I hold the sticks with my left hand, rest the rifle stock on the sticks, aim, pull the trigger and drop the animal, in that order. . . Works each and every time.

John, see my posts above for the description of two alternative methods. Both have worked well for me.

I've used the Stoney Point collapsible shooting sticks for years. They work pretty good.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/steady_stix.htm

http://www.cabelas.com/prod-1/0005830228073a.shtml

quote:

Originally posted by Wooly ESS:
John, see my posts above for the description of two alternative methods. Both have worked well for me.

Thanks, Wooly - so obviously you use your hand and not the sticks to rest the firearm on.

Right, John. In one case, the forearm rests in my open palm. In the other case, the forearm rests on my thumb hooked over the join. Both work well for me, although I wouldn't want to say that other techniques won't work either.

I just don't feel comfortable resting the wood of the forearm on the wood of the sticks.

Here's the sticks we used, belong to PH Geoff Wainwright.

I noticed that the Harry Selby video on Versus Network used what appeared to be Stoney Point shooting sticks

Natural occuring shooting sticks[URL= ]a[/URL]

There are many different types of shooting sticks on the market. You can make a set yourself, buy a set for $30 or order some that we make that start at just over $200 and go up from there...custom made and go through over 100 steps before completion...connector milled on a cnc machine, choice of 7 diff exotic woods, cape buff or zebra tops, custom made to your height, etc. www.sportwc.com

Here is a photo of a home-made set of shooting sticks that I used for practice, and a short video clip of the same sticks in use.


I have been hesitant to show the following video clip as it highlights the difficulty of being director and leading actor when your camera person doesn't have a intuitive feeling for when the action is over. But it does illustrate shooting sticks in action, and how they react to recoil!

Love the video! Thanks for going to the trouble for those of us who are new to shooting off sticks. I will, hopefully, be shooting off mine in South Africa in less than two weeks!

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
Here's pics of the tripod. I have also made a bipod as well. Both work very well. I chose to wrap the tops with a bicycle inner tube to protect the rifles.

How did you secure the inner tube to the sticks? I like the way you did that.

I made a set of sticks out of poplar but the ones I made are too light, I have to get slightly bigger poplars and also I did not make them tall enough. I am 6'3" and I only made my sticks 6' long. I found I had to bend too much and couldn't get comfortable because of that.

I also used leather lace to tie them together and that doesn't work so good. I will use rubber inner tube or vacuum band next set I make.



Here's what mine look like...