country1

I have never used them and never will for the obvious reasons. First, shooting from a solid rest where the butt of the stock is not against your shoulder the POI is going to be different than when the butt of the stock is against your shoulder. Second, when there is no give at the butt of the stock of a long gun under recoil, this puts stress on the stock. Repeated or excessive stress will damage the stock at some point if enough shots are fired. You get the right vibration going through a bridge, and the bridge will eventually collapse -you can verify that with engineers. I have read more than one article (not Internet forum posts) warning about cracked stocks using this type of bench rest. If a periodical warns you about a product causing potential damage take note as they do not like giving the negatives about a product that has or may advertise in their magazine. I have also read posts on the Internet regarding how a long gun developed a cracked stock; and yes, they have used these types of bench rests. Ask the people who buy a used long gun at a gun show and later discover the stock is cracked. I would not be surprised if these cracks are from shooting from these types of bench rests.

It is your money, so you can do as you choose. For me, my long guns will never see them; and I will not recommend them to others.

Centaur 1

gmil6184, have you had a chance to try out the new rest?

Topgun 3006

country1---Good post and spot on! If anybody has a rifle that has enough recoil that it hurts to shoot it from the bench off their shoulder, there is only one comment I can make and that is to get rid of the friggin thing and go down to something smaller that you can handle. A cradle or bags to hold the gun steady is one thing. To put one with significant recoil in anything that doesn't give with the shot, whether the whole thing goes backwards or has a spring that takes the recoil like the shoulder would, is flat out asking for trouble. One guy on another site said he had a lead sled loaded with umpteen pounds of weights and was using it for a .338 mag. He couldn't understand why he was shearing ring screws every 10 or 20 shots! It's a wonder his scope didn't fly apart too, but for the fact that it was an expensive Leupold that I like. Even at that, I told him the scope would probably be next if he kept that up!

liquidorange

the solo is on my list to get.been using the original style sled for years. its a great tool! it will take quite a bit of recoil off without using weight bags and will still recoil enough to feel but get you through longer sessions without getting all beat up. when shooting heavy recoil guns like slug guns and rifles like my 338 i try to set up so im sitting at the table comfortably square and shouldering the gun 90 degrees.works great and no damage to stock-gun or scope in years of use. you can fine tune your set up with a tweek of the spinner dial. much better than any sand bag. i believe people waste ammo and complain about accuracy in there guns because they cant get a good enough comfortable rest for a long session at the range.

gmil6184

Hey all - thanks again for all the feedback. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I hope to this weekend. Gonna start with my Remington Model 5 .22 lr. The soon to be father in law wants to shoot his 7mm - 08 with it too. I will let you know what I think of it.

gmil6184

Hey everyone, got a chance to use the new lead sled. First impressions are pretty positive. Shot mostly with my .22 and was able to get groups at 50 yards which were basically one ragged hole. Even out to 100 yards I was able to get some pretty impressive groups (for a .22). Also shot a 7mm08, .308 and even 12 gauge slug gun. Sled def takes a lot of the bite out of the bigger rifles and shotgun. I bought a large weight bag but did not have a chance to fill it with sand. Even without the sand I was impressed with how stable the sled was and I am sure with the sand bag added it would be even more stable. All in all I was fairly impressed. If I had one criticism it would be that the front v shaped rest (where the forearm of the firearm goes) was surprisingly hard. I think I would have made it out of a little softer material, but that nit picking.