All right, I've now answered my own question. I just put a Hogue monogrip on the SP101 and took it to the range today. For the benefit of the two other people out there who might be wondering how the Hogue grip compares to the CT laser grip, here are my observations:
The Hogue grip is roughly 0.5 inch longer, which gives your little finger more to hang onto. I have fairly small hands, and I can
just get my little finger on the CT grip. I would imagine someone with large fingers might not be able to get their little finger on it. The Hogue grip's extra half inch provides a more-secure grasp, although at the expense of poorer concealment ability.
The CT grip has very slight finger grooves, so if your fingers don't happen to line up with the grooves, it's no big deal. The Hogue grip's finger grooves are much more pronounced, so you pretty much have to put your fingers in the grooves, or else it would feel very weird and not be very comfortable.
The CT grip is a tiny bit thicker (left-to-right) at its maximum thickness, and the thickness varies gradually from top to bottom, reaching its maximum at the bottom. The Hogue grip has a more-localized "palm swell" about halfway down, where the thickness gets quite noticeably bigger and then smaller again over a distance of about an inch. To me that feature makes the Hogue fit my hand much better than the CT.
I don't have a durometer so I can't quantify it, but it is fairly apparent that the Hogue grip is made of a softer rubber than the CT grip.
The real test for me was how they compare on the range. Last week I shot 100 rounds with the CT grip. It worked well. I always felt I had a firm grasp on the gun, but my hand felt like it was getting slapped pretty good, even with the 38 special non-+P ammo I was using.
Today I shot 100 rounds with the Hogue grip. I felt I had a better grasp on the gun, and the hand-slapping was noticeably less. I was with an instructor today (who happens to be a Ruger revolver nut, and told me he has 6 SP101s, including one in .22 lr), and he happened to have some .357 magnum rounds (hand loads that he said were "90%" loads, so they were not really high power). He gave me a couple to shoot. The recoil was greater, but still comfortable.
So all in all, I'm quite happy with the Hogue monogrip for this gun. Frankly, I wasn't really wanting the CT laser grip, but it was already on the gun I bought. But I don't think I'll be using it, at least for practice. Probably won't use it at all.
Anybody want to buy a CT laser grip? Barely used!
DogoDon
