Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Making Long-Grass style take-down oak shooting sticks (pics)

Look closely at Lowes. The pieces you want are copper repair sections. They are designed to fit inside/outside of cooper pipe to fix ruptures or cuts.

that makes perfect sense ^^^

Docbill: Thanks for the info. Home Depot does not carry the repair sections anymore.

I bought all the items at Lowes except the Vacuum cleaner belt. I bought the belt at a Vacuum repair store.(The total belt length was 12 inches long. Eur/Sanit Uprt 20-3205-07 ) Lowes and Home Depot only sell the flat belts. The copper repair pipe 5/8 inside diameter came in 12� lengths. They also had them in 12� lengths at Home Depot but the dowels at Home Depot weren�t strait so I purchased everything at Lowes. I made them 5'10" total length(my height)and made the center dowel 5 1/2" shorter. They fit me perfect. I added some Zebra skin instead of wrapping them with tape. I also used some rubber caps on the bottom. I bought them at Ace hardware. No need to glue them they fit tight. I did use the copper caps on top and glued them on with JB Weld. I also marked one end of the dowel at 6 inches with a permanent marker so the tubing was always centered when they were put together. I deburred the inside of the copper tubing and they slide on much better.(6" because that was half of my copper tubing length)













[img]http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp107/slider11111/Shooting%20Sticks/181of1.jpg[/img]

Nice set up - looks like ya'll took your time on these. I appreciate all the details, going to start on my own after this weekend!

Very nice ideas and workmanship. Now my 2 question are: why do you keep one of the protruding legs shorter? If all three stuck up equally, couldn't you shift rifle positions easier? Also, I'm assuming the vacuum belt is moveable so as to shift the tripod legs as need be, as in the case of uneven ground.
Its a classy option instead of something coming from China.

One leg has to be shorter to give you room to move side to side in case the animal moves. The belt stretches a little to allow you to open and close the legs.

Nice sticks, thanks for posting

I'm bumping this thread just to be subscribed to it for future reference. I intend to try making both of those styles.

Thanks for the bump....I need to make a set for my trip and wondered how I would find this thread! Thanks!

Great DIY! Even if its a few years old, its new to me.

ah, I remember that thread....

The bamboo set finally split (after 8 years)

bump

Wow,
Thanks for posting this. I just got back from Lowe's and an hour later I had the finished product and all for 48.95. Just tried them out on the back porch. Work Like a champ!!!We will be bringing these with us to SA in June for sure!!!

Bamboo can be done for cheapie cheap. Instead of black tape, use tennis racket grip "tape"

I'm surprised no one has yet insisted on blue tape...

I made a set of these based on the OP's concept - but modified by necessity as I couldn't find the copper pipe, so......

I used regular 1/2" copper couplings that have the small indentation at the mid-point that you shove the copper pipes up to to center the joint.

I used the double ended 1/4" x 2" furniture screws to join the two sections of dowel together by drilling pilot holes in the ends of the dowels and epoxied the screws into the dowel used for the lower half.

I slightly beveled the two ends of the dowel joints to fit just past the copper coupler centering ring to make sure the dowel faces would have full contact with each other.

Slipped the copper fitting over the end of the bottom dowel and "pinned" it to the bottom dowel with a centering punch. This way the copper fitting stays attached to the lower section of dowel when I take them apart. My hope has been the copper coupler would provide enough support to keep the screws from breaking out of the dowels - so far so good.

I adjusted the height of the assembled sticks by cutting from the bottoms of the bottom dowel sections and I used 1/2" rubber feet for canes instead of the copper caps.

Finish was simply rubbed on a couple of coats of mahogany tinted furniture wax with some fine steel-wool.

With this set up I have a full size (standing) sticks and I can unscrew the bottom sections, pull off the rubber feet and put them on the bottom of the top sections and use the same set of sticks for sitting/shooting from a ground blind.