I went from the Stoney Point staff with a "V" to the Stoney Point bi-pod staff with a folding "V" but never found a good platform. Before I went to Maine, I bought a Cabelas Tripod that has a shooting shelf and a camer attachment. The bipod has the third leg attached directly to the same platform as the other two, but it will swivel. It's a bit bulky to use as a walking staff but a bit of Velcro seems to have fixed the part with the legs clanging.

I first used them in Africa and will use off and on depending on need now. My PH taught me how to make the "high tech" models; three saplings with a fan belt or string lashing.

Hmmm, never used one with a handgun. Do you rest your hand, barrel or what?
Peter.

I always use them in Africa where they're traditional for rifle hunters and an absolute necessity for those long shots on the almost treeless veld. If there's time to use them, I do, is the bottom line.

I own two sets:
-- one a plastic set with retractable legs - this set is very convenient for travel and the retractable legs permit adjustment for every conceivable shooting position.

-- the other set are traditional African shooting sticks that I bought from Longrass. They are my favorites, although they can only be used either full length or half-length.

Big bore handguns are much more sensitive to the construction of shooting sticks than are rifles, because you have so little fore end weight and so much more muzzle jump. For that reason, I always travel with my own sticks, so that I know exactly what I'm dealing with and am practiced with the sticks I use for shots that truly count. Stay away from both bipods and metal sticks -- they're like trying to shoot off a trampoline when you're using a handgun with heavy recoil.

I have a set of Stoney Point with the Y. I use them as walking sticks, as well as shooting sticks.

I rest the frame of the gun on the Y, just in front of the trigger guard.

With the excessive cylinder and forcing cone fire, I suppose some learn the hard way about resting the gun on its frame instead of the barrel, but I never learned to shoot like that. I use them to rest my forearm/wrist on. I don't know what you'd call that as it's certainly not freehand nor rested. Halfassed, like me, I suppose.

Audrey Murtland can tell firsthand about the barrel cylinder gap fire. She lost part of a finger from that very thing.

I was using shooting sticks with Contenders in Africa, so this was not a consideration. For years, my favorite deer stand had a tree with a fork at the optimum height to use as a shooting rest. Worked great until the fork got too high.

quote:

Originally posted by MS Hitman: For years, my favorite deer stand had a tree with a fork at the optimum height to use as a shooting rest. Worked great until the fork got too high.

Time to raise the seat.....

LOL Hitman. I had that same kind of perfect tree. But the limbs didn't grow higher, it was my body that shrunk with old age. Like Whitworth said, I got a higher seat. LOL

Ha ha, I'd have been using the bar stool at the end.

quote:

Originally posted by MS Hitman:
Ha ha, I'd have been using the bar stool at the end.

Phone books?

I lived for about 40 yrs in and around El Paso, Texas, and Southern New Mexico, and did a lot of handgun hunting in the fairly open high desert mountains of west Texas, and all of New Mexico.

In the spring the Yuccas bloom, and a single shhaft comes up from the middle of that plant with a large cluster of big blooms on it. If this shoot is cut at the point where it come out of the main plant,while green, stripped of it's bloom, and placed in you attic, where it will stay very hot all summer, it will be as strong as steel, but as light as balsum wood, and about 6 feet long. These make a fine walking staff, and are a real value as a steady rest for the handgun hunter, as well.

I hold the staff with my left hand (I' right handed), and stick my left thumb out 90 Deg in relation to the shaft, Hold the handgun with my right hand, and rest my right hand on the left thumb. I have taken mule deer at over 150 yds with a 41 mag Ruger Blackhawk, and T/C Contenders chambered for 30-30 at over 250 yds. The Yucca shafts will last you a life time, and are real CHEAP to buy!