Front rest Tight or Loose?

Take a look at the barrel vibration in slow motion. You can do slow motion with your rifle and see how it react.

"GQ"Take a look at the barrel vibration in slow motion. You can do slow motion with your rifle and see how it react.

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I think this video shows whats important in benchrest, but I do not mean the barrel vibration. You should give the rifle room for recoil so I wouldn't grip the rifle tightly with the front rest. The rifle should be able to move slightly backwards due to its (minimal) recoil. As can be seen in the video above the rifle starts moving up and down (jumping) and slightly backwards. If you would grip the rifle tightly it will probably start doing the same thing.

There are videos on youtube describing this if you're more interested.

I know exactly what you mean broekzwans and this is what I want to show in my video.

My pleasure Michael

Slow motion videos can help us to analyze our shooting techniques and skills and improved our grouping in competitions.

Mike, guns are like women, they all like to be held differant. some like to be held loosely for a natural recoil, some like the pressure and held down snug, something you have to experiment with. its how the gun harmonic are.. hope this helps

I shoot mine tight. I do have one gun, the CR-X, that will not shoot accurately off the sandbag. Allen got it into 3/8 at 55 from a FT sitting position, but it shoots into an inch off a firm rest.. It wants a rolled up towel on top the front rest and a shoulder on the back so it can move a bit. It has a very flexible barrel on it at the moment.

In my case I dont have a better result when I use a front rest with my Impact .25 caliber compare with my Atlas bipod and a sand bag in the back

I got my RAW 30 yesterday and haven't seen anything (only shooting at 20 so far) that would indicate it has any issues with my front rest sandbag firm and pressed in from the side and firm Protektor under it on the back.

Maybe @Weatherby has an answer for that. He shoots a FX Boss (converted to .25) from a benchrest offently

The video does not show me any bbl vibration. It instead shows flexing of the "bench" jointed table. Look at the space between the bottom of the bbl and the top of the air cylinder, the distance between the 2 never varies.

All the gun is vibrating it is normal that the distance between the cylinder and the barrel is not visible.
I will do the same video on a concrete table and with different camera angle.

Hi guys, for bench shooting, it is ideal to have a parallel forearm and but section, and let the rifle free recoil. More like the shape of the RAW BM500 stock.
My converted Boss .25 (~900fps/king heavy, ~60ft/lbs) recoils significantly (for a PCP that is) and with the original stock, it likes to be held tight against the shoulder. When I don't, the gun will string vertically.
I mostly shoot the Boss with the Aeron skeleton FT stock, for which I machined an extra alu bar at the butt stock for the rear bag (parallel with the forearm) to let it free recoil in a perfectly linear way.
It is a matter of trying, I've noticed some pcp's are more "hold sensitive" than others. (E.g. HW100, very hold sensitive IMO)
Luckily the Royale/Boss is a smooth shooter, it can be noticed that the hammer is very light, which is important to have less movement when pulling the trigger. 

My Royale 500 is my benchrest rifle, I use a Caldwell Rock BR front rest with an Edgewood rear bag that has cordura ears, I keep the front rest tight and steer the rifle by squeezing the ears on the rear bag, probably a bit old school but works for me. Being a synthetic stock I find the rifle shoots better groups resting on the bottle, I'm guessing it likes to slide/move that fraction as the trigger breaks which can't happen when resting on the stock, have had the same issue with some synthetic stocked powder burners, a bit of race tape on the bottom of the stock usually solves it, not sure if any of that helps,Michael, just my experiences

I'd like to know this too as I'm making a rest. I'm still not clear if the ideal rest (for minimizing the impact of the shooter) would clamp the pcp rifle tight or have some room to recoil.

I know "they" say that powder burners need to be allowed to recoil if you want them to perform consistently. Is this the same for PCP guns or not?

My thought was to build a rest that uses an XY clamp for the forearm so it would be allowed to move back and forward but not up, down or side to side. 

The BR rests I've seen in pics look like the gun is clamped down pretty firmly...

Mike
The most important for a competition is that you have to be 100% comfortable and in total control with your shooting equipment icluding your personal bench rest.
You need practice and training to use it properly with success and confidence.
It is not the best if you are not familar with the bench rest and you have to be sure how your rifle will react and what will the the results on the target.
Plus, you have limited a time frame to shoot your pellets to the designated targets at different distances . So you have to act quite quickly.
To be able to control all this, need hours and hours of training.
Wish you the best and keep it cool.
GQ

"Michael"I was also thinking it should be tight. I believe that when FX test their barrels they insert the Barrel into an action that is secured into a special vise.

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I'm going to experiment. 

My assumption for now is that, to some extent, it depends on the stock and rifle design. If gripping an air rifle too hard can shift the POI, a metal clamp could send it way off. I am also assuming that the alignment of the front and rear of the rest will be a factor. If the alignment is off then tightly clamping it could a problem. 

With your BR Boss stock, it has that large flat forearm that is perfect for clamping, As it's free floated, it might be optimal to use one clamp up front and leave the back loose.