Chosing a new rear bag

M

mshelton

Member
I'm thinking of getting a new rear bag for 600/1000 yard competition, been using the rear bag I use for point blank benchreat and while it works well for that I've been having some tracking/return to battery issues and thinking a different bag may help.

My current bag is just an old Protektor leather eared bag with the extra thick base, I put a used dryer sheet between the ears and my stock and it works well and tracks great with my 6ppc in a Leonard stock. My long range gun is a light 6br in a Adamovich/Leonard type stock also but with less angle in the bottom of the stock, pretty much between a flat bottom buttstock and the angle required in IBS and NBRSA short range rules.

In choosing a bag is there something specific I should be looking for in terms of dimensions or qualities to match a rear bag to the stock and style gun or is it trial and error till one finds something that works well. I know there's probably no exact formula but I'd like to make a somewhat educated purchase, nice rear bags tend to have a nice price tag.

Any help or guidance is appreciated, thanks.
 
Mr. Shelton,

I don't think anyone knows. I imagine all you'll get are testimonials. Nor can I help, I've shot 1K for a long time, but always with bigger calibers & cartridges. "Tracking" isn't a familiar concept for me in Light Gun.

However, if you think it possible with a 105-grain 6mm, you might try an experiment. I'd build a wooden fixture, sort of like a miter box. Make it the size where you can use simple sandbags -- hopefully smaller that 25-pound shot bags, but if that's all you've got to hand, then that.

You can use wood shims to play with angles, side tension, and bottom contact. You should be able to come up with something that works reasonably quickly.

(BTW, the "1/2-inch-contact only on the side of the stock" doesn't apply to bags not held in a mechanical in a rest, you know. But a mechanical rear rest is legal only in NBRSA, not IBS or Williamsport, so that shouldn't be a factor.)

Once you get a set of numbers that seems to work well for your rifle, Protektor will make whatever you want. It may cost a bit, but nowhere near as much as 5-6 purchases that don't work out. I must have five or six rear bags sitting around, and at today's prices, that's the cost of a new barrel.
 
Jim,

What follows is kind of boring, & maybe not directly to the point, except perhaps the point that testing (experimenting, if you want) is useful.

Further complicating matters is my current belief that you get better tracking from quite firm bags, at the expense of throwing shots now & then. No proof, and subject to change.

* * *

One of my stocks is a "SOS" for "Sort of Shehane." It was an earlier version of what's become the ST-1000. I made some changes in it Bill later incorporated, but I recut the bottom significantly, and Bill didn't go that far. Still, I use a "Shehane" rear bag, made to Bill's specifications by Protektor.

It looks a lot like that "Doc" - but who knows? Smallest chambering I've shot in it with that bag is a 6.5/06 AI, and I shoot it free recoil. It does *not* return to battery, but usually stays within the adjustment range of an original Farley.

Before that bag, I used an older Bald Eagle. Also the Bald Eagle with that rifle wearing a Tooley MBR stock. It too didn't return to battery. I modified the Shehane stock (wood) to save 6-7 ounces, and I needed that with the tensioning tube I run. Well, with a Nightforce...

I have shot a 6-Ackley with that SOS stock and the older Bald Eagle bag. Free recoil, and no muzzle brake. Still, a 106-grain bullet at 3,400 and the gas jet of the Ackley is probably different than a Dasher. It easily stayed within the adjustment range of the Farley.

More recent for me in LG is a medium magnum .30, and a .338. Both use different stocks -- a Tooley "Torque Tamer" (modified MBR), and a Shehane fiberglass. The "torque tamer" tracks pretty well with the .30 Magum, but not perfectly. You can kind of forget about tracking with a .338 LG...

* * *

For Mr. Shelton, if he can borrow some bags to try out, he might find one that meets his needs. Otherwise, it's testing along the lines suggested, or a series of purchases.
 
Charles,I had so many front and rear bags, it looks like a store. but shoot very loose bag and went back to leather. It comes back in the box with free recoil,in ten shots half require adj...jim
 
Short range story, but relates:
Probably close to 15 years back, on a match weekend, a shooter that is in the record book, had brought a collection of just about every sand bag, and version of each bag, to the match to sell. They all looked virtually new. Come to find out, he had literally bought one of everything, and tested them all, picked the one that worked best, and sold off the rest, getting most of his money back, given that they were all in like new condition, and ready to go. I have always admired the thoroughness of that approach.
 
jim1K said:
Boyd, I don't what will run out first.. Time, eye sight or money.....jim
Click to expand...
Should be easy to answer. The best, most successful competitive shooters I know have ranges at home. Regan Green at least, had a full 1,000 yard range. Don't know if (for example) Lee Fischer's or Danny Brooks was quite that far. There are some others too, who's names, like many things, escape me just now.

So, unless land in WV can be bought fr a song & your a good singer, You'll run out of money first.
 
What works for me in LR does not work for me in SR....
With my 10.5-lb 6PPC I'm on the "ears".
With my 17-lb LT-Gun's I'm on the "stitching".
When I got off the ears with the 17-lb LT-guns, life got a whole bunch better !!!

I'm an old-school "bag squeezer" and do not use windage-tops or joysticks. Like Jim, I prefer a somewhat loose bag, but I do like Curdora and mid-ears and run on the stitching.
With my MBR Tooley stock (Shehane laminate - 5/8" butt) I use a "double stitched" Protektor (14B.5CDSDBB). Unless I mess up and jerk the gun when cycling, my windage tracking repeats "dead nuts" on the X at 1000. A fine adjustment to the elevation screw is my only adjustment when I'm running a group. If I'm picking/holding and squeezing, I do just that.
Back when I was on the ears with my 17-lb guns, I spent a couple years trying every bag I could get my hands on, but not at all since I got on the stitching. Protektor will make how every many rows of stitching's your stock's butt width may need (probably other bag makers as well).

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Jim -
With all those tiny little groups you keep laying down, betting your local Virgina competitors are hoping something gives up !!!
Thinking I should confiscate back that barrel I sold ya.....lol
I smell 6 & 10-target IBS-1000 agg records being broke .... Great shooting !!!

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Happy Shooting
Donovan Moran
 
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Donovan, From my cold dead hands, That barrel has been set back once and it will get it again after Sat. It gives up a little on group size but it will still go in a tenth. but when the wind blows it doesn't know it. Over 2000 rds and it will speak on Saturday. The records will fall, if the weak link don't screw up......LOL Thank you Donovan... jim
 
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