TALON Grips for SD9/SD40/SD9 VE/SD40 VE

First I just want to say that I love Talon grips and have been very pleased with the others I've bought for other firearms. They have turned slippery guns into secure grips with no modification to the guns and they look good, as well.That being said, the factory texturing on the front and rear of the SD9/40 pistols is already more than sufficient for controlling your handgun even in extreme wet/sweaty conditions. If you want to wrap your grip with tape because the sides are too slick, you are gripping your handgun incorrectly. Squeezing the sides of your grip wastes energy and imparts sideways forces that will negatively affect your accuracy, all without adding any meaningful assistance to controlling your recoil/flip. If you don't believe me, listen to all the grand masters/pros who talk time and time again about how they don't grab the heck out of their gun. They grip front to back and lock their wrists. If you need further confirmation of this concept, take your unloaded pistol and pancake it between your hands as hard as possible and note how easily the muzzle still moves up if you press it against something. Now repeat this but instead of sandwiching the sides of the grip as hard as you can, hold it in just one hand, hand as high as the grip allows, and squeeze/pull backwards with your fingers so that you're driving the gun deep into your palm/webbing. In this hold, all of the pressure should be exerting against the front and rear of the grip. Try again to push the muzzle up and note how much more effective a one-handed firm front/rear grip is compared to a strongman sandwich grip on the sides.Now that that point is (hopefully) driven home, stop and think what this grip tape will do to this particular firearm. It will provide more grip to the sides, yes, but you will be covering up the aggressive and effective factory texturing already applied to the most important parts (front and back) of the grip.***I have taken my SD9VE to the range three times in the last week. Two of the trips were without the Talon tape and today's third trip was with the Talon added to the grip so I could compare. As much as I like the Talons on some of my other firearms, I confirmed after going through roughly 400 rounds over the three range trips that the tape unfortunately gave a more slick feeling when my hands would occasionally get a little damp/sweaty. With the aggressive front/back factory texturing covered up, I had to alter my hold to exert more pressure on the sides of the gun which is not ideal.***On a lighter side, please note that even with the strong adhesion to your firearm, I can confirm that the Talon tape can be easily peeled back off if you do not care for it, and most importantly it does not leave any residual adhesive on the firearm.

I like the talon a lot and recently tried one I got in Amazon for about $5 cheaper and it had a poor design and I ended up taking it off and throwing it in the trash. I have a talon on a G22 as well as a SD9VE and they both are great fits and stuck tight. I will just stick to the good ones from now on.

This is a great addition to the pistol. It fits nice, looks good and keeps the hand from slipping.

Wow - I'm the guy that can't play with paint or glue without getting it everywhere so I was shocked at how well this went. I cleaned the grip well and then warmed both grip and tape first. Had a minor area that didn't want to stick at first but heated the grip a few times, pressed and held the area and no problems now. This install went pretty well for me. Try not to touch the sticky side of tape when removing the backing and carefully remove backing from small sections by peeling the backing off these areas just as you did the first starting point. Apply as instructed, heat and press several times allowing to cool in between while check for problem areas and your good to go. Time will tell if it moves at the range.Be sure to test fit a few times before removing the backing. It sticks well so you want to make sure you know exactly where to line it up at.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The warmer you can get the grip the better. When I originally applied it, I set the frame on the roof of my shed, and I live in Phoenix, AZ where the temperature was approximately 100 degrees, and the roof was much warmer. I have since used my rework station heat gun set at 210 celsius (which is about 410 fahrenheit), and the grip has shrunk to fit absolutely perfectly, I just had to watch how much it shrunk around the area I trimmed on the initial install.UPDATE: After a few weeks of EDC, and applying two more heat treatments, this grip fits perfectly, though the bottom of the backstrap does move, that is kind of to be expected with the small contact area.I ordered the textured grips and I received mine today and installed them. The process was easy enough, though like some others, where the piece meets on the side of the grip, you will have to do some trimming, which can be a pain. My reason for giving it 4 stars is because of a fitment issue I had when installing. In order for the grips to be centered on the S&W logo on my SD9VE, there seems to be a little extra material in the back of the grip, so it does not lay completely flat like the rest of the grips. I have a small bump on each side of the rear of the grips where the material bulges up, again due to the grips being too wide, and having too much material in the rear. Not sure if these pictures will do it justice or not.Though it is purely cosmetic, it stands out like a sore thumb to me every time I look at my pistol at all.

I got these for the SD40 however the grip is very aggressive as is, so I did not install them yet. Talon makes great grips as I have installed them on other items. If the SD40 grips are too aggressive then you might want to use these to soften the grip a bit. For me though I like the SD40 the way it is.