Gucci Gun Rests Confuse Me

I want to be comfortable when I shoot from a table in order to zero a scope. That means every gun has to have a bipod or a rest. Rests have the obvious advantage that they work with guns that don’t have bipods installed, so I would like to have a nice rest.

Years ago, I got a Caldwell rest. It’s a three-legged thing with a thick screw that supports a tiny beanbag that supports the front end of a gun. I thought it would solve my problems, but I got it to the range, and I found it was so short, I had to mash my face down against the bench to see through my scopes.

I have no idea why rests are so short. My assumption is that manufacturers expect you to use them when shooting prone.

That rest was the reason I started buying bipods. It was useless.

The other day I went to a gun forum and asked if anyone knew of a good cheap rest that was tall enough to use from a table. People meant well, but they gave me suggestions that pretty much started at $140. They recommended a thing called a Bald Eagle. You should see it. It’s full of machined parts. You can move your gun up and down with micrometer-like screws. What on earth?

They’re telling me I will shoot more accurately. Of course, accuracy is not what I’m after. I want to be able to zero guns in at realistic hunting distances. I don’t need 0.0001 MOA. If I can get a gun to shoot close to 1 MOA while zeroing it with a rest, I’ll be ecstatic. In reality, I should be happy with worse accuracy than that.

Here’s my assumption. I know I can shoot 1 MOA at 100 yards, if the gun, ammunition, and weather do their part. I can do that with a bipod, which probably costs $30. That tells me I should be able to get some kind of cheap device, like a big sandbag, that will do what I want. As long as it’s tall enough and steady enough, I can shoot more than well enough to do what I need to do.

Wrong? I don’t think so.

I thought someone would recommend a giant beanbag. That would have been great.

Now I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. I’m asking questions on a gun forum, presumably from people who know a lot more than I do, but I can’t make myself believe I need a ridiculous Buck Rogers gun rest in order to get ready to shoot a damn coon.

Yesterday I sighted my .22 in at “coon distance,” which is an unmeasured distance that looks to me to be about as far as I would be from a coon if I were hunting. My rest was very high tech. It was my left knee. Coupled with a $17 plastic Adirondack chair from Home Depot, it made for a very adequate zeroing support system. I’m probably accurate to within a 1″ circle, and that will kill a coon as dead as Hillary Clinton’s 2020 campaign.

I’m thinking I should make a rest from scrap wood. Plywood base. Flat piece of plywood perpendicular to axis of fire. Another flat piece of wood against it, with a padded notch at the top for a gun. One piece of wood has a slot in it. The other has a thumbscrew in it. You slide the notched piece of wood up or down to get the height you want, you tighten the screw, and you’re all set.

What’s wrong with this plan?

I could also weld a gun rest together. I could have one piece of tubular steel inside another, with a screw going from the outer tube up against the inner tube. Use the screw to set the height of the inner tube, which would have a notch thing at the top.

I can’t help wondering if the guys with the sleds and vises and clamps are nuts. How can you call yourself a marksman if you have a machine doing all the work? Why not build an Arduino trigger-pulling machine and fire the rifle from your phone? You could sit in the house and shoot targets from a rifle set up half a mile away. You could program it to shoot while you’re in the Bahamas on vacation.

Some of these guys made gun rests from car jacks. You know the little scissor jacks people hate? They put beanbags on them. What???

If you’re going to do that, why not use a jackstand from Harbor Freight?

Hmm…I have jackstands. With urethane pads on top.

The things these guys do look so stupid, there must be an explanation I don’t understand.

I’m pretty sure I can shoot 0.75 MOA with my .17 HMR, with just a bipod. If I try, on a calm day. If a green amateur like me can do that without a crazy mechanical helper, then surely a serious gun nut can do it. If that’s true, what good do their wacky toys do them?

What if it turns out my perception is correct, and all these people are wasting their money and compensating for a basic failure to learn how to shoot? Is that even conceivable?

I don’t know the answer, but I am 100% positive I can learn to shoot very, very well without all that crap, and I don’t see why I should buy any of it.

I’m not against spending money when it’s necessary. If I want to shoot well, I can’t get around the need for good ammunition. I can’t get around the need for good stocks that are bedded correctly. There are some things you have to have in order to be accurate. I wouldn’t mind getting dies and whatever to make my own rifle ammunition, because that appears to be completely justified. But before I’ll spend $140 on a gun rest, I’m going to have to see proof that I need it.

Here’s something you wouldn’t expect to make a difference: shoes. A few years ago I realized the tennis shoes I was wearing were hurting my pistol accuracy. Some shoes aren’t stable, so you wobble around a little while you correct your balance. I wouldn’t scoff if someone told me he had special shooting shoes.

I don’t know the answer. I got a monopod yesterday, and I’m going to go try it. I bought a spinning rimfire target so I can shoot over and over without changing paper. I’m going to go sit in my blind, assuming a bear hasn’t filled it with turds, and see what I can do.

Internet sources say Chris Kyle shot from a bipod. He shot people a mile away. Why didn’t he have a sled? What am I missing here?

If anyone out there can help me understand why I need a precision X-Y slide table with a vise in order to shoot a .22, please inform me.