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Shooting off a Bipod on a Concrete Bench

I have proven to myself and family that a concrete bench distorts my accuracy when using my Harris bipods. Others have argued, and presented "evidents", that it doesn't.
When I am sighting in for accuracy, I lay down on the ground next to the bench, to create a more natural shooting position, that I would do in the field, hunting.
Go to sand bags or something else to zero from a bench. Practice shooting in the position your most likely to use in the field. Prairie dogs come to mind.
 
I have proven to myself and family that a concrete bench distorts my accuracy when using my Harris bipods. Others have argued, and presented "evidents", that it doesn't.

"evidents"
^^^^^^
This is the stone. [Agreed that creative spelling/grammar is a feature of this site.]

Practice shooting in the position your most likely to use in the field.

your
^^^
This is the glass house. [It's "you're".] ;)
 
I am trying to shoot my 308 off a Harris bipod an a concrete bench and not having good results.

I use a wrap around grip & pull the rifle back hard into the shoulder. My left hand is between the small sand bag & stock to adjust the elevation. So, I guess that the rifle is in 'free recoil' since I am not pulling down on the foregrip.

My groups are around 1.75 moa for 5 shots. I usually have a flier as the 4 shot groups are at 1 moa. I the rifle is capable of .75 moa, but I am not getting it. As a comparison, when I shoot my AR15, I am consistenly under .75 moa shooting in a similar fashion.

Should I grip the foregrip with my left hand to eliminate the free recoil?

i put 2 "mouse pads" one under each front feet,and put my shoulder up barely touching the butt of the rifle and set behind the rifle as opposed to off to the side with very minimal grip.
 
Cheap, slick cutting sheets, the kind you can roll up, work great on the bench, too.

To echo a couple of other points.

Don't pull hard into your shoulder. Take a look through the scope as you vary how hard you are pulling. Watch the reticle move. Consistency here is the key.

Don't "steer" the reticle by sideloading your rear bag. It's ok to squeeze the bag for minor elevation corrections. Side loading the rear bag is a sure recipe for spraying them around. Get everything set up in a straight line with the target and get yourself set up so that everything moves straight.

Trigger control is also critical. If you have a heavy trigger, lightening it up will help. Do a few dry fires while looking through the reticle and see if you are torquing the rifle when you squeeze the trigger. That will do it, as well.

Good luck!
 
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What works for me is first i use a cheap fabric covered rubber door mat to rest the legs on, this allows me to "preload" the legs by leaning into the rifle and that removes any free play making a solid tripod with my elbow being the third leg. It makes as solid a rest as i can make, i don't know if that will work for you. Good luck.
 
Allowing a rifle to slide backward under recoil only works for heavy bench rest guns, it's not the best technique for a standard 7 or 8 lb rifle. Pre-loading a bipod is only necessary if the bipod has play in it, if your is tight then pre-loading wont matter. Bipods were designed for shooters that were firing from a prone position in the field. The feet would normally be in the dirt. The dirt is loose enough to act like a shock absorber, it allows the energy of recoil to be directed in to the soft ground. The hard concrete bench top doesn't absorb very much energy so the rifle will bounce.
 
Get a bigger rear bag! The rear bag should support the entire weight of the rifle stock. Your hand squeezes the bag to adjust height. Using your hand in between is bad juju and will exacerbate the recoil impulse / bipod hop.

Loading the bipod against something will assist in controlling recoil. Some prone shooting mats will have a strip along the front that the bipod legs can be pushed against. This allows you to create forward pressure without the bipod slipping forward. Your shoulder keeps the rifle from slipping rearward. You create a forward / backward squeeze and limit the rifles travel under recoil. You must be consistent every time or you may change POI and you zero depending on pressure.

Another big bonus would be a muzzle break. A good break can seriously decrease the recoil impulse and bipod hop. Heavier rifle will also help.

Most important thing is practice. It takes time and lots of practice. With enough time, you can shoot small accurate groups off anything.
 
I super glued small furniture skids on my Atlas to see if it would be worth the money to get the Ski's feet . It did nothing for my accuracy.
 
Thanks to all that replied & all the good advise!

I laid down a 3/4" thick neoprene sheet on the concrete bench and rested the bipod legs on the neoprene. The bipod was still sliding a little due to shoulder pressure but not too bad. After I got the sight picture (i.e. adjusted the rear bag) I straitened out my left arm and grabbed the left bipod leg to keep the rifle from moving forward.

I shot (5) 5 round groups at 200 yards that averaged .61 MOA . I am very happy!!!
 
Most likely, there are a few things causing your undesirable results. When troubleshooting always start with the fundamentals of marksmanship; are you executing each correctly? How is your follow through and sight alignment? Body position and breathing consistent shot-to-shot?

I sometimes think even the recoil and noise of a .308 can be intimidating on a subconscious level. This can result in our bodies accomodating or compensating; often the results are undesirable or inconsistent.

Ok, this is going to sound weird, but give it a shot before disregarding. Try shooting with your eyes closed. Well, sort of. Line up your body square to your target. Place the rifle perpendicular to your body. The rifle should be snug, but not tight. If you can see your heart beating through the scope, it's too tight against your body.

When you think you have a solid position, simulate recoil. Does the rifle move straight back in the bags or does it move to one side?

Is your rear bag straight? When you grip it (not sure what type of rear bag so just assuming it a squeeze type) does it turn slightly to one side--thus setting the rifle up to move in a direction other than straight back on recoil.

Now get your scope on target, close your eyes, take two full breaths (inhale-exhale). This will take your eyes out of the equation and keep them from cheating and allowing muscling of the rifle into position. With your eyes open, it's too easy to make minor unconscious adjustments to keep the crosshairs on target.

Open your eyes. Where are your cross hairs? Have they moved? If so, realign and repeat. If your sight alignment is correct, your crosshairs will remain exactly on target after opening.

Now that your position is correct, it's time to actually shoot with your eyes closed. Yippee!! Repeat the step above. Insure your sight alignment is perfect. Now close your eyes and take two more breaths; this time take the shot at the bottom of your breathig cycle. Focus on perfect follow through. Keep your finger on the trigger. It should be pulled straigt back--imagine a point straight behind the trigger--where your finger, the trigger, and that point all line up in a straight line. Pull your finger to that point, letting it break the trigger as you go. Keep your finger on the trigger all the way through the recoil impulse.

Now open your eyes again. Where have the crosshairs moved? Are they still on target? Right of target? Left? Where is the rear sandbag, did it shift to one side?

Shoot a five shot group at 100 yards using this method. Try to learn something from each shot and practice making each shot perfect. Also, let the group size be the last thing in your mind...your focus in on building correct fundamentals. The accuracy/precision will come.



I relate everything to golf since that is the first sport I really learned. My Dad told me the first day, a correct swing should feel weird and wrong because I've never done it before. He further taught me to not worry about where my ball went--instead focus on doing certain things correctly. And once I was able to put a few things together correctly, my ball would just start to go straight. Same thing with shooting. Build the fundamentals and the rest will fall into place.

Good Luck

PS--or you could always install a muzzle brake and skip learning a lot of stuff :);):Do_O
Thanks for all the reminders on good shooting technique. While I did not shoot with my eyes closed, I did the following: got the sights perfectly aligned, adjusted the rear bag, and pressed with the shoulder. I then closed my eyes and took two big breaths. This let my eyes rest and when I opened them up, made sure that I had good natural sight alignment. At this point I focused on maintaining slight shoulder pressure & trigger control. Doing this gave me .61 MOA for (5) 5 round groups at 200 yds.
 
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I’m reviving this thread to say I followed the frisbee technique on the first page and it seems to work very well! Thank you, one and all!

I have only tried it on a light 17 HMR varmint Browning T-bolt. I have a non-canting Harris bipod that was gifted to me because my father didn’t like it. The legs are smooth (not notched) so the height adjustment is infinite within its range. Quite rigid.

In came the frisbee. Allows me to quickly do dot drills without creating a twisting tension in the bipod legs. Think of it as a cheap way to enable panning. I think it’s better than a true panning bipod because the recoil always comes straight back. Just one panning variable: It’s up to me to be square to the rifle.

With a panning bipod, there’s two variables: I need to be square PLUS there’s the variable of the recoil not coming back at 90 degrees to the bipod. That’s my theory, anyway. I haven’t owned a panning bipod.

However, I couldn’t get the gun to shoot worth a crap!

As others have suggested, I MUST hold the forend down pretty firmly when shooting. It’s a light gun and it hops more than my varmint CZ 527s, which are not heavy either. But, the varmint 527 is much stouter compared to the T-bolt.

The forearm trick solved my accuracy issue with this gun. The frisbee made pivoting to new targets easy.

I should note that my range’s benches are covered in firm carpet.

Now I’ve bought an Atlas Super Cal. It comes this week. Not gonna fit in a frisbee! Got it for my PD shooter, a heavy Rem 700 .204. I’ll need to buy a slick cutting board or something.
 
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As mentioned by others, you MUST have something suitable between the feet of the bipod and ANY hard surface (concrete, wood, hard dry clay earth, rock, etc). Two best things I've found are small sandbags I made for this purpose, or denim folded / arranged in such a way that it's at least 10 or 12 layers thick and virtually incompressible. A normal bath or kitchen towel is better than nothing, but I really recommend sandbags or tight, thick, layered denim.

Also, try placing your thumb pointing straight forward on the tang of the stock. If a plastic stock, there will be a seam right down the waterline where the left side and right side mold together. That's where I place my thumb when shooting and it really helps reduce / minimize grip variation influence on groups downrange.
 
If loading the bipod by pushing forward against something does not work try this:

Take a piece of 2x4 long enough to fit under both bipod legs on and cut a groove in the top surface that the tips of the bipod will fit in. This way the bipod will slide smoothly to the rear during recoil. This works best with a solid bipod like an Atlas. If your bipod has some play then preloading it will work better.
 
I have a 1" X 1 1/2 " furring strip and a couple of 6" C clamps in my shooting kit just for using on slippery benches. Clamp the furring strip to the bench, load the bipod with your shoulder.
 
I shoot an Altas bipod with alum ski feet off concrete with both 224 Valkyrie and 6.5 CM. I'm getting half MoA.

I let the front "ride" and shoulder tight, so basically free recoil, with my free hand going back to the rear bag.
 
I am trying to shoot my 308 off a Harris bipod an a concrete bench and not having good results.

I use a wrap around grip & pull the rifle back hard into the shoulder. My left hand is between the small sand bag & stock to adjust the elevation. So, I guess that the rifle is in 'free recoil' since I am not pulling down on the foregrip.

My groups are around 1.75 moa for 5 shots. I usually have a flier as the 4 shot groups are at 1 moa. I the rifle is capable of .75 moa, but I am not getting it. As a comparison, when I shoot my AR15, I am consistenly under .75 moa shooting in a similar fashion.

Should I grip the foregrip with my left hand to eliminate the free recoil?
Recommend Bruce PYIATT'S BI-Slide Feet about 24 usd,will cut down bounce on Hard surfaces
 
For my brief adventure with a Harris Bipod as I commenced to shoot F-TR, I purchased a couple of oversized black "rubber leg tips" (stool tips) at Wal-mart. They were a good inch and 1/2 at the opening. Next, I wrapped each hard rubber support tip on the end of the Harris legs with successive wraps of tape to an over all diameter that it would barely push snuggly into the stool tip. This provided me a useful "load spreader" for shooting off a concrete bench. And, it was very handy for anchoring the bipod feet on a grassy firing point. Of course, I picked up a lot of smarts along the way and soon opted for the Sinclair Adjustable Bipod. This would have been back in 2008-9. There are a lot of better bipod options available now...unless you are stuck with "tactical rifle" rules. Best of luck.

Dan
 

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