F T/R Competition Vertical issues with "bunny ear" rear bag

[J-ROD]

All this bag talk got me thinking. I have a set of homemade poly filled bags I normally use but still have a cheap caldwell bunny ear bag that I don't use due to the vertical groupings I get with it (just as I was told I would).

So my question is, what causes this and is there something I am doing or not doing to cause this? BTW this is prone off of a bipod and my stock's underside is angled down where it rides on the bag. Vertical fliers go high.

Thanks,

-Jarrod

 

[BradfromND]

Re: Vertical issues with "bunny ear" rear bag

Pound the butt of the rifle down on to the bag to pack it. The high shots are caused by the bag compressing from the recoil. If you watch most good F Open shooters, they do it to pack the bag and get the stock to slide nicely on the rest. If my rear bag is packed down good and tight, sliding my rifle forward after the shot puts me within 1 moa of the original point of aim. I shot F T/R last year with a cheap Caldwell bunny ear bag and my Manners T4a. I had mine stuffed plenty full but still had to pack it with the buttstock.

 

[memilanuk]

Re: Vertical issues with "bunny ear" rear bag

I never ran into the problem of rear-bag settling until I shot F/Open w/ a 6 Dasher for part of a season. That particular gun recoiled so little, and had such a light trigger, that I could get away with not holding onto the gun - instead just pinching the trigger shoe towards the trigger guard (not quite light enough to just 'touch' and have it go off). Not quite 'free recoil', but the next dang thing to it. I was also using, for the first time (for me) a joystick front rest instead of squeezing the rear bag.

It drove me absolutely batty for a while until I talked with some of the old-school Hunter BR guys around here, and they clued me in on settling the rear bag. Sure as heck, that 'cured' most of the problems I'd been having with the gun pointing at the top of the target after every shot - and after a couple shots, having to reset the front rest as I'd run out of range on the joystick (not cool).

Using plain old 'squeezing the bunny ears' for F/TR I don't believe I've ever had that problem.

YMMV,

Monte

 

[J-ROD]

Re: Vertical issues with "bunny ear" rear bag

Thanks for the responses guys! I have never heard that but it makes complete sense. I have a match this weekend and since I really have nothing to lose, I will try the bunny ear bag for one of the 20 shot strings. The good thing about it is I can be much sloppier on the trigger and not get any horizontal groups with this bag where-as I really have to be on my game with the homemade bags I have (but don't get a lot of vertical with them)...I usually get 1 or 2 fliers left or right in a 5 shot group due to not being consistent on the trigger. Anything to "help" my scores while I am learning.

Thanks again!

-Jarrod