Silverback laser grips for P226

[Airsoft-Ed]

Right, grab a snack and a drink, this might go on for a while.

I got these grips off Fire Support for £40ish at Christmas and I was pretty excited about them, here is the link http://www.fire-support.co.uk/product/silv...aser-grip-black

 

Note that these grips can be mounted on the KJW, Marui and KSC models of the Sig Sauer P226. I have my grips on the KJW model, so any fitting issues I have, you might not get with the other models.

 

Ok, so to start off, they're rubberised, they might actually be entirely rubber. Both halves of the grips are attached together, you simply remove the original grips, wrap the laser grips around the pistol grip, making sure to put the batteries in first and then screw them on with the same screws as the original grips. The laser grips do come with four spare screws as well though, so no worries there.

 

When I removed the original grips on my KJW a small metal plate fell out of the gun, I have no idea what it is or where it came from, so be careful when you take your grips off. My gun still works fine without the part though, but I'd like to know what it is all the same in case not having it in the gun might decrease its life or something.

 

Now the packaging says that an adjustment device is supplied. All I was supplied with were the four aforementioned screws and a small, metal rod, about an inch long and the exact width of the laser's beam. I assume you're meant to slot it into the actual laser from the point the beam exits and wiggle it around to adjust it, but this just doesn't work, not at all. If this is their idea of an adjustment device then I may have to find where they make these grips and choke someone to death with this useless metal rod...

 

Anyway.

 

This is where my gripes began. I'll come back to the "adjustment thing" later on.

 

Firstly, the grips don't fully mesh together around the pistol as I thought they ought to, though it might just be that the rubber needs time to settle into place, being rubber it will obviously stretch to a certain degree, so that problem may solve itself in time, I've only had them for about a month so I'll not hold that against them just yet. However, because they weren't meshing together it pushed me to tighten the screws more and I ended up wrecking a thread, so although the screw does fasten the grip on, if I tighten it beyond a certain point it just comes back out. Not impressed by that happening but it's probably my own fault.

 

Second gripe, the laser section of the right hand grip should be flush with the pistol's lower frame. It isn't. There's a good 5 - 7mm gap between them, this can make holstering the gun a pain as the extra width catches my holster, the rubberised texture doesn't help much with that either. The gap does make me worry about dirt and grit getting into the trigger mech. I've tried leaving the pistol under some weights to try and press this section into the correct position but after 3 days with 7kg on top of it, the gap hasn't gotten any smaller.

To counter this, I guess you could argue that lasers are only really visible indoors anyway and you're unlikely to have dirt or grit getting into your pistol when you're indoors.

 

Thirdly, since these grips obviously have to contain some basic electric circuitry as well as two watch batteries they do make the grips rather a lot wider than the regular grips, this can make reaching the slide release, de-cocker and mag release a lot harder, especially when wearing gloves and the button you press to switch the laser on isn't a toggle switch as anyone would reasonably assume, it's just a press and hold switch. Pressing and holding a button on the opposite side of the gun with your middle finger is incredibly annoying and uncomfortable and I couldn't even do it for a few minutes, it makes operating the gun far harder than it needs to be.

 

Returning to the adjustment of the laser, when it arrived it wasn't aligned. I was hoping that it might be fixed and that once they were attached to the gun it wouldn't require adjusting. Sort of like how you don't need to calibrate removable iron sights on an M16. Would it really be so hard to design it to just point in the right direction?

Anyway, that crappy metal rod that is supplied for the purpose of adjusting the laser just doesn't work, either it serves another, hidden purpose, or it's utterly useless.

On the laser section of the grips there are two immeasurably small allen key screws, these are placed on top of and to the right of the laser itself, which leads me to believe that as you screw them in or out, they move the laser, they look to be somewhere around .5 to 1mm, not even Patrol Base had a key small enough for me to adjust the laser, so a month on and I've still not been able to use the laser as it was intended.

Why the grips aren't issued with an allen key of this size, I have no idea. But I would say that the grips aren't worth buying for this reason alone, I could happily overlook all the negative points listed above if I could actually use the laser to aim with, instead of as an aesthetic dysfunctional accessory.

 

In the way of pros, since I have a KJW P226 without licensed trades I do like how these grips replace the original ones, as these laser grips are unmarked, so I no longer have the KJWorks logo printed on my grips, which I personally disliked.

I'm also slowly coming around to the feel of them, the rubber feel does give you a better grip and the laser button is easy to get used to and it means you can snap it on and off so as not to give away your position.

 

My main pro point is just the general design idea of mounting the laser on some grips though, I love that you still have the rail free, I just think it's a really great idea.

 

All in all, I'd recommend not buying these, even if the laser was pointing in the right direction that one plus doesn't make up for the multitude of minuses. Considering these were almost £40 I'm rather limitlessly disappointed.

If I ever find an allen key small enough to fit the screws and the screws do indeed adjust the laser's pointing direction then I'll come back and add to this review.

 

If you're really after some sort of laser sight for your Sig, I'd recommend getting a more traditional under-barrel one, or buying the real steel laser grips. They might cost a bomb but at least you know they'll never ever let you down.

 

If anyone has any further questions then feel free to ask. I'll try and get some pictures up over the following week.