I'm Done with a Bipod on My Hunting Gun

It's another tool for the toolbox. In tall grass prone isn't practical. I'll use sticks, sling, and a backpack as a rear bag when sitting in tall grass. I practice this position shooting at chucks within my accuracy/ cartridge limitations. Good practice for big game.
 
I wanna see the pack for that rocking chair ;). That's getting closer to my style out in the field lol.
That's a good one I didn't think about that when taking the photo of course I used a little fold out stool and my Jim Shockey edition trigger sticks tripod the chest rig in the photo is an Eberle stock nose gunner which contains my rangefinder or binoculars with pockets for a few other trinkets. The rocking chair pictured has been in my family my entire life it was hand made by a friend of my grandfathers in Pennsylvania
 
That's a good one I didn't think about that when taking the photo of course I used a little fold out stool and my Jim Shockey edition trigger sticks tripod the chest rig in the photo is an Eberle stock nose gunner which contains my rangefinder or binoculars with pockets for a few other trinkets. The rocking chair pictured has been in my family my entire life it was hand made by a friend of my grandfathers in Pennsylvania
I'm liking the tripod, have been eyeballing the bino pack, but that rocking chair is priceless. Way cool!!!
 
I have yet to hunt with a bipod because it's really not practical with the short range shots offered in the woods of Kentucky coupled with the terrain. I did put one on my rifle though and have used it for prone target shooting and found it as comfortable as many other shooting positions - maybe more so than sitting - and extremely stable. Its easy to see where a bipod or tripod would be useful in open country at long range. Hopefully one of these years I'll get out west for some real long range hunting and test my mettle so I can truly hobnob with the rest of you!
 
It surprises me that people are long range hunting off stix.

I'm certainly not going to suggest that everyone can do it.....but, accurate LR shooting "can" be accomplished!

This was posted by our very own Len Backus.

I have just extracted this content of my own from December of 2014, that I wrote from deep down in a long 2 year old thread started by someone else..

My content (below) makes a good base for discussion on seated shooting technique and it was kind of lost where initially posted.

It relies on the following:

Tips For Small Groups From Sitting Field Position

  1. Solid rear anchor for rifle stock
  2. Support shooting arm/elbow (sometimes by leaning back into the hill)
  3. Setup so your feet are lower than your butt if you can
  4. Check list: level, parallax, dope, etc.
  5. Setup for consistent recoil off sticks
  6. Range with environmental inputs

===============================================
December, 2014
Here are my newest, best groups shot at distance using shooting sticks yesterday.

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This winter and spring we'll be working on fresh new material to present at the LRH-NTO Shooting Classes (CLICK HERE) to be held in the mountains of western Wyoming next August. In the classes we teach plenty of prone style shooting but one of the ways our classes are unique is that we also spend a lot of time on real life positions other than prone.

Too often prone just isn't available, whether you're sitting in a bed of sagebrush in Oregon or a field of CRP in the midwest or up at 8,000 feet on the steep slopes of the mountain west. And if the range is much over 300 yards most hunters are simply not up to the task of taking a clean shot on big game from a seated position.

Yesterday before my Green Bay Packers trounced the Detroit Lions I was at my friend's hunting land, refining my own long range seated shooting sticks technique in order to be better able to teach the subject. My shooting spot is high up on a snow-covered hill but just below its crown. My bullets from there fly first over many rows of pine seedlings and then over a harvested corn field where I shot four tasty whitetails just last month. I set out 2 steel targets at 916 yards on the far hillside beyond the cornfield and beneath a huge oak tree.

quad-sticks-4.jpg



My first 2 three shot groups were fired while using the new Rudolph Optics Quad Sticks plus my optics tripod plàced under my right armpit for shooting arm support. The feeling of absolutely no left-right jiggle builds great confidence in a shooter using the quad sticks. I have found that the armpit support makes the "vertical" part of the shot feel rock-solid, too.

quad-sticks-3.jpg



quad-sticks-2.jpg



There was a bit of a variable wind coming from the back side of the hill that was difficult to call due to my shooting location on the down slope of the hill and to the lack of any telling leaves remaining on the winter trees. The 9 inch horizontal spread of each of the groups satisfied me given the wind and the distance. The vertical size of the groups were 3 inches and 1.5 inches respectively. If the 2 groups were superimposed the combined vertical spread would be 3 inches. That's about 1/3 MOA at 916 yards.

The wind became a little more readable at this point.

Next I added one click to the scope's elevation setting to better center my group
on the piece of steel and switched sticks. I grabbed my Primos Magnum Shooting Sticks (formerly Stoney Point). Under my right armpit I used my Stoney Point Polecat tripod. This group had a 1.5 inch vertical spread and it measured 3.5 inches overall including width. If superimposed, all three groups using two different sets of sticks would measure a 3 inch vertical spread - 1/3 MOA.

quad-sticks-1.jpg
 
Shooting stick standing up mostly and sitting depending on the terrain, for me that's what works best here. Either grass to tall or the desert where everything either stings or bites. Especially the little cholla cactus that blends well in the ground, dang they sting hard.

And of course practice, practice, practice.
 
View attachment 299359I'm always about "better to have and not need, than to need and not have", but I found a bipod on my hunting rig is useless FOR ME. Laying prone in the field is about like kissing your cousin. Yeah, the idea might might be tempting, but it still ain't right. 😄 I'll leave prone to the range/target shooting.

So, the shooting stick and field chair is where its at. Gonna start training for this style, along with standing shots, and reconfirm zeros.
There is no situation I have ever encountered where it would have been worth having a bipod. I've always wondered who the marketing genius is that got everyone buying these.
 
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