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

Guns Magazine, Oct, 2005 by Holt Bodinson

Having said that, there are a lot of exceptions to classic benchrest methods when shooting sporting guns. Experiment! Mannlicher-stocked rifles often shoot more consistently it: the front rest point is moved about 2/3s of the way up the barrel. Lever action and pump action rifles shoot more consistently ii' you support the forearm with your hand resting solidly over the front bag. I often find this useful method applies to ultra-light rifles as well. When shooting magnum class rifles and slug guns, hold on to that forearm. Don't let those hard kicking devils buck-and-bellow and jump up-and-down-and-off the front bag. Again, remember to keep everything consistent from shot-to-shot whatever you do.

Many sporting rifles today are set up with bipods, like the excellent Harris models, and actually a front bipod can be used in place of the pedestal rest to a certain extent. Bipod-fitted, light-recoiling varmint rifles can be shot off the top of a solid bench without any problem. Heavier recoiling rifles shot with bipods bounce around too much on a solid bench and don't deliver a true zero. They are best shot from the prone or sitting positions with the bipod rest in contact with good old Mother Earth. Unitized Rests

Rests that combine the concepts of a front pedestal rest and a rear bag in one solid platform are popular. Excellent examples of the unitized rest are Midway/Caldwell's racy looking, all plastic Steady Rest and their unique Lead Sled Rest.

While not at all as accommodating as separate pedestals and rear bags in terms of adjustments and the ease and speed of making adjustments, unitized rests are easy to haul around, quick to set up, stable, relatively inexpensive, and in the case of the Lead Sled, serve a function that other rests do not.

Caldwell's Lead Sled is one of the most intriguing of the unitized rests. It's all steel and weighs about 13 pounds. The neat part about the Lead Sled is that you can add up to 100 pounds of lead shot to its pan to virtually soak up and neutralize any level of troublesome recoil. Since I like big bores, big slugs and big cases when I go hunting, it gets lots of use in my household. The system really does work, and I've never had to add more than one 25-pound bag of shot to the pan to keep things comfortable.

Like all unitized rests, the Lead Sled achieves its stability by its triangular, three-point design--two feet up front, and a height adjustable foot to the rear. The front bag is adjustable for height using a hand wheel. The butt of the firearm is firmly seated and held in the rear fixture so horizontal adjustments have to be made by moving the whole platform. It does take a bit of time and wiggling to align the platform to the point-of-aim, but, boy, when you touch off 95 grains of powder, it's sure worth it.

When I first saw the Sled, I thought it might be too rigid and unyielding to produce a true zero. Not so. I found I could zero a gun without experiencing any physical discomfort from recoil and the achieved zero remained true when the gun was subsequently shot from a field position. It doesn't get much better than that when you live with big boomers. Handgun Rests