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Prevent bipod bounce on concrete bench?

rockwind1

as i get older and my back gets stiffer, shooting prone like i used to is starting to make shooting not as enjoyable, and thus i gravitated to other non-painful activities, ( kite surfing, pickleball, remodels, mtn bike). i am at the core a hunter, not a bench rest person, so my shooting long range was always learning to shoot as good as possible in the field. i used to throw my matt down at the range, and there were little pockets or something to catch the bipod feed so i could load it very easily, with little bounce, (IMO). in the field i have spikes on my bipod if i get lucky with a prone shot.

anyway,,,now going to the range, it is so much nicer to just shoot from the bench, but it is a slick bench, and hard to load bipod, so i find myself only pushing into it a little before the friction of the rubber feet break and i have to pull into my shoulder more than i used to, which i think is changing things,, not to mention bipod bounce.

in other words, i am used to shooting by only pushing my shoulder into the butt vs pulling it into my shoulder with my trigger hand.

i usually shoot hunting oriented bolt guns with atlas bipods,,or harris.

any cool ideas on how to have the comfort of the bench but still being able to load the bipod and also not have to worry about bounce?
 
memilanuk said:
And/or a soft bath mat helps too. I shoot from a plate or a board in F-class, and I still put a mat under it when shooting off hard surfaces, whether it's a bench or a concrete firing line.
Click to expand...
when you say you shoot from a plate or a board,, what exactly do you mean,, so the plate slides?
 
Thud said:
Go to Home Depot or Lowe’s and get a cheap rubber door mat and place the bipod on it. Should hold back on bouncing.
Click to expand...
i really like this idea, but the more i think about it,, a rubber door matt is going to still kind of bounce,,wish i could find something similiar, like 1.5" thick but more unyeilding than a rubber matt yet with a sticky bottom so it doesn't slide on the concrete
 
No... most people shooting a bipod in F-class (FTR) use some sort of 'ski' type bipod, with much wider legs. People started using plates or boards under the bipod to make them run smoother on surfaces like grass, sand, gravel, etc. There are rules restricting the width of the board (relative to the width of the bipod) so that it didn't get *too* far out of control (not sure how well that worked).

A 'regular' bipod with a caliber that actually recoils is going to hop some, regardless. You can mitigate that by pre-loading, and by body position behind the gun. If the gun 'bounces' to the left, rotate your lower body to the left in increments until it stops, or starts going to the right - in which case move back the other way until you find 'neutral'.
 
rockwind1 said:
with a sticky bottom so it doesn't slide on the concrete
Click to expand...

Find a mat that you like, and then find something like either that rubber drawer liner mesh / router mat, or even peel-n-stick sandpaper, or cut up a cheap belt sander belt and spray-adhesive it to the bottom. No more skidding on smooth concrete.
 
We have been putting various bipods to the acid test shooting 22 50 yard matches off concrete bench--we have found through a lot of testing that a piece of thin yoga mat is best--it beat out bare concrete, towel, carpet ( two kinds) and it beat the tool box drawer liner all by a lot. We let the groups do the talking. We have also found that the Mystic Mpod bipod from EGW and the Sinclair f Class bipod are by far the best we have tested--both do not require the "loading" for our weight rifles using the yoga mat--it has taken the front of the rifle out of the equation and made our lives Much better--
I think you can shoot in a casual way from a cheapo Harris copy and do Ok for playing but if it is serious groups you are after I highly recommend the Mystic which is USA made --we used video to watch how all the different bipods reacted on the bench during recoil--one layer of the very thin yoga mat was superior and produced the best groups time after time.
The T slot mount of the Mystic also eliminates a common source of slop--it is solid as an anvil.
We were very surprised at how much slop there was in so many brands of bipods--Even the mighty Atlas shoots way better if you take the rubber feet off--and just put a furniture leg rubber cap on--the feet had some amount of slop in them
Buy your own yoga mat I found out the hard way when I cut a piece off the wifes for testing
 
dusterdave173 said:
We have been putting various bipods to the acid test shooting 22 50 yard matches off concrete bench--we have found through a lot of testing that a piece of thin yoga mat is best--it beat out bare concrete, towel, carpet ( two kinds) and it beat the tool box drawer liner all by a lot. We let the groups do the talking. We have also found that the Mystic Mpod bipod from EGW and the Sinclair f Class bipod are by far the best we have tested--both do not require the "loading" for our weight rifles using the yoga mat--it has taken the front of the rifle out of the equation and made our lives Much better--
I think you can shoot in a casual way from a cheapo Harris copy and do Ok for playing but if it is serious groups you are after I highly recommend the Mystic which is USA made --we used video to watch how all the different bipods reacted on the bench during recoil--one layer of the very thin yoga mat was superior and produced the best groups time after time.
The T slot mount of the Mystic also eliminates a common source of slop--it is solid as an anvil.
We were very surprised at how much slop there was in so many brands of bipods--Even the mighty Atlas shoots way better if you take the rubber feet off--and just put a furniture leg rubber cap on--the feet had some amount of slop in them
Buy your own yoga mat I found out the hard way when I cut a piece off the wifes for testing
Click to expand...
excellent advice and info! thank you. i have used mouse pads before other things. have you experimented with double thin yoga matt (2 seperate pieces laying top of each other?) have you found anyway to put a more grabby non-skid surface on one side to lay on the concrete bench?
 
rockwind1 said:
as i get older and my back gets stiffer, shooting prone like i used to is starting to make shooting not as enjoyable, and thus i gravitated to other non-painful activities, ( kite surfing, pickleball, remodels, mtn bike). i am at the core a hunter, not a bench rest person, so my shooting long range was always learning to shoot as good as possible in the field. i used to throw my matt down at the range, and there were little pockets or something to catch the bipod feed so i could load it very easily, with little bounce, (IMO). in the field i have spikes on my bipod if i get lucky with a prone shot.

anyway,,,now going to the range, it is so much nicer to just shoot from the bench, but it is a slick bench, and hard to load bipod, so i find myself only pushing into it a little before the friction of the rubber feet break and i have to pull into my shoulder more than i used to, which i think is changing things,, not to mention bipod bounce.

in other words, i am used to shooting by only pushing my shoulder into the butt vs pulling it into my shoulder with my trigger hand.

i usually shoot hunting oriented bolt guns with atlas bipods,,or harris.

any cool ideas on how to have the comfort of the bench but still being able to load the bipod and also not have to worry about bounce?
Click to expand...
If you are shooting off concrete or any hard surface, get a Memory Foam Bathroom Mat at Walmart, the kitchen mats about 1/2 " thick work too ,It will ELIMINATE Bounce, I have posted picture of groups out to 1000 yards,on 6BR & BR Wildcats, under Bart's Bullets,all were shot off Sinclair F Class Bipod & the Memory Foam mat.been shooting off Bipods for decades, Hope this helps you.
 
rockwind1 said:
excellent advice and info! thank you. i have used mouse pads before other things. have you experimented with double thin yoga matt (2 seperate pieces laying top of each other?) have you found anyway to put a more grabby non-skid surface on one side to lay on the concrete bench?
Click to expand...
We are shooting 22's so I have not worked much with bipods on bigger rifles but we find One layer is plenty I think it is maybe 1/4 inch? It is textured and grabs or slips or whatever it is doing just exactly right per our testing We struggled with "loading" the slop out of bipods--Hard to do the same every shot and we were doing6 cards with 25 bulls--No way to keep it up--we tested and tested and could find slop in all of the usual suspects--Harris style being the biggest offenders
Set your rifle up like you are ready to shoot --we use Protektor rear bags--then sit there on a stool and rock it fore and aft--then take the scope and go side to side--You will See where the slop is--usually in the rubber feet on most---in the leg joints on others, etc --Then we set it up on the Mystic and WOW! Solid as an anvil The Sinclair with elevation was sloppy also--when we screwed the elevation down Tight it went away--so we are just buying the standard ones now--
Getting the wiggle and slop no matter how small out of it insures you don't have to worry about loading--ain't no slop to take out --Try it you will be surprised. We went mid pack to winning once we figured this out--We still struggled with what was under the feet but tested our way out of it.
I have no clue if this means a thing with big booming rifles --like I said we are shooting 22 off concrete bench
We did experiment with gluing sand paper on the bottoms of things but the only place that paid off was on the thin wood spacers that we were using to tune rear bag height and we have since been ordering from Protektor many extra layers of the bottom they use--and gluing them on one by one to get out rear bag Exactly where we want them--Protektor gets $7 a pad and will add the suede to the bottom of one so you have a true bottom with grip--this has proven to be way better than a stack of stuff under the bag
 
dusterdave173 said:
We are shooting 22's so I have not worked much with bipods on bigger rifles but we find One layer is plenty I think it is maybe 1/4 inch? It is textured and grabs or slips or whatever it is doing just exactly right per our testing We struggled with "loading" the slop out of bipods--Hard to do the same every shot and we were doing6 cards with 25 bulls--No way to keep it up--we tested and tested and could find slop in all of the usual suspects--Harris style being the biggest offenders
Set your rifle up like you are ready to shoot --we use Protektor rear bags--then sit there on a stool and rock it fore and aft--then take the scope and go side to side--You will See where the slop is--usually in the rubber feet on most---in the leg joints on others, etc --Then we set it up on the Mystic and WOW! Solid as an anvil The Sinclair with elevation was sloppy also--when we screwed the elevation down Tight it went away--so we are just buying the standard ones now--
Getting the wiggle and slop no matter how small out of it insures you don't have to worry about loading--ain't no slop to take out --Try it you will be surprised. We went mid pack to winning once we figured this out--We still struggled with what was under the feet but tested our way out of it.
I have no clue if this means a thing with big booming rifles --like I said we are shooting 22 off concrete bench
We did experiment with gluing sand paper on the bottoms of things but the only place that paid off was on the thin wood spacers that we were using to tune rear bag height and we have since been ordering from Protektor many extra layers of the bottom they use--and gluing them on one by one to get out rear bag Exactly where we want them--Protektor gets $7 a pad and will add the suede to the bottom of one so you have a true bottom with grip--this has proven to be way better than a stack of stuff under the bag
Click to expand...
sent a pm
 
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