Need a few opinions on BR equipment

sbindy

sbindy

Steve B
Is a flat bottomed buttstock or a conventional V style buttstock preferred by most shooters? My stock is flat, and I'm not sure it's working that well.

Pros and Cons of the Stop on the front rest. Some people seem fairly adamant about not using it.

Regular sand or Heavy in the front bag?
 
I'll opine.

The buttstock. Think 3-legged stool. A 4-legged stool will always rock, a 3-legged CANNOT rock. A wide flat buttstock (I've got several full-blown 2" butt BR guns and am currently including a 2" wide buttstock in my youtube series on making an accurate 50BMG) and the only way they can be called stable is because they rock up to ride on one side (the left side), riding the corner which can induce a twisted recoil path.

The other items I have no opinion on..... I'm employing them all, learning.

And watching for opinions from others ....
 
Well, that reply lasted an hour, so here goes.
As I shoot 6PPC and .30BR in competition, unlike some on this site now, these are my opinions on what one needs to do well in regards to bags and rests. First, a hard front rest bag is a no-no. If a hard rest was best, the powers that be would have allowed lead shot and a 2X4 for use in the front rest bag. Some time ago you would see some rests with a sewn seam running across the front rest and those using such bags got rid of that in a hurry. Second in regards to the buttstock and the rear bag, the two have to match up. You can get the rear bag with one, two, or three seams between the ears depending on the shape and width of your butt stuck. What you are looking for is a proper fit so that your stock is held but not restricted by the ears and you don’t want the bottom of the stock “bottomed out” between the ears.
And if this posting remains, I’ll add to it later.
Disregard this info if you are shooting a .50cal.
 
Actually, I'll have to disagree with Mr Becigneul on this one...... shooting a 50BMG for BR accuracy just makes all the problems much BIGGER. The problems remain the same, just easier to see than with the small gun.

I've a Heavy 600-1000 300WSM with a 2" adjustable keel as well as a Light (17lb w/wts for 16,5) 6X47L with an adjustable Delrin keel both of which are supported by a custom Edgewood rear bag...... I'm using the BMG product to test the efficacy of the 2" butt but still, IMO a narrow, well restrained keel is a much safer option.

I didn't get a chance to read Francis' "dissertation" so can't comment on it but I do agree with his statement re "tightly fitted but not bottomed out" as Bart describes here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0ggGV6EdZ8
 
FBecigneul said:
Steve;
Before this goes all sideways, in which bench rest discipline are you shooting?
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Short range, score and UBR. I'm using a 6PPC and finishing up a .30BR that needs a stock put on it. I have a rifle to start doing some 600yd to 1000yd shooting as well, but I need to sort out this gun handling issue before I start messing with that gun.

I want to thank you guys for the responses so far. Like I said, my stock has a flat bottom and it just does some weird stuff. It doesn't ride the bags very well. As Al said, it rolls on it's left side. The stock is wood laminate, and I just wanted to see if changing it was the right move before I start hacking on it. I switched from a Cordura bag back to the leather one up front, and didn't fill it up so much. Found out you need to use a bag trainer on it after wetting it so it can be shaped. That's the main reason I switched to the Cordura in the first place. My leather bag had a funny twist to it and I didn't know what top do about it. The leather bag fits nice now with some baby powder on it.

The gun shoots well at 100 if I pin it, but it won't shoot that way at all at 200. It jumps all over in free recoil though, so I have had to pin it by putting my thumb on the back of the trigger guard. I shot a group at 200 in free recoil, and it produced a 3 and 2 group, which just means the load is too hot. The 3 shots that were together was a .300 group. I can fix that. Pinned is a 2-2-1 group. So it can't make a living doing that.

Th front bag has been a problem too. It's Cordura with heavy sand. I would fluff it up, and then it would take a while to settle in, then it shot great until it got brick hard. Then I would have to fluff it again. Now that this leather bag seems to respond to being softened, formed with a trainer and applied powder to it, it shoots right away and stays like that for a while. I may try the play sand, bird gravel mix just to see if it helps at all since it's so cheap. I'm putting stock tape on it for tomorrow's match, and hopefully that will help too.
 
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sbindy said:
..... It's Cordura with heavy sand. I would fluff it up, and then it would take a while to settle in, then it shot great until it got brick hard. Then I would have to fluff it again. Now that this leather bag seems to respond to being softened, formed with a trainer and applied powder to it, it shoots right away and stays like that for a while. ........
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This whole situation is a real pita. I've got 20+ front bags including some of the ones Francis refers to with the side-to-side ridge and that what you said above "it shoots until it gets hard" is where I'm stymied. What this REALLY means is that "it shoots worse and worse until it's really hard and I notice it and fluff it up"

I'm going back to sticky gacky leather and powder and often use dryer sheets with my cordura. To make it worse I like stock tape...I've got 5 kinds of stock tape and they're all different and I'm testing several rea bags with the weird reflective hair on

Currently I'm at a place where I'm shooting SOFT and FLUFFY front bags keeping beach sand super dry, trainer blocks in place and trying to remember to fluff/block/pound back down between groups...

I DO NOT have it figgered out! :)

But a good tractable gun sure makes a world of difference....basically where I am right now is if the gun won't shoot off a rolled up coat it needs to be fixed cuz it'll just tear up the bags. (This is only my opinion)
 
The first thing I'd check is the balance point of the gun. If it's excessively nose heavy, nothing you do with the front/rear bags will seem to make sense. If you can, try 'pitching' the front of the rest up with the adjuster screw(s) and see if that helps. Doing that will help load the butt into the rear bag. Sometimes, the fix is as simple as a shorter rear bag.

Putting a level on the barrel (spaced up to allow for the taper) and running the rest around a Score target can also be pretty revealing and helpful.

I've found the minimum toe angle 'low rider' style stocks to be a bit snarky going around a Score target....not sure what you have.

Good shootin' -Al
 
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Always nice to get perspective from somebody that shoots no sanctioned BR, though the ever popular 50 BMG is probably coming on strong.

To the OP, Flat bottom, usually 1/2” is very common, get a proper rear bag with ears spaced to fit that stock.
Opinions may vary but with proper ear spacing the stock rides on the bottom between the ears. A 30 is going to want to rotate on recoil but a good rear bag setup helps.IMHO can’t shoot a 30 free recoil.
Given the questions I assume your a rookie, thus use the stop, it allows your gun position to be absolutely repeatable until you get accomplished at gun handling throughout a match. Get the absolute best front rest you can afford as well as a quality rear bag and do not fill them rock hard, as they then get “bouncy”.

Lastly, watch some of the videos out there and/or better shooters at a match to learn to stay on the gun with little moving around and wasted motion until you can comfortably, with no rushing get five shots in a group in 15/20 seconds.
 
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Get your thumb away from the trigger guard and let the rifle come back. Touch the rifle with your trigger finger only. You want the rifle to do exactly the same thing every shot. I’m not a fan of pinning the rifle up front and the because is…..in the heat of a match you push the rifle forward and knock the rest off the back pin. Second, I’m a bag squeezer and fine tune the elevation by moving the rifle fore and aft after recoil of the shot and squeeze the bag to lower the cross hair on target. The “ears” on the bag in the front rest should keep the rifle down on the front rest. Let’s just lay out the Francis method of shooting a match. Don’t even look at where the shot went yet. Eject the spent case, load another, shut the action, get back on target and now you’re allowed to look at where the shot went. You can’t do anything about that shot now anyway. Soft front bag solid rest-no knob to mess with. Wait for the right condition and wind and then blaze away. You have seven minute to decide which 30 seconds you are going to get the shots off. You can’t do that if the rifle is bouncing all over the place. Shoot free recoil with your shoulder only about 1/2”-1” back of the plate. I copied this method of shooting from Dwight Scott.
Can I assume you are shooting 65 to 68 grain 6mm bullets through a 14 inch twist barrel and will be shooting 112-118 grain 30 cal bullets through a 17 twist barrel?
Tim summed it up more eloquently than I could have. That response was spot on.
 
tim said:
Always nice to get perspective from somebody that shoots no sanctioned BR, though the ever popular 50 BMG is probably coming on strong.

To the OP, Flat bottom, usually 1/2” is very common, get a proper rear bag with ears spaced to fit that stock.
Opinions may vary but with proper ear spacing the stock rides on the bottom between the ears. A 30 is going to want to rotate on recoil but a good rear bag setup helps.IMHO can’t shoot a 30 free recoil.
Given the questions I assume your a rookie, thus use the stop, it allows your gun position to be absolutely repeatable until you get accomplished at gun handling throughout a match. Get the absolute best front rest you can afford as well as a quality rear bag and do not fill them rock hard, as they then get “bouncy”.

Lastly, watch some of the videos out there and/or better shooters at a match to learn to stay on the gun with little moving around and wasted motion until you can comfortably, with no rushing get five shots in a group in 15/20 seconds.
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excellent advice here!
 
Thanks for all the replies and advice guys! Since I have a mix of conventional buttstocks and flat bottomed stocks, I'm going to get another bag that will work with them both. The flat bottom stocks are both wood, so they could be modified, but if I get a glass stock in the same style, I will be back to square one with this, so getting another bag makes sense.

Francis: Yes, in the 6mm I'm shooting 68gr Barts and the .30 is using 118gr Ron Cheeks bullets in a 1:17tw. Down to my last 150, I found someone selling 400 more, so I snapped them up!

Al: what is the balance point supposed to be? I added some weight to the rear, but so far it hasn't fixed the problem. Maybe if I could fine tune it, then it would have more of an effect.
 
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The balance point should be right at the barrel/action joint.
When in the bags, the heel should be just off the rear bag and the front rest should be about 3 inches back of the fore end of the stock depending on the recoil of the rifle.
 
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My primary benchrest rifle's butt has a 5/8" flat on its bottom, and I can tell you that with the bag that I use, an old Edgewood with three stitches and relatively short cordura ears, the fit is perfect...but that was not always the case. Let me explain. A friend has recently taken up 1K benchrest and at the last match he got a little rear bag advice that he passed on to me. What it involves is pressing the inside base area of the ears out to make room for the butt to drop lower between the ears. (in my case low but not touching the stitching) The has made a major difference in the fit, and the overall stability of the rifle. As to the overall work-ability of flat bottomed buttstocks, take a look at the videos on Alex Wheeler's site, specifically one showing Tom running a ten shot HG group, titled "Stocks That Track". End of argument. The stock has one of Alex's Keels that has a flat bottom. IMO flat bottoms work very well, if the bag is a good fit. Suggestion: try a number of bags. The ones that do not work the best for your stock can probably be sold for most of what they cost you, and you can chalk up the difference to R&D. Afterthought: Nose heavy rifles will not track well when shot free recoil. If you hold the rifle, balance is much less critical, and some excellent short range shooters do.
https://www.wheeleraccuracy.com/videos
 
I just wanted to update this thread. After searching for another stock to get this rifle up and going before the year was over and having no luck at all, I was able to have a local woodworker make some changes that I wanted and give it a shot.

To recap, the buttstock was crooked, offset from center, and tapered. It would not shoot at all at 200yds in free recoil. I had it cut so the bottom was 1/2" wide and centered on the barreled action. I also added some weight to it so that it was much better balanced.

Went to a club shoot today. The wind was 5MPH Avg., and gusts to 16MPH. Oh joy! I still managed to finish in 3rd at 200yds, and the rifle tracked and handled great! Too bad I already found another laminate stock for it that needs inletted. It's a McMillan Edge clone stock, and is very well made. The sand in my bags settled and they are fairly soft right now, but that's easily fixed.

To top it all off, another shooter there was selling a really nice rifle at a price I couldn't pass up, so it came home with me. I was told I wasn't allowed to bring it back to shoot against them though LOL.
 
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