Tripod comparison data request

[Diver160651]

RRS is coming out with an Anvil30 It’s a type of ball head but it looks like they’ve addressed all the flex issues.

I can’t say for sure I have not had my hands on one. Since you’re so set up already it might be worth waiting?

Thanks for bearing with my Siri messages. Driving down the road now and it’s raining hard hope I can still see far enough to see the targets

 

[wigwamitus]

oh my driving down the road ... texting with siri ... through the rain ... trying engage the targets out of the top of the vehicle off an RSS ... you certainly hunt for the EDGE !!

Ok, ANVIL30 on the watch list !!!

I have a third M055 I can lend my shooting buddy in the mean time ... he can get a "while we wait" 322rx-2 on Amazon for around $160 ... so maybe we go that way while we save up for the RSSes ...

 

[Killswitch Engage]

Thanks so much KSE !!!

One question, are you a "light" loader or a "heavy" loader on the tripods ... I think I am a "heavy" loader ...

im shooting it much like diver. reverse the legs with two out front. i shoot with the base lightly tensioned most times and locked sometimes depending on what im doing.

to add and i hope no one takes this the wrong way but there are alot of dudes replicating what they see scout snipers doing in pictures such as the cross arm reverse grip on the opposing leg set up. in my opinion thats just not a good technique for any tripod shooting. theres not a single natural thing about twisting your arms and reverse bracing a tripod leg. the other issue i have with that technique along with the sling/belt technique is that it is entirely useless when engaging or tracking a mover. employing techniques that let you use your natural point of aim while not requiring an unnatural amount of load and muscling of the platform to get results.

just because they are doing doesnt make it the best way. military sniping is still in its infancy in terms of employing modern tripod technique and as anyone that has any experience in the military they are also stubborn to change and advancement to technique.

 

[wigwamitus]

I will admit we do use the "cross arm reverse grip" technique in one case ... and that is when shooting off the side of a hill .. I did this "by accident" once when I found I was struggling to stay upright on the side of the ... I was using my lower abdomen muscles to keep me upright at that was generating rapid fatigue, so I needed to grab onto something and I grabbed on to the tripod and for some reason grabbing right side leg with thumb down generated the lease muscle fatigue ... in that particular case. That is my shooting buddy using the technique ... again ... only when sitting on side of hill ...

...

When standing - when I say "loading the tripod" ... I mean ME ... I put my support hand, like a cup ... grabbing onto the rail if possible and pushing down and pull the pistol grip into my shoulder ... all that heavy loading helps stabilize me ... and seems to help with managing recoil so I can see where the bullet goes ... so if others are not doing that ... I am curious to hear about it !!

I have not tried "light loading" ... or "free recoiling" .. if "free recoiling" means trying to avoid any contact with the gun/tripod except as needed to pull the trigger ... I fear the tripod/gun would fall over, if I wasn't holding ... but I have not tried it.

 

[SLG]

I have a Feisol 3342 with a Benro leveling base and a Fittest Arca QR clamp. Total price is right at $600 and weight is 3.6 lb. It took me a while to get what I wanted, but I love this set-up. I did remove the tension lever on the Benro, thread the stud and attach a knob to get the full tension range as installed on the Feisol.

People told me I would not be able to shoot past 15 degrees with it, but one click on the leg lock and I get another 15 degrees of down. It is smooth and fast. I have borrowed and shot off of some of the $1K plus set-ups and this one is right in the same performance window.

Why did you go with the Benro leveling base instead of the Feisol version? Still happy with that set up? Aside from the cost, it appears to be much lighter than the high end options, and if it shoots as well...

 

[flyer]

View attachment 6883930Here is my Cruxford minus the Spotter attachment

How is that working for you?

To me, ball heads make way less sense than a gimbal.

I'm going to try the ultra cheapo version of this: a $50 gimbal from Amazon and a Craigslist Bogen tripod.

Instead of a clamp, I'm going to try an Arca rail and instead of under the rifle, I'm going to try on the side to reduce the cantilever.

Just a cheap proof of concept for me, I didn't know there was already a retail version.

 

[kthomas]

How is that working for you?

To me, ball heads make way less sense than a gimbal.

I'm going to try the ultra cheapo version of this: a $50 gimbal from Amazon and a Craigslist Bogen tripod.

Instead of a clamp, I'm going to try an Arca rail and instead of under the rifle, I'm going to try on the side to reduce the cantilever.

Just a cheap proof of concept for me, I didn't know there was already a retail version.

I like the gimbal idea as well. That's why I got a Uniqball UBH-45

 

[MarkCO]

Why did you go with the Benro leveling base instead of the Feisol version? Still happy with that set up? Aside from the cost, it appears to be much lighter than the high end options, and if it shoots as well...

A photographer buddy felt it was better and worth the $50 more. Higher load rating, and I like the tension adjustment (I modded mine) location better. I am very happy with it and it performs great. Light, easy to use and from a performance perspective, I have no complaints. I have shot off a few of the $1500 range tripods and mine does what theirs does on target just as well.

 

[SLG]

A photographer buddy felt it was better and worth the $50 more. Higher load rating, and I like the tension adjustment (I modded mine) location better. I am very happy with it and it performs great. Light, easy to use and from a performance perspective, I have no complaints. I have shot off a few of the $1500 range tripods and mine does what theirs does on target just as well.

Good to know, thanks. I'm not very handy on modding things like that. was the original lever on the base a problem ? What does your mod do that the orignal didn't allow for?

I'm currently testing a RRS setup, and it is really pretty awesome. The 3342 and a Benro seem like a great lighter weight, more compact hunting option. I was thinking about the universal leveling base from RRS, but if the Benro will do it, then that seems like a great lower cost option.


Anyone know if there is anyway to put an Anvil-30 on a 3342?

 

[flyer]

I like the gimbal idea as well. That's why I got a Uniqball UBH-45

That's not really a gimbal. The idea of a gimbal is to put the axis of rotation at or slightly above the CG so the load doesn't want to flop over if you remove all tension.

It seems like yours is a combination of leveling head and ball head which is nice.

I'm cheap so I'll level with my legs.

 

[Diver160651]

That's not really a gimbal. The idea of a gimbal is to put the axis of rotation at or slightly above the CG so the load doesn't want to flop over if you remove all tension.

It seems like yours is a combination of leveling head and ball head which is nice.

I'm cheap so I'll level with my legs.

Leveling with the legs really is tougher to do than it sounds for most shooting were the DOF is large, left to right etc or you have a mover.

That said, using the legs to level for increased angles is easily a fair way to compensate in Lue of a ball head.

 

[flyer]

I am sure I won't be able to set up in seconds and have it perfectly level, that is where a leveling mount shines: plop down your tripod and then adjust level with one step.

If I have a few minutes, I can adjust with legs just as well, just not as fast.

The reason is to avoid scope Kant when you pan. A gimbal needs to be levelled and square or else Kant is going to come in the moment you move it off zero.

A ball head has a different Kant issue, you have to check it for every shot.

If my gimbal works but speed becomes an issue, I'll think about adding a leveling mount.

A gimbal might limit extreme elevation travel a bit. Adjusting the legs shouldn't really help with that but I shoot pretty horizontal mostly.

 

[Fred @ Bison Tactical]

Anyone know if there is anyway to put an Anvil-30 on a 3342?

Yes, there is an Anvil-30 that will fit to the 3342.

You want the Head Only (No Adapter) - that should have the threaded hole on the bottom to fit your 3342 plate.

 

[Diver160651]

I am sure I won't be able to set up in seconds and have it perfectly level, that is where a leveling mount shines: plop down your tripod and then adjust level with one step.

If I have a few minutes, I can adjust with legs just as well, just not as fast.

The reason is to avoid scope Kant when you pan. A gimbal needs to be levelled and square or else Kant is going to come in the moment you move it off zero.

A ball head has a different Kant issue, you have to check it for every shot.

If my gimbal works but speed becomes an issue, I'll think about adding a leveling mount.

A gimbal might limit extreme elevation travel a bit. Adjusting the legs shouldn't really help with that but I shoot pretty horizontal mostly.

I was assuming you were saying legs only.. as in direct gun mount to the apex.

 

[SLG]

Yes, there is an Anvil-30 that will fit to the 3342.

You want the Head Only (No Adapter) - that should have the threaded hole on the bottom to fit your 3342 plate.

Thanks very much. So I should be able to unscrew the Anvil 30 from the RRS, and then just screw it onto the 3342. I think that would give me the most flexibility in terms of big steady option (RRS), as well as small light reasonably steady option for hunting (3342/anvil30).

 

[flyer]

I was assuming you were saying legs only.. as in direct gun mount to the apex.

No, that's why I wrote the whole part about a gimbal.

 

[MarkCO]

Good to know, thanks. I'm not very handy on modding things like that. was the original lever on the base a problem ? What does your mod do that the orignal didn't allow for?

The original is a lever with a spring. You can do a half a rotation, then you need to pull the lever, rotate back over while pulled, release and then do another half rotation. My mod removes the lever. I threaded the shaft and put the three ear knob on it. Gives me the full range of adjustment for tension without fiddling. $4 and 10 minutes to do the mod. If you go into an ACE with a shop, with the base, they will take off the lever, thread the shaft and install the knob. Might cost $20, but worth it.

I use mine for hunting and matches. I am totally sold on it.

 

[SLG]

The original is a lever with a spring. You can do a half a rotation, then you need to pull the lever, rotate back over while pulled, release and then do another half rotation. My mod removes the lever. I threaded the shaft and put the three ear knob on it. Gives me the full range of adjustment for tension without fiddling. $4 and 10 minutes to do the mod. If you go into an ACE with a shop, with the base, they will take off the lever, thread the shaft and install the knob. Might cost $20, but worth it.

I use mine for hunting and matches. I am totally sold on it.

Very good info, thanks a lot.

 

[flyer]

I got my cheapo gimbal from Amazon.

I quickly mounted it to my Bogen 2011 tripod.

It has standard 3/8" threads and screwed right on.

The three grub screws in the tripod column that lock the head on are close to the edge of the gimbal base but with at least 75% overlap, it locks tight and I think it will be fine.

The panning made me worry for a moment, when I tightened it to create drag, it hit tight spots as I panned. Loosening it removed the tight spots and it spun ~freely but not wobbly as far as I could tell.

The tilt seemed to be able to tighten to create drag but tilting with drag seems to play with the clamp setting.

I will have to take this apart to see if I can improve on that.

I'm pretty confident that it will handle the weight and recoil if my tripod can. It seems pretty stiff in the tube portion.

I'm going to mount an Arca rail on the side of my chassis and mount the Arca clamp on the vertical portion of the L shaped mount. It will go from "L" to "I" with the clamp mounted near the pivot (at the top of the "I").

For about $100 worth of Craigslist used tripod and Chinese gimbal, I don't think it's too bad but it does need a little work to make it what I'm looking for.

 

[flyer]

Cheapo gimbal update:

I was fooling around and removed the tilt lock knob. The tilt arm rides on two plastic bushings and the knob has a thrust bearing and washer setup that squeezes together the bushings to lock the tilt.

The washer seems to be your garden variety nickel plated hardware store washer, not flat ground for the bearing to run on. Worse than that, it was installed with the bottom side of the washer toward the bearing. I flipped the washer, reassembled and suddenly I can set tilt drag that doesn't change due to moving the tilt arm.

One axis down, one to go.

On the pan axis I can't figure out how to disassemble it. It seems like the cap in the middle should pop out or unscrew but there is no good way to grab it. I tried some light prying but I stopped before I gouged it too bad and no progress.

After that I thought "what if I could wear in the track so the drag is consistent?"

So I set a small amount of drag and then spun the gimbal. The drag got tight and loose as it went through the high and low spots but it started to even out.

Occasionally as I spun it the lock would loosen a bit reducing the drag, not good but it gave me an idea. I'm going to try to remove the locking screw and place a jam nut between the knob and the threaded aluminum piece. This will let me adjust drag and then lock in the tension. If it loosens over time I can adjust it and lock it in again.

I don't have the jam nut to try the idea but I think it will work.

So if everything is square in the gimbal, I think it is going to work.

I just need to mod the pan lock, mount the clamp and get my rifle together so I can figure out the Arca rail position I need.

 

[wigwamitus]

I just wonder if it is going to hold a ~20 pd rifle?

My field setups, run 19 to 22 pds lately ...

 

[flyer]

I'm hoping that the rifle I'm building is going to weigh less than 13lbs.

The load rating of my gimbal is 20kg supposedly, I'm not sure about the tripod but the old Aluminum Bogen/Manfrotto tripods seem pretty sturdy.

The point of trying a gimbal is that it seems like people are getting away with a ball head which is getting pushed pretty hard with every shot because the axis of rotation is at the center of the ball, well below the bore axis. The gimbal axis should be much closer to the bore so shorter lever, less torque, the rifle should want to recoil straight back instead of twist in the mount.

 

[flyer]

I was trying to find Bogen 2011 specs and only found 3011 specs, I think I got the part number wrong.

Any way, the 3011 has a load rating of 13.3 lbs but I think they are a lot more conservative with their specs (although they probably were not thinking of gun loads).

 

[MarkCO]

Just FTR, when I asked my friends who do high end photo and video, they told me that I wanted at least 5 times the load rating of my rifle, and preferably closer to 8 to 10. That is what pushed me to the 120# rating of the Benro.

When I asked about gimbals, they literally laughed at me and told me that one that would work for shooting would be in the thousand dollar range.

 

[flyer]

Well, that's one of the reasons why I'm trying a $50 cheapo, if it absolutely sucks I can forget about it.

If I had bought a $500 Whimberly and it sucked, that would hurt more.

That $2,500 Cruxford setup should work but that's a bit out of my budget for a shooting tripod.

Any way, the ratings of tripods are very subjective. I bet I could find dozens of Chinese tripods with 20 pound rating that are way less stable than my heavy old 13.3 pound Bogen. A 20 pound telescope tripod would probably be a lot more Stout and a 20 pound astrophotography tripod looks like it would make a half decent machine gun mount.

I think my gimbal would struggle with a 20kg load as it is currently set up, the "L" bracket would probably flex quite a bit, that's why I want to eliminate that and clamp to the side of my rifle. After I remove the weak link, I think I could probably hang 100 pounds off the gimbal without severe bending or breaking. I think my tripod could handle a static load like that too.

In use the static load is maybe 15 pounds for rifle and gimbal. I've seen plenty of posts with similar tripods and a ball head or saddle. Before RRS and others started making gun specific tripods, shooters were using old photo equipment.

I don't feel like what I'm trying is outside of the realm of possibility.

 

[Diver160651]

Going back to some of the earlier posts- shooting off a tripod and achieving sub MOA results isn’t about how much weight the tripod can handle, but rather how well it can eliminate wibrations AKA wobble with the shooter on the end of a long lever arm.. (rifle)

 

[flyer]

Agreed, I just don't see how a ball head would be any better than a properly functioning gimbal unless the ball was massive.

Maybe I need to put an Arca clamp on a bowling ball and get a tripod with a big ring for it to ride in?

 

[MarkCO]

Mass of the system is different than the load rating. Some really high end stuff is very light, but with a high load rating. What the photo guys tell me is that the wobble, and vibration, is diminished with the higher load rating ball-heads, leveling bases and gimbals. So, yes, what Diver160651 posted is accurate and matches up with what I have learned and been told from the photo video folks.

 

[flyer]

Damping can only be accomplished in a few ways. Adding mass is one. Tuned mass dampers are a thing but not in play here. A ball head or gimbal will have a small amount of frictional damping due to the drag. Some materials have properties where bending and vibration translate to heat inside the material (Sorbothane and possibly Carbon Fiber to some extent). Viscous damping relies on turning vibration in to movement that pushes oil through valves and orifices, not really happening on a tripod except perhaps a fluid head.

I don't see where I can do any magic except with mass and in that department I think my old Bogen has the Carbon Fiber tripods beat.

I think ball heads became the defacto standard in shooting because good gimbals are expensive and leveling matters if you want to pan and tilt without introducing Kant. That's it, I think everything else about them is superior.

 

[mlpkhl]

Working with Really Right Stuff’s mid level gimbal the other day. Works great but would not want to use it anywhere other than a bit moving static range complex or very close to my vehicle. It isn’t that heavy just odd shapes for carrying.

Couldn’t attach the file so here is the link;

 

[flyer]

I'm surprised the gun is mounted so low in that gimbal.

 

[mlpkhl]

We were changing from shooter to shooter in height, and body position. Set it for all shooters while still keeping the max adjustments on the gun needed.

 

[flyer]

That is interesting. Have you ever compared it high to low to see how that changes it's reaction to firing?

I was looking at my Bogen 3011 and it only has one open position for the legs as seen in my photo. It can't get low.

Looking at my other Craigslist Bogen tripods, I have an old 3020 which seems a bit sturdier and has three position legs but one of the leg latches was seized up.

I used a little penetrating oil on the latch and hit it a few times and it started to loosen up. With the legs working in all three positions, I think I'm going to swap heads and put the gimbal on the tripod that can splay out the legs wider.

 

[Fig]

I have a wooden, surveyors tripod that’s rated for 200+ lbs (not for just an alidade), and weighs about 40 lbs. After searching through about fifty bins of old equipment I came up with enough pieces/adaptors to end up with a screw to mount a Hog Saddle. It’s incredibly stable (bench rest stable) but a pain to set up, and practically not man portable.

I’d rather have my aluminum, Slick legs, and Sunphoto Ball. No, it’s not as rock solid, but I can tote it in a sling bag, and set it up in 120 seconds...

 

[flyer]

I just got my starter chassis for my new rifle (I bought a used McRees because MPA seems to have some big delays) and looked at my gimbal again, this time thinking about how to mount my rifle.

My plan is to mount the Arca rail to the side of my chassis and bolt the Arca clamp vertically to match on the gimbal arm, close to the elevation pivot point.

I slid the clamp off the arm, held it where I want to mount it and put the chassis up against it and I swear it looks perfectly centered over the tripod column. I would be really surprised if it was more than 1/8" off center. This is great because recoil forces will be trying to pan the gimbal through that lever arm and it's so short the force will be minimal.

Being pleased with that I looked closer to see how I need to modify it to bolt together in that configuration.

The vertical arm is held to the pivot by two bolts that are covered up by a sticker. It should be pretty easy for me to take those small pieces to the shop to drill, tap and cut them to fit.

I might try to add an adjustable lever bolt to the Arca clamp so I don't have issues loosening the thumb screw up against the side of the chassis.

I'll try to finalize my plan for bolting everything together over the next week or two, then I have to wait for my action, put my rifle together, determine the balance point and then get in to the shop to machine it and put it together.

I could probably do this with hand tools but I might as well use a mill so my holes aren't crooked.

 

[flyer]

Well, it looks like the Arca clamp needs a lever nut and in metric I think.

I'll have to measure the thread and then look in McMaster Carr to see if I can find the right part or look for a different Arca clamp to use.

I think the new clamp might be the way to go so I don't have to hack up the original parts entirely and a Chinese Arca clamp might cost less than my McMaster Carr order would be.