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Hello Nate & Others
I have read about all I can find on Matheis Gagne who made all of Walter Ropers Custom grips. He was a very finicky wood craftsman, but given the tools he worked with, he really made some great looking and comfortable grips. Gagne did not worry about High grain Definition in his grips as I feel all his wood was Harvested locally in the Upper New England area where he resided. I have read he stacked the raw cut lumber in piles to allow it time to air dry not ever knowing what a Wood Kiln was back then. He had very few power tools to work with, but I know he had a large Band saw he used to quarter the grip halfs so they met perfectly when he was done. He also used a large belt sander to shape the famous bell shape into the bottom of all his grips, along with the Palm swell he placed into them. His elaborate clover leaf checkering was done with a simple V-Chisel and wodden Mallet while the grips were placed on a Square Peg Jig to hold them in Place. All his grips have these Odd Looking Square Peg holes on the inside of them, so if you should ever come across a pair of his grips, the square Peg holes on the back side of them is a tell tale way of knowing they are the originals and both of mine have them. He also used a counter sink to allow room on the back side of his grips for the Lower side plate screw to clear, and he rounded out the area of the front strap of his grips to allow clearence for the strain screw to clear. He seldom marked any of his grips but my K-Sq. set has the date of 1936 along with K-22 scribed into them. Gagne cared more about shooter comfort and the fact that he was making a grip that allowed the shooter much more control over his revolver to raise his competition scores, more so than high grain definition. I can tell you that Both pairs of my Original Roper grips shown above fit drum tight on the revolvers grip frames, and to remove them one has to tap them off carefully do to such a tight fit of which Gagne was famous for. I am not by any means down Playing Keith browns work, as the guy does a fabulous job, But I feel Blessed to have the Originals embellishing the revolvers they are on...Keep searching, You never know where an Original set of Walter Roper grips will Pop Up... H.D.