I have two FA M83 revolvers. A 357 Mag 6" and a 475 Lin 7 1/2". I scoped the 357 at one time and it shot 1 1/2" regulary at 50m and between about 2" and 3" at a 100m off a rest if I held the 4X scope just right. A few individual groups were better, but those were repeatable numbers.

Currently it has open sights (with a Ken O' Neil front sight which I can highly recommend). The .475 has a JP type sight (not a JP) and has shot a best of about 1 1/2" at 35m off an MTM rest.

Both guns had standard wood grips and I would find that often the gun would twist to the left in my hand under recoil, particularly the 475, so I would use a real death grip. The FA grip is very round (look at it from the bottom and you will see what I mean). I wanted to flatten them out, but I was worried as getting grips here is almost impossible. Short story, I never got to it.

Recently I bought two sets of the Pachmayrs from FA. I tried them out on the weekend. They are far more comfortable than the Pachmayr on a SBH for example (which I removed and shoot with factory wood). I was shooting at 25m seated on the ground off a set of shooting sticks (Stoney Point tripod), just resting the frame of the guns in front of the trigger guards on the yoke.

With open sights I shot the 357 in a little more than 1" to about 2" (3 groups of 5 shots each), which is a good as I can see. With the .475 I managed to put 8 shots in just under 2" (2 groups of 4 shots each at the same aiming point). Ok so this is no better than the previous best, but it was off sticks as opposed to a rest on a bench.

I honestly think that these groups better than would have been possible with the factory wood grips and are directly attributable to the new grips. I'm just able to control recoil more consistently. I was a bit worried about blisters from the 475, but to shoot it well I need to hold the wood grip so tight that the gun never "rolls in my hand anyway" (in fact I've never shot any gun accurately that way).

I'd call the change a great success, although this testing may be a bit limited to say with certainty. If you are struggling to shoot a FA well I can now confidently recommend that you give the ugly rubber Pachmayrs a try and put the pretty rosewood grips in the safe .

Now I need t oshoot them offhand!

Thanks for sharing. My preference is the ebony micarta panels, but that's why there are different materials available. Hope this works well for you.