Rear Bag Spacers
Shooting off the ground is what F-Class competition is all about. The ground, however, is not always your friend at a match. I shoot off a Harris 9″ to 13″ bipod, and a Caldwell rear bag. Beginner’s equipment for sure, but it works well enough. The only big issue is the height (or lack thereof) of the rear bag. With a relatively tall bipod, I can’t always rest the stock in the rear bag. Often, I have to squeeze the ears of the bag together and rest the stock on the very top of them to get the muzzle down enough to be on target. This, unfortunately for my pride and scores, is not the optimal configuration. Ideally, you’d be able to rest the stock solidly in the bottom of the ears. So, just buy the shorter version of the Harris bipod, right? Well, yes, that is technically the right answer, but I am cheap by nature and broke by the grace of the economy. Instead of investing another hundred bucks on a bipod, I used a chunk of 1x that I had lying around. Cut to length and sanded smooth, they made pretty good bag spacers, lifting the bag about 1″ each. The problem was, that once I applied a finish to protect the wood, they became a bit “slippery” if I needed to use both stacked on top of each other. So, I dug around and found a roll of skateboard tape that I use on pistol grips from time to time (because I lack the skill and patience to stipple or checker metal). With two strips of tape on one side of each, they got a lot less “slippery”. Since these are tactical bag spacers, and I’m a zombie hunting sniper and all, I painted them camo so they wouldn’t give my position away. This was after a few coats of some Minwax spray to seal the wood of course. Now I can raise the rear bag up to the right height, making my hold a lot more consistent and stable. So, if you’re cheap or broke or both, and you need a little more junk in the trunk on the firing line, bag spacers can be cheap and easy to make. If you’ve got money or brains or both, just buy the short Harris to begin with.
