My friend Matt and I were talking about bipod vs tripod while at the range a week or so back. I was shooting my Alpha Wolf with .30 barrel with a bipod and rear support. Matt shooting his new .30 Ghost off a tripod. Both shooting Zan 56gr pellets in the 880-890 range. Barring the electronics vs manual factor between this two airguns I feel they are essentially the same. Both use the exact same barrel from Daystate. We were both using a STO Falx for moderator.
At 50 yards we were getting comparable groups, but at 100 his Ghost was just able to group tighter.
While shooting off the bipod I found it hard to get any preload on the gun as the bipod legs would just slide forward a bit. When I would take a shot I could just tell in the viewfinder there was more movement than I wanted. Moving over to Matt's Ghost on the tripod I felt more stable with the preload and the shots felt more stabilized with less scope movement after the shot.
For the record, I do most of my shooting at home off a tripod, so I am much more practiced off a tripod than a bipod. I am sure that plays into this, but I started digging around the Googleverse and came up with several videos and articles from reputable PB sites discussing bipod bounce. The description of bipod bounce correlated a lot with my experience. The surface of the bench at Matt's range is wood covered with 1/4" foam - kinda like the indoor playground tiles you can buy for kids. The benches at the public range I frequent are wood.
This leads me to a bunch of questions, and I wonder if this is inline with what other experience:
At 50 yards we were getting comparable groups, but at 100 his Ghost was just able to group tighter.
While shooting off the bipod I found it hard to get any preload on the gun as the bipod legs would just slide forward a bit. When I would take a shot I could just tell in the viewfinder there was more movement than I wanted. Moving over to Matt's Ghost on the tripod I felt more stable with the preload and the shots felt more stabilized with less scope movement after the shot.
For the record, I do most of my shooting at home off a tripod, so I am much more practiced off a tripod than a bipod. I am sure that plays into this, but I started digging around the Googleverse and came up with several videos and articles from reputable PB sites discussing bipod bounce. The description of bipod bounce correlated a lot with my experience. The surface of the bench at Matt's range is wood covered with 1/4" foam - kinda like the indoor playground tiles you can buy for kids. The benches at the public range I frequent are wood.
This leads me to a bunch of questions, and I wonder if this is inline with what other experience:
- Has anyone experienced bipod bounce? If so, what have you done to resolve the issue?
- Is this really a thing off wood and cement surfaces?
- Would weighting down the bipod (maybe sandbags on the sides) help?
- How do you get some preload on the bipod when the surface allows movement and slippage?
- Is there any proven track record that bipod/rear support is more accurate than a tripod off a bench?
