New gun vise

[Scratchthejeepguy]

Since I’ve been doing more gunsmithing, I’ve been looking for a good gun vise for a while now. I tried a couple of friends like the Caldwell and Tipton Best, but wanted something more solid. Then last year I ended up making my own and was pretty happy with it. It’s very solid but it’s a little bulky, and heavy, and I just wasn’t getting a great vibe from it… you know… the vibe you get from a good gun vise.

Then I saw the Versacradle vise sold by Berry’s Manufacturing. If you haven’t seen it, Google it. It’s pretty cool, but expensive at around 185 bucks I think. I tried Youtubing it, but could only find videos from Berry’s, no real world experience, and I wasn’t about to pay that much for it based on their biased opinions of it. So I thought if I could just find the ball joint mechanism, I could easily make the rest of it.
I did some searching and found the ball joint at a good price, then started to build my new gun vise.

Here’s the new ball Joint:

Then I made the main support bar from ¼” steel. I should have made it from aluminum, but I didn’t have any in stock and thought this should be fine.

Here are the vise jaws:

So this is what I have so far:

Then I used some leftover camping foam I had, and some double sided tape to pad the vise jaws.

I found these handy knobs at Fleet Farm. They will work for a nut or a bolt, I bought the last four knobs they had, still need to get 3 more when Fleet Farm gets them in…

Some 4” long 3/8” carriage bolts and I’m almost done. Not shown in this pic are the spacers…. Coming up…

I also cut some 1-1/2” webbing from an old padded case I had laying around, and made the straps for it. I had some 2” sticky back velcro laying around also. I was going to sew the Velcro on the straps, but didn’t need to. They stuck to the straps and haven’t slipped at all yet!

 

[Scratchthejeepguy]

Here you can see it completed and mounted to the corner of my bench. You can also see the spacers I painted to match. They were made by drilling through a 1X4 and 2X4, with a 2-1/4” hole saw, then sanded smooth, and drilled out to 7/16” for the bolts. I used the 1-1/2” spacer to space the vise jaws out away from the main beam, and the ¾” spacer in between the vise jaws.

Here you can see how little room it takes up for storage. Now I’ve figured out that if I spin the vise jaws vertical, it takes up even less bench room! I will also have those same plastic knobs on the two bolt heads shown, for quick release if I need the full bench. I have holes drilled through the bench with nutserts underneath, so I won’t need any tools to remove the vise. The bench is flush on top when the vise is removed.

It’s very adjustable and can hold all of my rifles.

It also stays solid at any angle, for say… cleaning when you don’t want those nasty solvents going into the action.

Here’s one of my heaviest rifles on it, locked on its side, if I ever feel the need to do any work to the side of a rifle.

Berry’s also sells a base for it to use as a shooting rest, and I thought that could be nice to have, so I made one up as well. Here is the complete shooting rest, in its most compact travel position.

And here it is opened up and ready for use at the range! (Still need a couple of those knobs)

Here’s my .308 on it ready to fire. The two bolts on the left and right of the front bar are to level it out.

After mounting my .308 in the vise and getting on target, I did notice I was shakier through the scope, than when I shoot off sandbags, so I took it out of the vise and shot it off bags, but we did use it for sighting in my brothers AR pistol and he really liked using it. It seemed to be much steadier using a lower power scope (obviously).

I think I’ll still use sandbags for precision shooting, but may bring it down as a shooting rest when I have multiple rifles, and multiple people shooting. It’s very convenient to have at the range for doing light work on site, like tightening screws, adjusting turrets, etc…
Where I really like it is back on my bench. It’s not as sturdy as an actual steel machinist vise, but is plenty sturdy for anything I can think of, and is as sturdy or more, than any store bought gun vise I’ve seen, like the Caldwell, Tipton etc… It’s stores vertically on my bench, always at the ready, taking up very little space, and within about 5 seconds of walking into my gun room, I can have any rifle securely mounted to my bench for work at any angle.

 

[Wintermute]

Nice work. As a side note, I bought the berry's mfg setup and it's absolutely worth the money. Would have cost me more in my time to fabricate what they provide.

--Wintermute

 

[Scratchthejeepguy]

Nice work. As a side note, I bought the berry's mfg setup and it's absolutely worth the money. Would have cost me more in my time to fabricate what they provide.

--Wintermute

Thanks! I happen to have a CNC plasma cutter so the only actual cost I have into it is the knobs and carriage bolts. Otherwise, yeah... I would have bought it complete from them.

Just curious... How long and thick is the main bar? I think I should have made mine longer than 22", and it looks like its like 1/2" aluminum... Is it?

 

[Wintermute]

it's actually 3/8" thick. Main bar is 20" long, cross bar is 16" long. Both aluminum.

--Wintermute

 

[Scratchthejeepguy]

Cross bar? What's that?

 

[Wintermute]

Ahh, yeah, sorry, I thought you were asking about the bars that make up the base for some reason. The main bar of the vise is 1/2" thick 20" long aluminum.

--Wintermute

 

[RonboF117]

Good old American ingenuity - good job.

 

[jbjh]

You "just happen to have a CNC plasma cutter"...handy!

Good work man