Rifle set up in benchrest and bags

Hey Les,

best help keep this going and was part of a long discussion Glen Aarsen and myself had on the 10hr or so journey to Queensland over the weekend. 

I guess I went down the root of first forking out for a front rest that was up to standard (seb Max). I went the Seb max as it allows me to swap from 4” front heavy gun to 3” front light gun and then 2.25” rimfire. 

next was finding a rear bag that would fit all the rear ends on my rifles. I Couldn’t find one bag for all of them but settled on one combination for centerfires and one for the rim fire. I found that once I had the bag it still wasn’t rock solid and with the variations in the benches we shoot off having waviness or bumps I needed something to stabilise the rear bag better. Hence I now shoot off a dead bottom bag under the rear. I also needed the ears to be a certain height and the right amount of filling to secure the rear end and stop any unwanted wobble.
For the down hill (batemans Bay) I have an additional spacer so now I’m all set for all the ranges we visit. 

the rimfire bag sits on the spacer on top of the dead bottom and works fine for me.  

next issue I found was that with the back and forth of the recoil ( mainly the 284) I found that the rear bag had a tendency to move on the bench during the detail. I was given a hint from Chris a short range benchrest shooter at silverdale that uses a spray bottle of water and this reduces the slide factor. 

a lot of this was tested after reading Jackos profile interview on this website and watching others on you tube. Jacko talks about having the rifle tracking so well that it will recoil and return to perfect alignment with the fly or point of aim.  While I found that with the light gun stock I  could achieve this with minimal deviation from the aiming point. My rimfire with the sloped/tappered rear moved up and down. This was fine and the test was to have the cross hairs move perfectly up and down but when pushed back to the front stop the centre of the cross hairs always went back to point of aim (or bloody close to). Now contrary to the information I have read and watched about tracking and stocks having to be perfect I found that my heavy gun has been made not so perfect and the rear end and will track sideways instead of up and down but will still return to point of aim. So I’m still working on it and testing but have found that this is working for me lately.  Next test is to try a rudder system to correct the stock misalignment.

last hint I received from someone was at Wagga fly about having the front rest and rear rest as close to perfect as possible on the incline plane form the bench to the target. I was getting vertical consistently from the splash to the scoring target. Once I dialled the front feet of my rest to allow more of the rifle forend to ride the front bag consistently I found that there was a dramatic reduction in the vertical seen from splash to target.

i hope this helps someone skip a lot of the frustrations I was dealing with from shoot to shoot. I’m sure others have better setups and more hints/experience than me and could help people get to the competitive level. I’m still learning and testing things. I’ll try anything to see if it work for me and my setup to get consistent or reduce setup time or the amount of equipment we have to carry around.

Scores have sky rocketed in the last few years and competition is pushing us all to get better as well as the equipment advancements.

kaizen matt on the bench has been my latest addition and is worth every penny. Especially in the cold with those damn cold benches.

Sorry for bad Grammer, spelling and writing skills my strong point is maths not English.

cheers

Dave Z

@dave-z This is great info Dave, thanks for sharing. I was also given the tip about close alignment of the planes on the rests to the target and you are right, it does address the vertical “jump”.

Cheers,

Mark

@dave-z   Good on you Dave; Some great points here.

It's this sort of attention to detail that certainly helps scores to improve!

Posted by: @dave-z

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last hint I received from someone was at Wagga fly about having the front rest and rear rest as close to perfect as possible on the incline plane form the bench to the target. I was getting vertical consistently from the splash to the scoring target. Once I dialled the front feet of my rest to allow more of the rifle forend to ride the front bag consistently I found that there was a dramatic reduction in the vertical seen from splash to target.

 

 

This I have found to be true... get the Front rest and rear bag at the right angles to suit your rifle stock / angle of the Range. Besides finding I am sometimes almost at the full travel of the SEB Neo front rest screws; I am also trying different angle wedges under the rear bag. 

Take photos of your bench setup at different ranges, have a selection of different angled wedges with you. 

Bunnings have angled rubber mats that I cut up and glue together or use as single layer for different angles: Matpro 900 x 200 x 25mm Outdoor Access Ramp Mat - Bunnings Australia

On the day the Warmer card is where I test it... I shoot as high on the sighter plate as possible, being aware of conditions making sure that I leave some wiggle room, so I don't miss the plate all together (Once into the match and having confidence I know what is going were, I will push this to the top couple of inches of the plate) so I am as close to the Fly as possible. Then I test my setup... One on plate, one at the Fly... if there is a vertical change between plate and target... I need to adjust and retest. 

The Target / Plate photo was shot 24/08/2024 at SSAA Innisfail, Murdering Point Range @ Kurrimine Beach. Total Mirage blackout... no visual of shots on target, 6.5mm holes. 

@shane-c That angled rear bag mat is a cracking idea!

Belly