5 Gun Customizations to Make Your Gun One of a Kind
Owning a gun brings a sense of confidence and security to people. Gun owners are passionate about safety and usually feel a strong connection with their weapon, knowing that it may be the one thing between them and safety.
While they certainly are not toys, that doesn’t mean that gun owners can’t impart a sense of their personality into their weapons. Customization is a way of taking this important piece of defense and protection in your life and making it even more special, more connected with you, the owner.
Why Customize Your Gun?
Customizing your weapon can have a lot of positive benefits. Whether it’s aesthetic or functional, adding details to your stock firearm truly makes it yours and yours alone. While the gun you initially pick up is a powerful tool for hunting or self-defense, you can take it even further with different types of customization.
Quickly Differentiate Your Gun From Others
Whether at the range, in a hunting environment, or a combat scenario, it’s pretty important to be able to quickly and easily identify your personal weapon. You wouldn’t really want to be handling an unknown firearm, and your training is most prominent with the one you own.
Customizing is a great way to be able to make your gun stand out from the rest. Any way you decide to personalize your firearm will ensure that you’ll always know which one is yours when looking at a plethora of different weapons.
Express Your Personality
While your gun is a tool used for defense or hunting, that doesn’t mean it can't have a little personality to it as well. Using skins, wraps, molds, or any other customization assortment lets you impart a bit of yourself into your weapon as a gun owner.
GunSkins vinyl wraps are a superb way to express your personality through your firearm with patterns like the American flag, camo, and more.
1. Holster
The holster obviously isn’t a part of your gun, but it can be an easy way to spruce up the experience you have with your firearm. You might be interested in different materials such as leather, nylon, plastic, or even metal, each with its own particular feel and appearance.
Holsters also come in a wide array of locations as far as where they strap to your body. This level of customization allows you to find the most comfortable and accessible variation for your preference.
Experiment with belt attachments, under the arms carriers, inside-the-waistband holsters, or chest straps. If you’re interested in a holster that isn’t clearly visible, make sure to check your local concealed carry laws to determine if you need a permit or not.
2. Sights
When it comes to any situation that calls for your gun, accuracy is always a critical component. Whether you’re green to the world of gun ownership or a trained pro, upgrading the sight that comes stock on your firearm can not only boost your accuracy but add a personalized touch to it as well.
There are plenty of options available for sights, from lasers to holograms to the classic crosshairs.
Iron Sights
Iron sights, otherwise known as “open sights,” are probably what you immediately think of when aiming a handgun comes to mind. These are the standard, factory-setting sights that come with just about every handgun on the market.
Iron sights are composed of a front and back node, the front being a singular middle dot and the back being two separated dots that resemble a goal post. When aimed properly, the front and back dots will line up, giving the handler a sense of accuracy when firing.
While these sights are always reliable, as in they’ll never run out of battery, they also aren’t particularly easy to install. That’s why many guns come off the shelf with sights installed, for better or worse.
Laser Sights
Laser sights are a great way to breathe some life into your handgun while also boosting its accuracy. The sight mounts onto the weapon and projects a red or green laser that becomes visible when it’s on the target, much like a laser pointer.
On the market, some options mount onto the grips of your handgun, the frame rail, or even from within the internal mechanics. Battery life on these is relatively good unless you’re using the laser for extended periods, but you can usually depend on about two hours of life.
The only pitfall of laser sights is that things might get in their way, like your fingers or clothes. These may block the laser from reaching and identifying your target.
Micro-Red Dot
Micro-Red dot scopes use a small piece of glass or plastic mounted at the top-back of the handgun and project a little, or micro, dot for the user to balance and aim with.
While there are handguns with specifically designed mounting positions for these scopes, they aren’t the only ones that can use them. It might be something a local gunsmith would be able to fit for you if you were particularly interested.
Fiber Optics
Fiber optics sights are another that might be built into your handgun, but most likely, you’d have to add it on. They utilize small pieces of fiber optic material which gather and glow with even minimal amounts of light.
These can be great on your weapon, especially in combat situations. Because they don’t rely on batteries, you don’t have to worry about them dying on you when you need them, and they’re a step up from iron sights when it comes to visibility. They generally come in green, orange, red, and yellow.
3. Etching
Etching or engraving is the process of making small cuts in the metal of your gun in a design or pattern that looks amazing. You can purchase guns that are already etched, but you can also have it done after purchase for a really unique spin.
The options are pretty limitless when it comes to etching or engraving your weapon. You could opt for words, such as names or morals, or a creative pattern that will not only look good but feel good in your hands.
4. Vinyl Wraps
We might be biased, but we think that vinyl wraps are an excellent way to customize your handgun in a way that’s affordable and striking. Wraps come in a wide variety of designs and styles, from different colors and types of camouflage to American flags, to flames, patterns, and more.
Vinyl wraps are also water-proof, easy to apply and remove, and won’t break the bank, making them a great option when it comes to bringing some personality to your weapon.
Whether you’re looking to step up your handgun or long gun, vinyl wraps add a level of spark to your firearm, and at Gunskins, our skins are made from the best vinyl on the market.
5. Custom Handle Covers
Custom handle covers can have a lot of different positive effects on your weapon. Aesthetic handle covers can add a bit of color and personality to your firearm without impacting the grip width or texture at all.
Or you can go the functional route and find something that won’t slip out of your hands or even add another component to your gun- As we mentioned, some laser sights can be built into custom handle covers.
In Conclusion
The beauty of customizing your gun is that it’s completely up to you. You likely won’t degrade the quality of your weapon with any of these options as long as you opt for high-quality products.
It’s your firearm and should reflect your personality, wants, and needs. Make your weapon stand out amongst the rest by taking it up a level. You can also combine any number of these customizations together to add even more to your gun.
A custom vinyl wrap will suit a handle cover extremely well, and an aftermarket sight will increase your accuracy while also looking fantastic. As we mentioned, guns certainly aren’t toys, but adding a little flare to them will connect you even closer to them than you already naturally are.
Sources:
Why Own a Gun? Protection Is Now Top Reason | www.pewresearch.org
Why You Should Consider Getting Laser Sights | www.letsgoshooting.org
What you need to Know about Laser Engraving Machines for Guns | www.heatsign.com
1 comment
I modify grips to fit the hand better and sights. I have a real one-of-a-kind in an M1 with a pistol-grip stock. I did buy a rough 2nd stock to do this.