron tip

For the ‘scale’ pattern that was used for the M&P backstrap, the soldering iron did the job alright (picture above). However, I wanted a finer pattern for the actual frame. So I got a wood burner with several interchangeable tips. It is a $18 investment.

Before I decided to stippled the whole frame, I went with GT-5000 grip tapes. It added a bit of grip, but it was prone to shifting a bit and still not as grippy as I would like to be. So I figure I’ll go for stippling the whole gun.

I wanted to make my full-size M&P 9 more “grippy”. Previously, I’ve used grip tape to achieve a more grippy effect. They work fine on flatter surfaces, but the more contour part of the gun is difficult to to make the tape stay in place. A bit of googling led me to the idea of stippling the polymer frame of the gun.

In short, stippling is using hot iron to melt patterns onto the polymer frame of the gun to give it a rougher surface, which increases friction, thus creating a more grippy feel. Stippling the whole frame of the gun is time consuming and irreversible. Since I had no experience in stippling, I was hesitant on making irreversible changes to my gun. The good thing is, the M&P 9 has a removable backstrap, which also happens to be the part of frame that I wanted the most improvement on in terms of adding more grip -over grip tape-.

A cheap investment of $6 gets me an extra backstrap that I can stipple without the fear of irreversible mistakes (I can always get another backstrap and do it again!)

Scale pattern on the backstrap done using soldering iron tip

Tag: stippling

Stippling M&P full-size – How to prepare, practice and go for it!

First time stippling – M&P backstrap