Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting For all you western hunters

Just wanting advice on what you folks are most likely using as shooting rest when hunting in the field? I will be taking my 1st ever western mule deer hunt in the future and am curious if folks shoot off bipods or sticks ... or do you mostly shoot off your packs you’re carrying? I’m accustomed to shooting off a bipod attached to my coyote rifle when hunting in Illinois but I’m not sure I want something extra attached to my rifle for my mule deer hunt. Curious what works best for everyone. I have lots of time to practice but I want to figure out a game plan and run with it.

homemade sticks. I don't leave home without them....

Primos Trigger Sticks. Use The Mono Pod and the Tri Pod Versions.

I mostly use the Primos Trigger Stix tripods. Most recently, the shorter version gets the most use, as most of my shots are taken from a sitting or kneeling position. The Stix are a little more useful than items like the Harris Bipod, if you are in country with taller vegetation to shoot over.

Buddy has a set of Javelin bipods. They're really nice, now that they make a longer-leg version I'll be getting a set before Oct.

Lever lock adjustable hiking poles. They are handy for hiking too.


mike r

If you are packing something on the rifle or in your hand, I would put it on the rifle. A Harris 25S bipod is a lot handier on the rifle than packing something else...

What Shrapnel said...

Harris bipod and my pack are my most used rifle rest.

Sometimes a boulder, stump, log or a tree.

After lugging Bog-Pod shooting sticks for a couple years and this year going to a Harris Bipod 25S, I couldn't agree more.

Nothing.

Practice shooting from sitting and kneeling as well as prone. The real truth is that I have killed about 75% of my big game game in the last 55 years shooting off-hand.

If you want to become a better game shot use the "5 inch paper plate drill". (My own drill ---- and my own name)

Take 5" party paper plates and staple them to a stick, like a large lollipop.
Shoot at them from various positions and at various ranges and angles. The range you can hit the plate 4 times out of 5 and NO LESS is the range you should shoot at game, from that position, with that weapon.

If you hit only 3 of 5, get better or move closer.

A paper plate on a stick makes it difficult to adjust for misses because it's harder to see where you missed. The idea is to NOT be easy and to force yourself to become a better marksman. Use it for rifles with irons, scopes and peep sights, handguns, shotguns with slugs and even bows and arrows.

The problem with many if not most hunters today is that they are trying to buy a gizmo or gadget to make them a better marksman. Such things may make a hit easier at times and I do not dispute that. But it's parallel to trying to bench press 400 pounds and letting 2 friend lift the ends of the weight for you every time. You are NOT going to get stronger .........ever!
If you use gizmos and gadgets to shoot with, from a bench rest to cross sticks to bi-pods to any other thing, you will not become a better marksman.......ever.

Does that mean you should not use supports in the field?
NO!
I do ------- when I have something to lean on or rest over.

But many if not most times, you don't.

Carrying do-dads cripples you over time. Its just like always having to take your friends to the gym to lift weights. #1 they are unhandy and #2 they are often slow to get into use, and add bulk and weight you would be better off not having to deal with.

Learning good field marksmanship is the practice of learning the basics of marksmanship until they are 2nd nature to you. If and when you can use a support, do so. There are trees, rocks, logs, dirt banks, brush and all sorts of things in the field that you can use, and you should practice using them. But 75% of your practice should be from the 4 basic shooting positions (sitting kneeling standing and prone) with angles up and down incorporated into the drills.

Do that until you can do 4 out of 5 on those 5" plates and you'll find you don't ever loose a deer which has a kill zone about 2.5X that large.

When you can throw down over the day pack you carry and make 4 out of 5 on a 5" target at 350 to 400 yards you will see that a deer at 550 or 600 is not hard at all. Hold overs and hold offs are something you learn as you do these drills. And at ranges that are by far the norm (50 to 250) hits on a deer's chest are REAL easy when you've become good at the drill I describe here.

But in 100% opposition to the marketeers of today, I will say with no apologies that in hunting (and fighting) the equation is always 98% about the man and 2% about his tools.

Don't think you can buy a good shot. You have to make a good shot.


Lastly the best pointer I can give you is to not ignore your misses. In fact, it's the misses that teach you what to correct. NOT the hits.

Use the 5 inch party plate drills and you'll be glad you did.
It is a drill that REALLY will teaches you and raise your skills and it's YOU that will bring home the venison, not sticks pods sky poles and other such do-dads. It's ON YOU!

If you do this for a few weeks and dedicate yourself to learning from your misses you will find that killing a mule deer is no big trick.

Nothing there is to many natural rests or my pack.

Szihn,

When you have something to say.....you say it well. Been wondering where you have been.?

I use my pack, but I have issues!

Thanks Doc.

Makes sense to me.

usually off pack and prone. sometimes carry trigger sticks or similar folding bipod

For a rest, I use my pack. But most of my shots are taken from sitting with a shooting sling like a CW sling or some sort of Ching Sling. The trick is to practice under different conditions and see at what ranges you can make hits from standing, sitting w/ a shooting sling, and, finally shooting from some sort of rest. For the record, I've tried a couple of bipods, and the homemade "tripod" with sticks. No way I'm putting a bipod on my rifle before I take it in the field. While nice to have when shooting at a distance, assuming the vegetation is not in the way, it is way too awkward and slow when in a hurry under 200 yds. E

I kinda did what szhin did. As in a paper plate test.

Using the primos 3 legged trigger stick I could easily pass, where kneeling free hand I would fail.

Some of the best shooting I ever saw someone do in the field, the shooter had a bi pod mounted on the rifle.

I would imagine a bi pod on the rifle could easily be un attached for riding equines and fitting the firearm in a scabbard.

A good rest makes 4 better shooting!

you use a rifle bi-pod right ? well so do I for callin and out west also for big game works just fine. i also use a custom 257 Weatherby Ruger # 1 with a 4.5-14 x56 nightforce scope and my handloads 100 grain bullet shoots around 3800 fps with a100 grain bullet. you as a coyote hunter know longer distance shots speed helps ! some will argue, some will post negative comments don`t worry they probably don`t kill many animals anyway or have never skinned any stinky coyotes, we kill many coyotes with dogs too in the winter, just built a new 220 swift for fur also. as mentioned above Harris 25 S BI-POD IS BEST