Apologies to Paul Harvey

I have done what I needed to do. I hit Bass Pro and got me a bipod.

I hope I got the right one. They had three that were more or less interchangeable. Two from Shooters Ridge, and one from Caldwell. The Caldwell pivots vertically and horizontally, and the equivalent Shooters Ridge bipod was thirty bucks more, so I took a chance. My other Caldwell stuff is okay, so why not?

I stuck it on the Savage. It was so easy, I had it on the gun before I could bother to look for instructions. You clamp it onto the forward sling stud. There’s another stud on the bipod itself. That’s where you reattach your sling. The legs telescope, and they lock in place with thingamigs that tighten. Looks good.

I set it up on a table and looked through the scope. Man, what a difference. The position is much more natural.

I remain utterly confused by the exceedingly low height of most gun rests. I think you would have to be about five feet tall in order to get behind one comfortably.

Will it be as accurate as the rest? Yes. I’m pretty sure. The rest may be more solid, but that advantage is cancelled by the inevitable shaking you get when you strain to get low enough to put your sights on target.

I extended the legs to their maximum length. Felt fine. I contracted them to their shortest length. Still fine. Apparently anything more than two inches taller than my rest will work. Someone help me understand why gun rests are so short. I raise the little shafty thing as high as it will go. I put the pointy spikes on it, so that raises it another half-inch. Something is screwy. I should fasten it to an inch-thick plywood base and attach the spikes to that.

There is no way I can avoid moving my weekly range trip to Wednesday. I can’t stand the suspense.