What rear bag is good for use with Caldwell Rock Rifle Benchrest?

kai said:

I'm planning on buying a Caldwell Rock Benchrest cast iron rest. They cost only $99 shipped and have good reviews.
I'm surprised by the multitude of rear bags available.... many cost more than $100.

This will be my first mechanical front rest and I'm trying to find the right rear bag (and height) recommendation to fit the front rest.

I've never used a mechanical front rest and am hoping it will improve my load development accuracy over the bipod and squeeze bag I've been using.

My main long distance rifle has a GRS Bifrost stock with a rubber overloaded forend. I'm wondering how well (or how poorly) it will work with a front rest vs a bipod.

Thanks for your comments gents... please keep them coming.

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If you are shooting from a bench get a heavy leather bag with ears and the flat bottom, you can adjust your sight alignment and fine tune the POA elevation by sliding the rear bag back and forth on the rear stock. I use a ProtekTor. You can get them on sale unfilled and pick your poison. I like good old sand or steel pellets. Keep in mind this is for bench shooting.

If you are shooting on various surfaces you probably want a type of competition squeeze bag type: I recommend some sort of silent retention like velcro straps or a bungee or even paracord and a small plastic carabiner. I use a Large TAB Rear Bag v2 with lightweight fill, with a poly steel wire attached to my buttstock. I use a SOPMOD buttstock on my SPR, it's surprisingly well suited for bench and ground use. The TAB is more of a squeeze type bag. If you are going to be stationary you want the heavy poly fill. I use the lightweight fill because my SPR setup is designed to be rapid deployed: can't have 2lb bags slappin around. But the added weight is preferred by competitive shooters, and of course not preferred by folks lugging gear in the field as much..

Additionally: Caldwell's "rabbit ear" rear bags are all decent. Even the cheap nylon classic is decent, friend has one and I like it. But I would go at least with Caldwell's leather Universal Deluxe model. That said, get a ProteckTor leather flat bottom for bench on sale and fill it and you'll be set for life. You can get higher end one's if you're a bench aficionado but the designs are all similar, it;s the thickness of leather and size and weight.

Before you buy anything, get setup and make sure you get the right size bag. Size is everything. For bench it's less complicated but for field use, you might want a four sided squeeze bag that offers three height adjustments plus fine tuning based on fill material and compression.

I just bought some camo cloth and filled them with plastic beads all from Joann's fabric. Sewed them into different sizes and configurations, so I one for about every occasion I need. I also have a small piece of wood that fits under them with Velcro on them so I can attach them to the wood. Lots of idea on the internet for inspiration. Also, one of Caldwell's lead sled bags designed for filling with lead shot to weigh their sled works well filled with the poly beads works well. You can lay it on end or it's side as you need to vary the height, then squeeze to raise/lower that last few millimeters to put the crosshairs right on target as well. I guess that would be "bag" reloading.....

kai said:

I've been using a bipod to develop loads and decided to buy a Caldwell Rock Benchrest Front Rifle Rest to improve accuracy when developing loads.

What rear bag would you recommend for developing loads shooting off a bench with the Caldwell Rock Front Benchrest?

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I bought the Rock combo which includes the rear bag for $99.00. It works well for me

kai said:

I'm planning on buying a Caldwell Rock Benchrest cast iron rest. They cost only $99 shipped and have good reviews.
I'm surprised by the multitude of rear bags available.... many cost more than $100.

This will be my first mechanical front rest and I'm trying to find the right rear bag (and height) recommendation to fit the front rest.

I've never used a mechanical front rest and am hoping it will improve my load development accuracy over the bipod and squeeze bag I've been using.

My main long distance rifle has a GRS Bifrost stock with a rubber overloaded forend. I'm wondering how well (or how poorly) it will work with a front rest vs a bipod.

Thanks for your comments gents... please keep them coming.

Click to expand...

The problem with a rubber fore end is that it may prevent tracking back of the rifle, so when it is prevented from tracking back it will jump therefore shots not grouping, the best groups can be achieved from old fashion sand bags.

Something else to keep in mind if you have swivel mounts they can catch on the front and rear bags. I have switched most of mine out to flush cups to avoid that but a front pic rail will catch if you don't have a removable type.
https://www.midwayusa.com/s?userSearchQuery=GrovTec+quick&userItemsPerPage=48

I think Midway has bags on sale right now.

My rifles all have picatinney rails for bipods.
I think I found a good solution for shooting them off a front rest bag without removing the picatinney rail...
It's a picatinney rail adapter and benchrest bag rider that can be added to stocks.

see link below:
https://www.brownells.com/shooting-...r-sku749011468-45123-74236.aspx?sku=749011468

I'm hoping that this adaptor set will allow all of my rifles including my AR-15 and a rubber overmolded GRS Bifrost ride the front bag smoothly.

I still need to decide what rear bag(s) to use to maximize the accuracy of my rifles with the Caldwell Rock BR front rest.
Some of my rifle's buttstocks have parallel bottoms like the Bifrost, and others are tapered (angled lower at the back) like the Tikka.
I guess I could add a removable bag rider (i.e a rod or cylinder) to the bottoms of the tapered rifle stocks so they could ride the bag straight back.

Tonight I assembled the Caldwell Rock BR front rest and fit my GRS Bifrost stock to it. I found that the rest has more wobble in the ACME threaded height adjustment screw the higher it is raised. So I lowered the screw to nearly it's lowest point to fit the rifle to it. The rear of the stock wants a 4 inch (minimum) height bag with the Caldwell rest near its lowest setting.

I found a Protektor Model part #14B5DSDBB at Brownells with a 4-1/8" height.... Perfect. It should arrive in a few days along with a Protektor wide front bag to match the benchrest bag rider adapter I ordered for my rifles with Picatinney rails.

Nothing too fancy here. Just make sure that your sling studs are not hitting and the rifle can ride smoothly.

RockyMtnMT said:

View attachment 131132
Nothing too fancy here. Just make sure that your sling studs are not hitting and the rifle can rife smoothly.

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Nice setup. I do use the same glasses.

Haha! My cheaters cause I can't see chit up close anymore!