Getting Ready

AKA: Making preparations and/or gathering equipment

For Boomershoot.

Some of the long time readers of RNS will remember my trip to the 2005 Boomershoot, which is where I met our good man David.

I had customized a shooting bench before going off to Joe’s Most Excellent Celebration of Long Distance Riflery and Explosives. I custom-built a top that mounted onto the head of an spare engine stand I had sitting around holding nothing. And it worked quite well.

On the floor of the garage.

What I failed to take into account was the obvious: That Boomershoot was 1. Held outdoors, and 2. In an open field, which is not level.

To say the bench was top heavy would be a gross understatement. No matter which way I set it, it wanted to fall over. I had tried to brace it some items I had in the truck, but even then, I couldn’t get a level surface to shoot from.

Precision Long Distance Rifle course instructor, Gene Econ, says to let your rest point the rifle for you. Since I was shooting off a table, my rest would be sitting on the table and I would need the table to point the rest so that the rest could point the rifle. That wasn’t happening.

In an odd bit of good luck, I got paired with our good man David, who had built the best homemade bench at the entire event.

It looks like an octopus with a board on it’s head, but it can be levelled for any terrain and a 9.0 quake won’t bother it. It was pure genius, and as soon as I saw this bench, I knew I was going to like shooting with this guy.

Well, Boomershoot 2007 is almost here and it is time to get everything together. And built. Which is what I did this weekend. 

Last week I went on down to the Washington General Administration Surplus Warehouse and bought me one of their used desktops for $5.

It weighed a ton, but was the right shape.

Next, I took some general measurements witht the rifle setting on it.

I then set about marking the final size on both sides. This allowed me to turn the desktop over and mount the flanges and screw in the treaded 1″ pipe fixtures I was using for the legs (David used 1 1/2″ pipe, which could be considered overkill. I just knew that it “overkilled” my wallet, with the 1″ stuff still costing $97).

Then, I turned the table back over, cut off the excess of the desktop, and abra-cadabra we have the completed bench.

Things of note:

David is making his own bench for the match, but he is a southpaw and I’m not, so we’ll be the spot on the line with two benches. At least we won’t have to move the spotting scope much, if at all.

After this pic, I attached an old web belt to the edge of the table for a convenient carrying handle.

The removable legs should last forever, though if the top gets wet, I may need to replace it every or every-other year.

This probably doesn’t need to be said to the folks who do a decent amount of woodworking, but I’ll say it for the folks such as myself who don’t. When using your circular saw, remember to move items you like out of the way of the sawdust roostertail. Don’t be a bonehead like me and leave one of your Corbeau GT4 racing seats anywhere near your workspace (it’s OK, I’ve been meaning to get them detailed anyway in preparation for replacing Grimm’s bench seat with a pair of GT4 buckets with 5-Point belts).

Lastly, find a comfy chair because you’ll be doing a lot of shooting at Boomershoot. I’ve got 1000rnds and am wondering if it’ll be enough.

PS: Gun Porn tomorrow