Any advise on how to properly stipple and remove finger groves on my glock 17L?

Take a dremel and slowly sand down the grooves.  You also want to smooth down the raised edges on the sides and back of the grip to make it smooth all the way around before stippling it.  As for stippling, take your time there too and try to get a nice consistent pattern.  Take a look at these photos and learn from my mistakes.  The first one still has raised edges on the sides and the front of the grip isn't too consistent.  My second was noticeably better.  





Not professionally done, of course.  But also, not $300.  

Posted edited.  This answer is not appropriate for a tech forum. -AJE

I've never attempted to stipple anything myself so I can't offer much first hand experience or advice other than to recommend practicing on something cheap first. The "Mag loader" that comes with all Glocks should be an excellent test subject because (theoretically anyway) its made of the same polymer used in the Glock frame and you probably already have a few of them lying around anyway.

The finger grooves are easy. Tape off the areas around them that you don't want to mess up and then go at them with a dremel w/sanding wheel to take off the bulk of the material then use a file to flatten those areas and then follow that up with increasingly finer grits of sand paper to smooth it all out. I have been told you can then apply heat to the area with a heat gun or a blow dryer to return the factory color?

Now that advice is only if you are stopping at removing the finger grooves. If you plan to stipple the whole front strap, stop with the dremel after only slightly reducing the humps down (leave about 1/2 to 3/4 of them intact). You will want the rest of that material to fill in the factory "checkered" areas so that with you stipple the front strap, you are starting off with a flat and even surface. Some just leave the factory checkering alone and only stipple where the finger humps were in which case you want to follow the steps I advised above.

Take your time, get plenty of practice on cheap stuff and then good luck!

To the untrained eye there probably doesn't look like much difference between the two, but the second one is noticeably better than the first one. Removing the texture makes a huge difference in the look. The first one could be reworked rather easily and quickly if you wanted to.

I find the Dremel flap wheel sander attachment works the best.

Not as rigid and makes for easy profiling. Remember to shape the areas where the grooves start on the sides of the front strap too.

For the stipple I did the brass screw method that allows for:

1.) quicker job completion
2.) unique pattern



Take a 8-32 machine screw and cut a nifty pattern in it and then screw it in and go to town.

I used razor blades to slowly shave the finger grooves down and under cut the trigger guard. Then a file to flatten out the work on the front strap. Any way you do the work, go slow and take your time.

Practicing on the mag loader is an outstanding idea!

I haven't researched it much since I'm still on the fence, so this is the first time I've seen this, great idea, thanks for sharing.

I second the Dremel method.


Practice on some stuff like a A2 grip first.

My suggestion is take your time and practice the stippling on a MOE grip or something similar.

Thanks for the. Info . Time to practice then.

A2 grip, much cheaper than a Magpul Moe.

 

And a finger groove to play with.

Tagged.

My single pin gen 3 17 is rubbed smooth after carrying it for all of these years. I bought another new 17 and like the grippy feel of the new grip texture. So I'm thinking of stippling my old gun.

I guess I'm the cheap guy.  A file for the grooves, and a soldering iron to stipple/dimple where the friction is needed.