Grip Stop

B5 Grip Stop MOD 1 Review by Chris Tran

The Lanco Tactical Grip Stop. Photo Credit: TracerX Photography

B5 Grip Stop Review

By Chris Tran

Photography Credits: TracerX Photography , Reign Precision Marketing and Gunsandtactics.com

In a world full of arms manufacturers and tactical accessories, companies are constantly trying to evolve, update, upgrade, and innovate to stay relevant (and in business).  Too often, the rush to push new product out in the market only results in a glut of doodads and whiz-bangs that fade away as quickly as they arrive.

Say what you will about the C-grip or thumb-over-bore shooting technique, but many shooters use it, and find it practical for their own purposes.  Obviously there’s a market for supporting thumb-over-bore shooters as everyone and their mother has a handstop or angled foregrip or stubby VFG to sell.

 

The Lanco Tactical Grip Stop. Photo Credit: TracerX Photography

Once again, the good guys over at blacksheepwarrior.com sent me a neat little piece of hardware created by former Marine Nathan Murr and distributed by B5 Systems.  Murr designed a new handstop, billed as “The Grip Stop™” which is described as:

“…the culmination of a brainchild design by a former U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran to fill the void between using a vertical grip and hand stop. The Grip Stop™ allows a variable angle grip to prevent locking the wrist. Use as an assist to the modern “C grip” technique or as a barrier stop.”

Grip Stop Review TRX 4

Ever see one of those products out there where you smack yourself on the forehead and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”  Yeah, this is one of them.  The Grip Stop™ is made out of billet aluminum right here in the USA and can bolt directly onto many different non-railed forearms from standard plastic handguards to forearms with slots and/or 2 3/8” spaced holes with little to no modifications to the hand guards at all.  For this article, I bolted the Grip Stop™ to the bottom rail of a DRD Tactical CDR15 takedown AR. 

Photo Credit: TracerX Photography


The Grip Stop™ immediately shows its versatility upon pulling the rifle back into the shoulder pocket.  Purely from a layman’s perspective such as mine, what would you rather grab onto; something radiused that your hand will conform to, or something with boxy 90° angles?  Yep.  Radiused, so your hand can conform naturally, not get crammed into a right angle like many handstops that are out there, or up against a stubby VFG. 

The Grip Stop™ provides the user with much more versatility and comfort.  Thumb forward, thumb over bore, thumb up to activate a side-mounted WML, all positions are equally comfortable without sacrificing positive tension back into the shoulder pocket or placing strain on the shooter’s wrist, shoulder, or body dynamics to maintain positive control.  The shooter can adjust on the fly by shifting the pitch of their grip, therefore eliminating wrist lock.

Photo Credit: Reign Precision Marketing

In addition, the radiused grip is horizontally serrated, providing very positive traction on the Grip Stop™ if it is to be used as a barrier stop.  I played around on a set of stairs, a rickety plywood box, and a tabletop; the serrations provide excellent bite against the barricade to steady the weapon for a stable shooting platform.

Grip Stop Review TRX 3

Due to the versatility in the mounting design, it will work on a vast range of forearm systems currently out there, and a new rail-mountable version called the Grip Stop™ MOD2 (Currently being reviewed by Will) has just been released for those of us that have quad rails.

I am now using a MOD1 on my current upper build in progress; I selected the Midwest Industries Gen 2 SS not only for weight savings, cost, and rigidity, but because I can bolt the Grip Stop™ directly to it.  On the back of the Grip Stop™ packaging, the labeling states that the stop will fit “…modular forearms with 6 o’clock holes/slots & keymod,” as well as the following rail systems:

Magpul, Geissele Super Mod Rail, JP VTAC Mod, APEX Gatorgrip, Noveske NSR, Troy /VTAC Alpha , Diamondhead VRS, PWS Keymod, LWRC SPR, Midwest Industries Gen 2 SS, and OEM “Round” M4/M16 Style Handguards.

Grip Stop Guns And Tactics

As I mentioned before, the Grip Stop™ bolted directly onto the DRD Tactical CDR15 that I had used for this initial evaluation with no adjustments.  The Midwest Industries G2 SS is a bit of a different story because the helicoil inserts in the rail don’t line up exactly with the Grip Stop™, meaning that the end user either uses the bolts and anchor plates that come with the Grip Stop™ through the 6 o’clock slots, or bolts one end directly onto the rail, and then uses a bolt and an anchor plate through one of the slots for the 2nd mount point.  To get the Grip Stop™ where I wanted it for my grip, I opted for the latter approach.

For my current build, I mocked up the forearm on my upper without the barrel installed.  It was a pretty easy installation, and only took a little finesse to prop the anchor plate in place while threading the bolt to it from the outside of the rail.  That being said, this would definitely have been a bit more of a challenge if I had a complete rifle set up and needed to get the anchor plate inside of the rail with a barrel in the way, especially with the small inner diameter of the G2 SS rail.

This leads me to my only criticism of the Grip Stop™ as it ships right now; the bolts and anchor plate mounting solution is good, but it would be even better if the Grip Stop™ also came with Keymod accessories, or a straight up Keymod version (perhaps a MOD3 in the future?).  For the price point of the Grip Stop™ I don’t think it would be asking too much to ship with the preexisting anchor plates as well as Keymod nuts that would mount more efficiently to a lot of the slimline FF rails that are on the market today. (Editors Note: According to Nate Murr, a direct Keymod version will be available in the future)

All in all, I really like the Grip Stop™, and will be upgrading my AR furniture accordingly.  If I had bought one of these initially, I would have saved money going through other handstop/VFG iterations before I found a hand stop that actually worked for me.

Where to Find it: 

This sample was sent to Blacksheepwarrior.com by Rockwell Tactical Group.  You can find both Mod 1 (as reviewed) and Mod 2 (rail version) on their website.

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Related:

B5 Systems

Grip Stop on Instagram

Rockwell Tactical Group on Facebook

TracerX Photography on Facebook

Chris Tran on Facebook 

Chris Tran on Guns and Tactics Magazine

Reign Precision Marketing on Facebook 

 

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