Rest for Prone Shooting

[BZR]

I have a stardard bench front rest and bag. It works great for shooting off the bench, but when I tried to use the same rest to shoot from the prone position it was extremely short to be comfortable.

So my questions are...

How tall of a rest should you have to shoot from the prone position? Just whatever is comfortable?

Does anyone out there make their own risers for their rest? I was thinking about building small plates to place my rest on to gain some height.

 

[oneflyer]

I have seen guys take out the original feet from their front rests and replace them with much longer ones. You could use threaded rod or order long ones from MSC. I just got some for about $4 each.

 

[bt88]

I bought some threaded rod, cut it to 5", epoxied some new 1.5" knobs on:

http://www.jwwinco.com/products/section8/krsk/index.html

and attached these for feet:

http://jwwinco.com/products/section7/wn9000.1a/index.html

The feet are nice... they've got a no-slip bottom, so they work great for benchtops, and you can put lag screws in them if you don't want your rest to move around on the ground. They also pivot, so they sit well on the gound regardless of how rough it is.

 

[memilanuk]

bt88,

Cool! I'd seen people use the plastic knobs from Rockler's or Woodcraft,or occasionally Lowe's), and then a couple nylock nuts and a fender washer for use off the pavement. Grind the tip to a point, and set the washer so it can't go more than 2" into the ground, and go to town.

The stainless knobs and rubber/swivel feet seem pretty slick... I've got the Sinclair F-Class screws and F-class feet on my Sinclair front rest, but I have a Caldwell Fire-control rest that could use some better feet as well.

Thanks,

Monte

 

[bt88]

Monte,

The only thing to watch out for is the height of the feet-- I think they're 1 3/4". While they work fantastic on the ground, they can make the rest sit a bit high on a bench.

It's nothing that can't be remedied by just removing them.

 

[GentleBen]

For prone, how about just using a 6-9 inch Harris bipod? Pretty steady and maneuverable.

 

[Travelor]

One of the mistakes people,including me) make in shooting prone form a rest is getting the gun too high. I have found that shooting F-Class using my Sinclair bench rest with bench bags at a 'normal bench height' results in much better target results at 600-1000 yards that jacking the rest up.

Big tummy's change the scenario.