I hate to admit this to you all, since you'll probably be somewhat disappointed in me for it: I've rarely ever shot off a truly steady platform, even while sighting in and practicing. It's not that my shooting rests, whether manufactured or improvised, were unsteady. No, it was the table I shot off of.



This somewhat rickety old porch table has been my makeshift shooting table since even before I started hunting. Although with proper bracing it was somewhat usable as a shooting table, it was never ideal. The only reason I continued to use it for so long was, well, it's all we really had, and for most of our shooting, it was merely adequate.



Well, that's changed.

This year, I decided I was going to overhaul my entire shooting system for both my pistols and rifles. I've built a custom Encore pistol barrel - the 221 Fireball - to allow me to shoot an accurate, yet cheap to reload round. I've mounted a new Leupold 6.5-20x scope on my Weatherby Vanguard 270, which is about to have its creepy, heavy trigger replaced with a Timney trigger. I'll soon take possession of a new handgun rest to replace the backpack and pillow method I've been using as a handgun rest. But, while doing all of this, I realized that none of it would matter if I didn't have a solid table to shoot off of. Rather than pay for an expensive manufactured table that may or may not be what I need, I decided to design and build one of my own. With guidance from my uncle - a carpenter - I bought some treated lumber 2x4s, 4x4s, and 2x8s and constructed this shooting table:



Here's a picture (admittedly a poor one) taken prior to adding the 2x8s:


True, it's probably over designed for what I need, and it sure isn't pretty, but it's solid as a rock and cost me less than half as much in raw materials as some of the shooting tables I've seen for sale online. Even though I haven't shot off of it yet, one thing's for certain: this is a far superior shooting table to what I had been using.

Can't wait to try shooting off of this.