Bipod Shooters - Interesting Innovation

[K22]

Was at the range yesterday and saw and interesting innovation being used by a shooter using a bipod on the bench and thought I might share it with your guys.

Let me say from the start, I do not use a bipod anymore. I did at one time about 20 years ago for hunting varmints but switched to shooting sticks because the bipod restricted my field of view. Even in the sitting position, the sticks just worked better for me but that's another story.

As most bipod shooters know, you have to "load" the bipod to shoot consistently. Also, different surfaces can create point of impact changes. At least that was my experience many years ago.

Anyway, this guy had a piece of wood, about 20 inches long, 2 inches wide, 3/4" high permanently clamped to a piece of thick carpet at one end with three large binder clips to hold the wood in place on the carpet. He "loaded" the bipod against the piece of wood. The weight of his arms supporting the rifle on the carpet kept the carpet and bipod from inching forward under load. As I watched him shoot groups, the rifle reaction was very consistent with no "hopping" of the bipod off the carpet.

What made this kind of unique I thought was that this system in a compact unit, deploys quickly and can be used on any flat surface thus giving you the same carpeted surface. He simply rolls it up, wood is permanently clamped in place thus it's very portable. He had a carry strap that he could sling the contraption over his shoulder. Pretty neat I thought.

He shot some pretty impressive groups at 100 yards in the 1/2 moa range with a stock factory Savage 6.5 Creedmore.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Me and my crew always used C-clamps to hold a 2x4 on the front edge of the bench to load against. We was doing that in matches back in the 90’s. I thought everybody had forgotten that trick. We had to do it with the junky bipods we had

 

[AccelR8]

...and here I thought I had come up with this all by myself...

I guess great minds think alike.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

Was at the range yesterday and saw and interesting innovation being used by a shooter using a bipod on the bench and thought I might share it with your guys.

Let me say from the start, I do not use a bipod anymore. I did at one time about 20 years ago for hunting varmints but switched to shooting sticks because the bipod restricted my field of view. Even in the sitting position, the sticks just worked better for me but that's another story.

As most bipod shooters know, you have to "load" the bipod to shoot consistently. Also, different surfaces can create point of impact changes. At least that was my experience many years ago.

Anyway, this guy had a piece of wood, about 20 inches long, 2 inches wide, 3/4" high permanently clamped to a piece of thick carpet at one end with three large binder clips to hold the wood in place on the carpet. He "loaded" the bipod against the piece of wood. The weight of his arms supporting the rifle on the carpet kept the carpet and bipod from inching forward under load. As I watched him shoot groups, the rifle reaction was very consistent with no "hopping" of the bipod off the carpet.

What made this kind of unique I thought was that this system in a compact unit, deploys quickly and can be used on any flat surface thus giving you the same carpeted surface. He simply rolls it up, wood is permanently clamped in place thus it's very portable. He had a carry strap that he could sling the contraption over his shoulder. Pretty neat I thought.

He shot some pretty impressive groups at 100 yards in the 1/2 moa range with a stock factory Savage 6.5 Creedmore.

That’s a good tip!
Now you have got me thinking to just bolting the piece of wood permanently to a piece of carpet that fits my bench.

 

[shoobe01]

Making sure: You know about bipod straps right? Many shooting mats now have a webbing strap (or a couple) across the front. Tuck the bipod feet under it, and then load against that, no reliance on the spikes into dirt, rubber across concrete, etc.

To me the 2x4 and carpet just seems like a home-brew version of that.

 

[K22]

That’s a good tip!
Now you have got me thinking to just bolting the piece of wood permanently to a piece of carpet that fits my bench.

Yea, I thought it was pretty neat. You just roll it up when leaving the range then unroll it to deploy it when arriving at the range - ready to shoot. As I said, I don't shoot off a bipod but what I observed seem to work really well.

I did notice that he kept the binder clip prongs open on the bottom intact which seem to add stability to the wood clamped at the end of the carpet, i.e., preventing it from tilting forward.

 

[Ironman308]

I have used a ratchet strap around the bench which worked well on a bench.

 

[AccelR8]

I do have a shooting mat for prone that has a bipod strap. Of course it's no good for the bench.

 

[K22]

Making sure: You know about bipod straps right? Many shooting mats now have a webbing strap (or a couple) across the front. Tuck the bipod feet under it, and then load against that, no reliance on the spikes into dirt, rubber across concrete, etc.

To me the 2x4 and carpet just seems like a home-brew version of that.

No, I wasn't aware of the strap thing. I don't have an "axe to grind" here since I'm not a bipod shooter. I just thought I'd pass along something I saw at the range which I've never seen before and thought it was quite neat since it's a portable / quick deploy set up and from what I observed seem to work quite well.

 

[Gargoyle]

I screwed in a piece of 1X2 on the range bench, Lol. I got vertical stringing on mats with loops. I settled on Hawke Hill Customs talon feet and keep them in the dirt. Best groups ever. This carpet and wood piece sound viable too! Thanks for posting.

 

[K22]

I screwed in a piece of 1X2 on the range bench, Lol. I got vertical stringing on mats with loops. I settled on Hawke Hill Customs talon feet and keep them in the dirt. Best groups ever. This carpet and wood piece sound viable too! Thanks for posting.

I aspect of what that guy was using that I found so interesting was that there is no set up required. Just roll out the contraption and start shooting.

Since I do not use a bipod, personally cannot attest to the accuracy potential of that setup other than the extremely small groups I saw him shoot with his stock factory rifle.

 

[whatsupdoc]

Loading the bipod = removing any slack. You dont have to mash the legs against anything
to achieve this. Sticky or grabby feet depending on the surface and slight forward pressure
is all that is necessary.

My one fortmier bipod has zero play in the legs and skis for feet so I never load that one only
the ones that have slop.

 

[darkangel_r2]

Me and my crew always used C-clamps to hold a 2x4 on the front edge of the bench to load against. We was doing that in matches back in the 90’s. I thought everybody had forgotten that trick. We had to do it with the junky bipods we had

Same, used to do load dev off a front rest rear bag combo but then I noticed slightly different behavior in my reloads when shooting prone with bipod. Then I started clamping a little board to the bench and loading the bipod to a similar degree when prone and that difference went away.

 

[CharlieNC]

Loading the bipod = removing any slack. You dont have to mash the legs against anything
to achieve this. Sticky or grabby feet depending on the surface and slight forward pressure
is all that is necessary.

My one fortmier bipod has zero play in the legs and skis for feet so I never load that one only
the ones that have slop.

Yep, you can overdo anything. Not to mention a fclass bipod has "sliding" feet.

 

[Jarhead6870]

I doesn't make any difference what you shoot off of or against or on; if you don't introduce the SAME amount of load to manage recoil with EACH/EVERY shot, your POI will shift. I have shooters asking me all the time time why their POI is different when they shoot off of a tripod/barricade/bench versus when they shoot prone using a bipod. It's simple; the load they provide to the bipod when shooting prone is different than when shooting from these different obstacles/positions. As mentioned by "Whatsupdoc", load the rifle just enough to remove the slack from the bipod. This is all you need and makes it easier when shooting from other positions and obstacles to duplicate.

 

[shoobe01]

I do have a shooting mat for prone that has a bipod strap. Of course it's no good for the bench.

Why not? I mean it doesn't always all fit, but I use my dragbag/mat everywhere except some positional shooting, even on the bench (when that's needed or all that is permitted, etc). Often benches are rough, wet, etc.

And for this, seems to have enough mat that my body mass holds it down, never moves around so you can load against it.

I mean it: am I missing something key here?

 

[shoobe01]

...load the rifle just enough to remove the slack from the bipod. This is all you need and makes it easier when shooting from other positions and obstacles to duplicate.

Was doing a bunch of practice the other day with a friend, and my biggest issue (now I have pretty much solved this dumb cheek weld issue I have finally had someone tell me about after decades!) is consistent loading. I can easily overload when in prone (otherwise I tend to do okay), and yeah can you tell the difference with one shot, even with a full chassis gun.

I need a load meter, buzzes at me when I push too hard

 

[AccelR8]

Why not? I mean it doesn't always all fit, but I use my dragbag/mat everywhere except some positional shooting, even on the bench (when that's needed or all that is permitted, etc). Often benches are rough, wet, etc.

And for this, seems to have enough mat that my body mass holds it down, never moves around so you can load against it.

I mean it: am I missing something key here?

Well, the range I shoot at regularly, the benches are not very big. They are rather narrow to begin with and they taper on both sides from front to back. At the rear they are probably less than a foot wide. I admit I've never tried it but I imagine my mat, which is rather large, would hang over all around including where I'm trying to sit. Plus I'm pretty sure the anchor points of the strap are wider than the bench so I'd be kind of pulling the sides of the mat up as I load.

Not to mention that high wind gusts are common and will blow everything not heavy or fastened down off a bench. Usually when you're down checking your target.

When I said "of course" in my previous post I guess I was just thinking it's the same for everyone. Now I have used the mat on what I would call elevated shooting platforms and it works well in that application

 

[shoobe01]

Ah, that's a solid reason. Same thing: ranges I use have this standard for the area concrete one or these very large miniature decks, so they fit okay or totally. But yes, of course some people have different benches.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

I shoot all my hunting and elr rigs from bipods. I dont load them. Shot a lot of tiny groups at 1k like this. I have played around and found that pushing the slack out and backing off a bit works very well too.