Finally decided to upgrade "supposedly" from my old homemade wooden cross sticks. After some searching I decided to go with the Bog Adrenaline bipod. Here pictured beside my old sticks....
These seemed to look pretty solid from what I could tell from online pics. They extend from 23.5" to 71" if needed, but probably won't get used that much. I like the way the legs telescope with three individual locks for each section. It also has a rubber foot or spike foot option, screw it all the way down for the rubber or all the way in for the spike.
The yoke swivels and pulls out, it has 4 spring loaded detent balls on the yoke shaft. They sell different types of heads/ vises depending on what you need. Anyway, yesterday I tried it for the first time with not so good results. The swiveling yoke I'm not use to..lol. That and the fact the yoke didn't sit completely flat on it's mating surface, it had a little more flex than I like.
Although it may just be a learning curve I decided to take it apart and modify it so the yoke wouldn't swivel. First I chucked the yoke in the lathe by the shaft end and came in on the back side and cleaned up the plastic surface all the way to the shaft. Then I chucked the aluminum base that the yoke goes into, into the 4 jaw chuck and cleaned up that face, now the yoke sits completely flush with no side to side play and it more rigid. You can see the outer band of the aluminum surface and the tight fit here with the yellow arrow...
I then drilled thru the bottom of the base into the plastic yoke and tapped it for M3 cap screws, this will lock the yoke in place and keep it from swiveling. These M3 screws can easily be removed If I decide I want to try the swivel option again. It would've been easier to thread the yoke shaft, but there wasn't enough sticking out, plus the ball detents in the shaft.
I also added the brown pieces of towel on the yoke so the springer would have some recoil slide.
Fast forward to today and back to practicing. Well it was windy all after noon so that didn't help, but after trying about 4 different holds on the rifle and bipod, I think I'm getting close to something.
Here's the best groups today at 40 yards after close to 200 shots.
Hopefully tomorrow the wind will be better, but at least it's grouping better than before I did the mod to lock the swiveling yoke in place. This new bipod will take some getting use to, but I do like how light weight they are and easily adjusted compared to the old wooden sticks..lol. So more testing tomorrow...
These seemed to look pretty solid from what I could tell from online pics. They extend from 23.5" to 71" if needed, but probably won't get used that much. I like the way the legs telescope with three individual locks for each section. It also has a rubber foot or spike foot option, screw it all the way down for the rubber or all the way in for the spike.
The yoke swivels and pulls out, it has 4 spring loaded detent balls on the yoke shaft. They sell different types of heads/ vises depending on what you need. Anyway, yesterday I tried it for the first time with not so good results. The swiveling yoke I'm not use to..lol. That and the fact the yoke didn't sit completely flat on it's mating surface, it had a little more flex than I like.
Although it may just be a learning curve I decided to take it apart and modify it so the yoke wouldn't swivel. First I chucked the yoke in the lathe by the shaft end and came in on the back side and cleaned up the plastic surface all the way to the shaft. Then I chucked the aluminum base that the yoke goes into, into the 4 jaw chuck and cleaned up that face, now the yoke sits completely flush with no side to side play and it more rigid. You can see the outer band of the aluminum surface and the tight fit here with the yellow arrow...
I then drilled thru the bottom of the base into the plastic yoke and tapped it for M3 cap screws, this will lock the yoke in place and keep it from swiveling. These M3 screws can easily be removed If I decide I want to try the swivel option again. It would've been easier to thread the yoke shaft, but there wasn't enough sticking out, plus the ball detents in the shaft.
I also added the brown pieces of towel on the yoke so the springer would have some recoil slide.
Fast forward to today and back to practicing. Well it was windy all after noon so that didn't help, but after trying about 4 different holds on the rifle and bipod, I think I'm getting close to something.
Here's the best groups today at 40 yards after close to 200 shots.
Hopefully tomorrow the wind will be better, but at least it's grouping better than before I did the mod to lock the swiveling yoke in place. This new bipod will take some getting use to, but I do like how light weight they are and easily adjusted compared to the old wooden sticks..lol. So more testing tomorrow...
