Watched the Blu-Ray tonight. No BD drive on my PC, so I took a few pics with the Rebel.
So the grips go to the bottom not only for the snow scene, but also when Finn pics it up from the dirt, as mentioned previously.
But then there's the scene where the saber is first taken from his hand, before he reclaims it from the fallen trooper. No chance of damage here. It's a hand-off, and a close-up shot, but still, grips to the bottom:
Here's a scene of Rey fighting with Ren in the end, with grips to bottom...
...but, if you look closely above, it appears that the fins in that scene have been trimmed down close to the surface of the saber...
Btw, here's a cap of Rey using the antenna saber. You can just make out the antenna poking out the back: