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anyone using this product yet?
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/26...hooting-tripod
looking to get myself a shooting tripod that can be used from prone to at least kneeling positions for long range hunting situations like over watching for mule deer, pronghorn or aoudad and can be use at the range on the bench.
Before this came out I was thinking of the pig saddle and gs field tripod, but BOG's is 1/2 the price.
DesertDug,
I haven't used one of those but it looks very sturdy and should work well for glassing and shooting over from a pre-et position.
The stability of the platform is what your paying for and when your glassing a long distance searching for game, it really does make a difference.
Two of my range buddies who were going on an African safari were trying lighter tripods and bipods to get practice with them. They allowed me to try both and
I shot better with the tripod but, since most shots on safari are made while trailing and stalking and the supports are set up in a hurry, they thought the three legs would be more difficult to get stable if they were forced to set up quickly.
In your case, that shouldn't be a problem, if you are set up in advance.
However, if you intend to use if for a quick set-up shooting support, it might be too complicated to get adjusted.
The main problem with the clamp types is with follow up shots.
The ones that clamp onto the stock work ok for one shot, but depending on the amount of recoil, not very well for staying on/near the target for follow up shots with heavier recoiling guns. Time spent realigning every thing for a follow up shot might well be a part of the coulda woulda story.
Something has to give during recoil, if the gun cant the tripod will, especially the smaller light weight ones.
Problem of coarse for hunters is portability and weight. Especially for those who move about a lot while hunting.
If a specific location is worth going back to and spending time at for hunting, then its worth spending some time in the off season improving it for shooting.
Thats the easiest and probably best solution. An hour or so spent with even one of the small G I entrenching tools and a small folding saw can do wonders, and if there are some nice flat rocks in the nearby area so much the better. A nicely located tree stump could work well also.
A serious archery hunter usually dosent walk around with a tree stand on his back looking for a nice place to hunt.
He will have all his stands in place before the season, and there wont be any branches in the shooting lanes on opening morning.
As for tripods and portable benches to shoot from, we have spent decades and lots of cash buying, building, and attempting to improve those weve bought and built etc, and for sure it is possible to do.
Like most other things however "easy" and "cheap" as a rule dosent correlate well with "good", and neither does "lite" at least the type of lite we wont mind carrying very far.
My suggestion would be to work on improving the locations if possible, and then shoot prone/bipod or from a solid but improvised bench.
Is there a difference between the clamp on type tripods vs. the arca rail ones, as far as recoil concerns. I have no issue shooting of backpack for front east, just seems like a tripod set up would be a bit more stable.
Use would be for glassing and shots taken from a over watch area.
Here is the Hog Saddle tripod they have, small and light weight
http://stores.hogsaddle.com/short-pi...ipod-od-green/
this one needs the head purchased separately, but still is a clamp on.
The two bipod/tripods that I tried were intended for stalking and upright shooting, although they did have adjustable legs.
The bipods used on Safari are usually a couple or three of long sticks tied together near the top that a tracker carries and places in front of you when the tracker and your guide see a shot.
Almost always you are standing to be able to see the game above the grass.
You're planning on a different type of use so shorter adjustable legs are a good feature, but yobuck has a point about a clamped stock forearm.
Shooting from sticks or a non-clamped rest lets the rifle move and the sticks move so you stay on the bipod but not necessarily on the target, but close enough to re-aim.
I'm not sure if a tripod with a clamped stock would allow that.
Let's hope someone has actually used one and can comment on whether the clamp on the stock would allow an easy second shot.
The key question is how do you hunt long range, or plan on doing it?
It's no different than doing anything else, how and where you do it determines the best type equipment and approach for best results.
Fact is that any rest you can use when shooting especially long shooting is better than using none, but then that isn't saying very much.
If your dead serious about killing animals at extended distances, then get dead serious about how you go about the shooting part.
Regardless as to what is said especially on the internet, both you or your gun do not necessarily need to be top shelf quality in order to be successfull.
But you will be far better off if the method you use for shooting, offsets some of the other issues.
In plain words, a young kid shooting from a crude bench is very apt to beat a self proclaimed expert laying on the ground with a stick or sharp rock poking him in the belly while shooting at an animal.
In the east especially, but also in many parts of the west, you might be hunting in places where the terrain is totally tree covered.
If you lose site of an animal due to recoil, theres a good chance you may not even be able to find it again in the scope if it moves off after the shot. Beyond that, you might not even know for sure wether or not you hit the animal. Those are just some of the reasons why it is also very important to have a buddy spotting for you as you shoot.
Many years back when I gave up being a hunter and left the group I was hunting with, it was a total re learning experience for me.
What I found out early on was that what I "thought" was most important, wasent really at all.
Staying on target is key, if you can, you will probably succeed, if not you probably wont, it's just that simple.
Frankly, in our group were not very proud of individual ability, so therefore we cheat as much as we possibly can with the shooting part.
And so do most others who are successful hunting the region of PA that I hunt. The bench and tripods I use are mostly equipped with some type of return to battery setups. We do use the good quality aluminum tripods like Bogen for example for supporting the large binnoculars we use, but not for the shooting tripods. I have built several myself and so have some of my hunting companions.
Mostly though the type result is determined by the effort and cost.
I bought a very large spring type tripod head a few years back on Ebay made by Davis and Sanford. I think a model 39 and i adapted that to a wooden leg military tripod. It can easily support a 15# gun and I have that set up with return to battery also.
I also have another that I mostly paid a very good machinist to build for me, also on a military tripod. That has more of a bench top, but very narrow, and since its a tripod it can rotate 360 deg. so no need for a wide top. And you just push a button for elevating or lowering the gun lol. Well almost anyway, and we are working on that.
Mind you now we, meaning the younger ones among us do at times hike considerable distances to some of the hunting locations.
But we have a "group" mentality, so there is one gun taken, and one of everything else needed except everybody carries their own large glasses and tripod for those in a backpack.
A very good commercially made shooting tripod is the "Ultimate Tripod" made by the Mc Fadden Machine co in Blairsville PA.
I have owned one for at least 6 or 7 years now, and I think it is about as good as it gets for commercially made setups.
There are options available such as type of and size of the gun supports. I chose the flat rear support for a rabbit ear bag, and I had to enlarge a front one due to the stock width on one of my guns. With the higher legs you can easily stand while shooting, which in my opinion is helpful when hunting. A 20# 30" barrel gun is doable on one, but that is pushing the limit a bit. Total weight is about 15#, which isn't all that bad for what it is and can do.
All BS aside, we killed 3 out of 4 bucks in a group within about as many minits with 3 different shooters at ranges starting at 635 and the last at right about 750 with a 300 Norma single feed gun built on a mark v action. Not at all possible at that location without that tripod.
Due to the very steep terrain covered with low brush, prone would be totally out, and a bench not possible either within that time frame.
Of coarse there was also some good cooperation on the part of the deer lol.
At the time I bought mine, as I recall the total cost was about $350 with a few extras like a second set of shorter legs that im sorry I bought.
Great insight, yobuck, from someone who clearly has experience with long range shooting off bipods/tripods.
I can't come even close to that amount of experience in the field with them.
Lots of great content in your post.
Well thank you, but frankly the tripod shooting system is something rather new for me within about the last 10 years or so.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFJunkie
From day one, we have always used portable benches. We have made improvements in them for our use mainly for weight, but we have mainly concentrated on methods other than the conventional ones used for helping us stay on target and get follow up shots off faster.
For that a return to battery setup is no doubt the best. But that harms the portability aspect at least to some degree.
We had been fooling around building tripods with some degree of satisfaction, but they werent as good as our benches.
The guy who turned me on to the Ultimate Tripod was Dan Smitco of Cutting Edge Bullets. I had stopped by there just to check the place out and talk to them about bullets. I was somewhat taken by the amount of nice trophys hanging and started a conversation about the where and how part of that. It came down to the type shooting setup and he walked me into a storage room and showed me that tripod.
I was very soon after making a trip to Blairsville and returned with 3 of them, one for me and two for friends at a nearby camp.
Since then several more friends have bought one.
Don't let what I say lead you to believe they are as rock solid as prone bipod or shooting from a bench because they are not.
Again, regardless of what you might think, being the best isn't whats most important with long range hunting, getting it done is whats important.
the Ultimate Tripod- that thing looks like a beast. Like how you think: "being the best isn't whats most important with long range hunting, getting it done is whats important."
I feel like I would get most use out of a tripod that can go from prone to standing over a bi-pod. Even is if not as stable. Still learning.
Well there is another beast made in your state of Texas, called the "Lone Star" of all things. lolQuote:
Originally Posted by DesertDug
Check out the website.
When the eyes in the sky decide its time to take somebody out, they aint using a Pig saddle on a K Mart tripod.
We, meaning our group, have one of those also.
It is as I recall pricier than the Ultimate, but since I didn't pay for it im not positive of that.
My hunting buddy bought that one so we could compare. For sure it is just as solid as the Ultimate, and he thinks more.
He first bought the top part without the tripod and used a good military tripod he already had.
But he has since bought their tripod also, and I haven't used it since he did that.
You are not kidding Yobuck:
go Big or go home Texas...lol..
https://lonestarfieldproducts.com/shop/
shown with 50 cal.
These are both outside my abilities and pay grade.
Well how much would you be willing to pay for a good scope?Quote:
Originally Posted by DesertDug
Fact is you could also buy one used on Ebay that will still work just fine.
I'll take a 30 year old Leupold and have the tripod.
It's a question of priorities imop.