Give it a rest: your gun might just shoot better than you think

Guns Magazine, Oct, 2005 by Holt Bodinson

You've seen it. I've seen it. Thousand-dollar rifle and scope combinations being shot with the forearm perched on a piece of wood: over a rolled-up ,jacket or over the top of an ammo can; forearms clenched desperately tight: forearms with only the very tip resting on a support: unsupported buttstocks wiggling in thin air.

It's enough to make you weep. So give it a rest!

There's no lack of availability. Today, rests come in every shape imaginable and for every size pocket book. There are pistol rests, pedestal rests, unitized rests and even recoil reducing rests. The important point is you gotta use one. The second most important point is consistency. You need to develop a consciously consistent shooting style that suits you and your equipment.

Let's look at some of the more popular models beginning with the sine qua non of the benchrest clan--a heavy. solid pedestal rest and a sand-filled leather rear bag.

Pedestal Rest

The combination of a solid pedestal rest and rear sandbag is one of the essential requirements to wringing out the very best a rifle or slug gun has to offer. No other combination over the years has proved its good. That's why you see them being used at benchrest matches. The advantage of a front pedestal and rear bag is versatility, stability and the infinite amount of adjustments they allow the shooter to make. You can move the rest and your firearm up, down, back-and-forth and sideways to bring you and your gun into a proper shooting position when faced with different target frame heights and range topography. If you're buying your first rest, by all means, make it a pedestal rest.

Sure you can buy a cheap, lightweight front pedestal made out of plastic or aluminum, but why not buy a quality rest made of real steel and cast iron that will last a lifetime and the lifetimes of your grandchildren. The best rests are really not that expensive.

Setting The Bar High

The most copied pedestal rest ever designed is the product of Robert Hart & Soil. The name Hart in the rifle world conjures up images of match-winning barrels and precision tooling for accuracy buffs. Well. Harts Competitive Pedestal No. 2 rest exhibits all the quality and precision the Harts are famous for and sells for about $200.

An improved but similar design is made by Sinclair Int., whose beautiful color catalogs contain every tool and accessory imaginable for precision shooting. The Sinclair rest brings the front rest legs slightly closer together than the Hart. This permits the shooter to locate the rest closer to the edge of the bench, thus providing a more comfortable degree of clearance between the shooter's chest and the bench top. In addition, all of the moving parts of the Sinclair rest are made from corrosion resistant stainless steel. Yet, the price is still reasonable at $240.

What sets the Sinclair and the Hart pedestal rests apart from less expansive copies is their precision. All moving parts are machined to a thousandth-of-an-inch. No sloppy threads here, just silky smooth, precision operating, steel parts, and enough cast-iron weight to make the rest rock-solid on the bench. Other brands of rests commonly available are Ransom, Wichita, and Caldwell. Adjustments

And speaking of parts, each leg of a three-legged pedestal rest sports a hardened adjustment screw, and you will see benchresters hammering those points into the table top to anchor the rest. For our purposes and to keep your range master civil, 1 would suggest you use them for leveling purposes only.

The pedestal has two vertical adjustments. Coarse adjustments are made by raising or lowering a large central column, and fine adjustments are made by turning a hand wheel to raise and lower a screw within the column attached to the actual pedestal top. The "T" handles sticking out of both sides of a pedestal rest lock or release the column and screw.

There are a variety of interchangeable tops and front bags for pedestal rests. I recommend tops featuring adjustable sides that can compress the width of a small owl-ear bag to better conform to the dimensions of individual spotter forearms.

The other half of the pedestal set-up is the rear bag. Speaking of bags, buy quality smooth leather ones, front and back, not those cheap suede numbers. The "Protektor" and "Bald Eagle" brands are highly recommended. The rear bags are called either rabbit bags or bunny bags. The difference is the height of the ears. Rabbits are tall--bunnies are short--and owls are shorter yet. As your first rear bag, I would recommend the taller rabbit ear model that cradles the butt somewhat more firmly. Send for the Sinclair and Hart catalogs and become familiar with the bag choices available. Call them up for advice.

Assuming you have a solid shooting bench, set tip your rest and rear bag so that you can get comfortably behind the butt of your gun. When shooting bolt-action rifles, the recommended location of the front bag is just in front of the floor-plate or magazine well. That location may vary a bit with each firearm but, by all means, after recoil, return the stock to the same rest point after each shot. Adjust the width of your front bag with the moveable side plates of the top. Level your firearm with the rear bag and, while looking down the sights, use the coarse and fine adjustments of the pedestal to line up your sights with the target. Holding the rear bag with your offhand, you can make minor vertical and horizontal adjustments by lightly squeezing the bag.