New Davies F/TR Bipod

[Christel]

How things are made and what they are made of is information that is always welcome in my neck of the woods. The weight of a bipod is also very important, in fact keeping it under a kilo is essential if you ask me. It is all well and good to say that one will reduce weight elsewhere but one has to start somewhere and if the bipod is weighing a lot then one starts to struggle. I am all for buying things made in the country one lives in however why compromise if there is a better product elsewhere, after all it is one's shooting and results one is playing with. Just my two cents

[Southcape]

Well I use a Davies, and I am extremely hapy with my results. The rifle comes in under weight. No issues for me.



Now Adam, I know you are always up for a challenge.....









can you make me a pod that can read wind..... hehe

[Christel]

Linda, very topical!
I am attending a wind reading course at Bisley end of Sep. Just trying to get my head around it.

Do you think having an Eliseo stock helps keeping the weight down?
Do you know how much it weighs?

Just wondering because frankly a bipod more than a kilo is heavy in my eyes.
With my stock and scope I need the bipod as light as possible.
Good glass equal heavy scope unless one has a lot of money to spend. I have an IOR sitting on top of my rifle.

[Southcape]

I use a heavy scope. Nightforce NXS

Adam has gone for the same weight range as the popular Sinclair bipod.

Adam has done an outstanding job, at answering the call for a lighter weight version of his standard bipod for those keen to develop F/TR in AU. Even if he made it 1kg, he would still be coping flack from those that want it lighter. Some people cannot be pleased.

No need to tell the guy his bipod is not good enough, just because it doesn't met your weight range. Go and buy something else. There are plenty of other options on the market.

[Guest]

It's OK Linda, im off to the shed to make one at 999 grams
The same happens with triggers, when you advertise 10oz, they want 8, its just the way it is.

Christel, what bipod are you using? could you post a pic?

[Woody_rod]

The Eliseo as Linda is using it weighs 2.2 kilos bare. The whole thing comes in just under 8,2 kilos with that fat NF 8x32x56 on it. Intersting to note the March 10-60 I borrowed for my FO rifle is lighter/smaller than the NF.

With typical barreled actions weighing between 4 and 4.2 kilos (with medium palma profile barrel), there is not much room to move in F/TR. This for me, is part of the fascination of the category.

Using a light stock is one way of getting more weight spare for barrels and scopes, but then there can be balance issues.

[Ovenpaa]

Christel, what bipod are you using? could you post a pic?

Christel uses a modified FITO at the moment as I have not finished building the replacement. Goal for me is 800 grams, this is light but out of necessity as she shoots an F Open rifle and prefers bipods to front rests so her bipod has to be as skinny as possible to compensate for the all up weight. As Rod says, this is all part of the challenge.

[Guest]

This one? http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r8gIGdKGAHw/T ... 00/web.jpg

[Ovenpaa]

It is the older version of that one Adam. I see they still have not implemented a means of coarse adjustment which is one of the issues of so many F/TR bipods. You can also see on this one that they really working to get that weight down which is not always a good thing as there will come a point where things start to fail be it stress cracking or something else.

My view is if you can build a bipod under one kg, with coarse/fine adjustment, has decent cant control, gives decent tracking and is robust enough to cope with extremes of temperature at a sensible price then you have cracked it.

For me the huge advantage of a light functional bipod is cost. Keeping weight down on an F/TR is going to cost something, it could be MV and it could equally be an extra GBP1000 to fit a March instead of a Nightforce.

[Guest]

On second glance your right, the bar through the middle is not an adjustment as I first thought, more of a stabilizer I guess.. I dont know how people get on without adjustment up front, Personally I would be frustrated without any mechanical means of adjusting height

[Ovenpaa]

On second glance your right, the bar through the middle is not an adjustment as I first thought, more of a stabilizer I guess.. I dont know how people get on without adjustment up front, Personally I would be frustrated without any mechanical means of adjusting height

If the old one is anything to go by that is an adjuster and the knurled section is the adjusting knob, great for fine adjustment but getting your initial elevation set can take for ever plus the screw used to be stainless so quite heavy, reducing the diameter of the thread will invariably increase the pitch so even more twiddling to get your elevation. Also I prefer slightly longer and wider ski feet.

I see this one uses bicycle quick release skewers for controlling cant which is a nice touch and one I have on mine, they are light and offer a good weight reduction and machining time.

[Guest]

My mistake, difficult to see a thread in the picture.

[Brad Y]

My davies bipod arrived yesterday. Very happy with it, seems to be well built and very sturdy. Will have to give it a run this weekend.

Thanks Adam for all your help.

[Southcape]

This is Neil Kock, F/TR winner of the South African Open Championships 2012
Note the Australian made bipod!

The range is Bloemfontein SA.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/wooden/Neil_Kock.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">