Precision Rifle Gear RRS Anvil vs Ball Heads

[Crews]

I’ve got a 34 series RRS with an Anvil 30 head. Want to start out by saying excellent equipment, and worth every dime.

The two most frequent uses for me are spotting/scanning while hunting, and standing shooting at hogs with thermal at night. I shoot the precision rifle off it of course, but that is less often and rarely from a standing position. I think the Anvil 30 is a really great head, but sometimes feel like there’s not a wide tension adjustment range between floppy and 100% locked in. This is especially the case when I am trying to engage multiple running targets (think hogs/thermal)

Would a BH55 be a better fit here? Or do I just need to calm down and realize Anvil 30 is the best thing ever? It’s definitely splitting hairs, just curious.

 

[theLBC]

took me some time to get used to the lever, but i am getting better at finding the right tension quickly.

 

[Praeger]

While I like the Anvil 30, my preference is the BH-55. I like being able to separate the panning tension from the ball tension. Most of the time my tripod is doing bino/spotting scope duty and I set the ball tension at the horizon, and leave the panning tension light so I can effortlessly pan. I keep the ball head tension where if I need to adjust elevation, I just move it and it stays. I've not been able to achieve that with the Anvil-30.

For me, it felt like the tension necessary to keep my binos from flopping over on the Anvil-30 left the drag on panning more work than it should be. Might sound minor, but the BH-55 is a joy to use for extended periods of time on glass. When I use it as a shooting platform for PRS, I lock the pan and set the ball tension enough to allow me to move the rifle, but not let it drop. For shooting groundhogs where there is a lot of scanning, I can go back to the panning mode and scan back and forth wide areas without feeling like I'm wearing the ball out.

You do have to get familiar with the controls - there are three knobs. 1) panning only tension 2) minimum drag set on ball 3) ball tension locking knob (the big one). The Anvil-30's lever is much more intuitive.

 

[mrtoyz]

I have both. IMO the BH55 is much better for glassing and or panning.