Cannon Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 I'm looking for evidence of the best smooth handle gripper close. Tetting was known to make grippers with solid steel handles and also reissued two retro grippers at one point. Atomgripz commonly had all smooth handles. FBBC made many smooth handle grippers out of various metals. Doesn't have to be your close. Evidence of any close is good. What have we got? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 Has to be both smooth handles. I'm not looking for examples where just one handle was smooth like most extended handle grippers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insane.warrior Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 Description says "RGC = 62.2kg, resistance like CoC 2.67" 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insane.warrior Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C8Myotome Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 I've never had the opportunity to try one but as someone who prefers less knurling I'd prob kill on these.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 Just now, C8Myotome said: I've never had the opportunity to try one but as someone who prefers less knurling I'd prob kill on these.. I think you would find these go beyond knurling preference. They are simply “harder” from a mechanical standpoint due to the lack of engagement at contacts. If you are able to keep it in position (and maybe therefore lose less strength) I think that would be related to hand anatomy. Like a very bulbous and firm thumb pad. Even then, I think you’d still lose some closing ability versus knurled. That has been my experience in using these and seeing others use them. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 Here is one from Paw Knight. The Retro Heman had smooth steel handles. It was made by Tetting for Dennis Rogers' website. There were 100 and also 100 of a harder gripper called Retro Beast. CPW has rated one Heman at 133 and two Beasts at 146 and 147. I think that probably means Heman was effictively a smooth-handle Super Master and Beast was a smooth-handle Grand Master. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 Here is a quad band smooth close by Adam Glass. Again we can only speculate about the strength in this case but as mentioned in another thread based on the examples CPW has rated they were average 157 and ranged 137 to 173. Impossible to guess where this one could be however it looked easy for Adam. I know he did the MM3 around the same time as this video which is presumed to be low 180s. So that makes sense he could do ~157 with smooth handles if the gripper were in that range. Again, total speculation in this case. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 This is a smooth handle FBBC 4X close by Sam Solomi. These tended to be ungodly wide and the one in this video appears to be no exception. He was able to accomplish a really deep set and then followed with reps. I know that @kilkkinen rated some of Sam's grippers but cannot find evidence of a rating for this particular FBBC 4X. Our ratings data on other 4X grippers puts them consistently anywhere in the 140s. Separately some ratings history, if you guys don't know @kilkkinen that is Matti Heiskanen. Strong dude. He was an early adopter of gripper ratings and kept a website with the data. It was really useful. The last link I can find to his website--now defunct--mentions his ratings total was at 887 grippers in 2013. That was probably the most by any person at that time. There were only a handful of guys rating grippers: Me, Jedd, Aaron, Chris, Eric, Rich and likely a couple others. Greg Amidon and Dave Morton fabricated the original "redneck" device and wrote up their work in this original publication which thankfully survives to this day. The idea of rating grippers was introduced around the end of 2006. I was informally doing "rate and return" since around 2009 and had rated a few hundred grippers that way at least. Then CPW started in 2012 and by the end of 2013 we were at about 650 ratings of new grippers for the store. Mash Monster replicas were pre-rated and by the end of 2013 we were dabbling with pre-rating just the IronMind #3, but the actual Pre-Rated gripper product didn't exist yet. I was trying to find the very first order under that product. Apparently it was on 4/18/2014 and it was a 143 IronMind #3 ordered by a GripBoard member! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stranger Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 Did Ben Edwards close a #3 dipped in oil? Or something like that 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Knowlton Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 supper cool grippers, it would be nice to own some of these grippers someday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 12 minutes ago, stranger said: Did Ben Edwards close a #3 dipped in oil? Or something like that Yeah. Wesson oil. That is a wild close. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mashmonster268 Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 43 minutes ago, stranger said: Did Ben Edwards close a #3 dipped in oil? Or something like that Hey, that's me! 3 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stranger Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 1 minute ago, Mashmonster268 said: Hey, that's me! There he is! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mashmonster268 Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 @CannonMy memory is fading, for sure over the years. But I'm pretty sure I TNS closed a smooth Atomgripz Quad Band on video back when I had several of the smooth-handled Atomgripz grippers in my collection. Would've been probably a decade or longer. I don't have access to my old YouTube channel from those days. I've tried to access it to see the tons of videos I hid (*) and haven't been able to because I can't log in to the old email I used when I started it and I don't have the same phone number. * = I worked in a jail (now a civilian) for 18 years, and during that time I found out that some officers were openly showing inmates my YouTube videos. Which, to some degree was actually helpful probably because less of them wanted to mess with the guy who could bend hammers and break bats and crush a bunch of stuff, lol. But I reacted by hiding my videos because it was invading my privacy in a dangerous manner. P.S. I also TNS closed one of the easier FBBC smooth grippers at a grip contest. It was very chalked up and for the life of me I can't remember if it was a contest near the KC area, or one of the ones I traveled to over the years in other states. If anyone remembers, I'd love to know where it was. Atomgripz also had a mirror finish smooth-handled gripper that was pretty nasty to TNS close. Not a big rating, but pretty wide too. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubyagrip Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 oh man i gotta try the oil thing lol that's sick 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mashmonster268 Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 @terminatorSome people think it's even easier to TNS oil-covered grippers though. So you'd have to try it and decide for yourself. Pat P. said on the Ironmind forum he thought it was easier to TNS an oiled gripper than a chalked gripper. Randall Strossen also mentioned on that thread (from 2010) that Warren Tetting mentioned the idea of oiling grippers "about 20 years ago" - so that would've been approximately 1990. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuttgens Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 1 hour ago, Mashmonster268 said: Hey, that's me! Haha that is funny. What would even give you the idea to try this? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mashmonster268 Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 3 hours ago, Nuttgens said: Haha that is funny. What would even give you the idea to try this? It was an idea Josh Dale and I had years back. I used a lot of chalk on my hands and we were talking about making an easier gripper harder to close for someone who doesn't want to (or maybe can't afford to) buy a harder gripper. You can grip higher on the handles (closer to the spring), but I didn't like how that felt. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 36 minutes ago, Mashmonster268 said: It was an idea Josh Dale and I had years back. I used a lot of chalk on my hands and we were talking about making an easier gripper harder to close for someone who doesn't want to (or maybe can't afford to) buy a harder gripper. You can grip higher on the handles (closer to the spring), but I didn't like how that felt. Is this Bencrush? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chez Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 59 minutes ago, Cannon said: Is this Bencrush? That’s totally Ben lol 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mashmonster268 Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 1 hour ago, Cannon said: Is this Bencrush? Yeah, it's me! I messed up my old log in with a Kindle water accident. Since then, I dried out my old Kindle and it still has my log in details saved to it on that device. But on my phone, this is the account I can access. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdckr Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 10 hours ago, Mashmonster268 said: It was an idea Josh Dale and I had years back. I used a lot of chalk on my hands and we were talking about making an easier gripper harder to close for someone who doesn't want to (or maybe can't afford to) buy a harder gripper. You can grip higher on the handles (closer to the spring), but I didn't like how that felt. Loved the video you made back in the day of closing a #3 after dipping the handles in oil 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C8Myotome Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 are there smooth handle grippers available anywhere? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liftyzig Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 19 hours ago, Cannon said: Here is a quad band smooth close by Adam Glass. Again we can only speculate about the strength in this case but as mentioned in another thread based on the examples CPW has rated they were average 157 and ranged 137 to 173. Impossible to guess where this one could be however it looked easy for Adam. I know he did the MM3 around the same time as this video which is presumed to be low 180s. So that makes sense he could do ~157 with smooth handles if the gripper were in that range. Again, total speculation in this case. I have almost all of Adam's grippers, including 2 quad bands with smooth handles, one rated 159, the other 168 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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