I have been meaning to expand my skill set a bit recently. Signed up for some tactical style competitions this year, been trying to expand some of my training at home as well. A lot of shooting these days is moving away from the prone. I believe this is because a lot of tactical styled competitions and shooting schools tend to mirror what the current trends in Military and Law Enforcement are moving toward.
I try to do a bunch of reading on that subject. I work in LE and I think Military engagements are foreshadowing for those of us in the LE field. What our guys are doing abroad is likely to eventually be either copied here at home, or brought to our doorstep by extremists.
I have a rifle saddle from PRS that I bought with one of their mini tripods. I gave that a run last week and quickly saw some strengths and weaknesses. For the money, that unit is hard to beat. However, I believe it best served from a good seated/supported position, or from the prone, where the saddle allows you to cant and pan with ease. However, at least for me, it proved quite difficult from seated and standing off a tripod to get a stable enough base to make shots at intermediate (500yds) ranges.
So I bit the bullet and bought one of the Hog Saddles from Shadow Tech.
The Hog saddle is kind of pricey, the non Mil-Spec version is 275.00. Initially that was a put off for me. I'm glad I bit the bullet. The build quality of the saddle is excellent and it works very well at providing support and a stable shooting platform off a tripod.
I had done some reading on the saddle and it was recommended that it be mounted directly to the tripod and not to a quick change mount or ball head. I opted to try it a few different ways to see how it worked out. They are right about the quick change mounts, even the Manfrotto versions introduce some play and wiggle that you are better off without. I didn't notice a big difference between directly mounting to a Manfrotto ball head, and straight to the tripod. The ease of adjustment that comes with the ball is worth it in my opinion and its how I eventually settled on the setup.
Performance wise, I noticed an immediate improvement in my ability to hit targets off sitting and standing shots. I tested the saddle at 340 yards and 540 yards respectively. At 340 yards I went 5 for 5 sitting, and 2 for 2 standing shooting at the head on my target.
I try to do a bunch of reading on that subject. I work in LE and I think Military engagements are foreshadowing for those of us in the LE field. What our guys are doing abroad is likely to eventually be either copied here at home, or brought to our doorstep by extremists.
I have a rifle saddle from PRS that I bought with one of their mini tripods. I gave that a run last week and quickly saw some strengths and weaknesses. For the money, that unit is hard to beat. However, I believe it best served from a good seated/supported position, or from the prone, where the saddle allows you to cant and pan with ease. However, at least for me, it proved quite difficult from seated and standing off a tripod to get a stable enough base to make shots at intermediate (500yds) ranges.
So I bit the bullet and bought one of the Hog Saddles from Shadow Tech.
The Hog saddle is kind of pricey, the non Mil-Spec version is 275.00. Initially that was a put off for me. I'm glad I bit the bullet. The build quality of the saddle is excellent and it works very well at providing support and a stable shooting platform off a tripod.
I had done some reading on the saddle and it was recommended that it be mounted directly to the tripod and not to a quick change mount or ball head. I opted to try it a few different ways to see how it worked out. They are right about the quick change mounts, even the Manfrotto versions introduce some play and wiggle that you are better off without. I didn't notice a big difference between directly mounting to a Manfrotto ball head, and straight to the tripod. The ease of adjustment that comes with the ball is worth it in my opinion and its how I eventually settled on the setup.
Performance wise, I noticed an immediate improvement in my ability to hit targets off sitting and standing shots. I tested the saddle at 340 yards and 540 yards respectively. At 340 yards I went 5 for 5 sitting, and 2 for 2 standing shooting at the head on my target.
