advise in bench rest shooting

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Topic: advise in bench rest shooting
Posted: February 21 2026 at 7:28pm

he!!o, seeking advise how to you bench to zero in your rifle , I can bench shoot at 100, 200 & 400 yards,

do you use a sand bags or a machine , please advise, i am a pistol shooter seeking a new avenue

rojo

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Posted: February 21 2026 at 7:43pm

I use an adjustable rest with its own sandbag & a "Bunny Ears" rear bag I got with it. You do NOT need the super duper super pricey high end units, anything well made is all.

Caldwel make some nice ones.

https://www.caldwellshooting.com/rests/

You can use just a sandbag on a suitable riser, like an ammo can & another under the stock though.

You do NOT hold the rifle "Normally".

The front bag is under the front wood about where your hand would be when shooting normally.

The trigger hand holds the stock wrist & the pad of the trigger finger rests on the trigger when relaxed.

The off hand does not hold the rifle at all. It bends back at the elbow so the crotch of the thumb & first finger fits under the bottom of the butt stock, & the spread fingers grasp the right shoulder.

If you use a rear bunny ears you grasp the bag & squeeze it for final sighting adjustments, rough adjustments are made with the screw elevator for the front rest.

The sling is not used.

I'd rough zero @ 25 yds, If the rifle is close but no cigar start at 100 yds.

Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)

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Posted: February 22 2026 at 2:40am

^^^^ This ^^^^

You will notice that you don’t sit behind the rifle, you sit on the side of the bench, body faces 90 degrees to the line of fire.

Your left hand (for a right handed shooter) can fine tune the aim by squeezing the sandbag under the butt of the rifle. Once I have good sight alignment, I hold the back of the butt stock between my fingers and thumb of my left hand, just in front of and below the shoulder.

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Posted: February 22 2026 at 2:49am

rojo, I take as much 'me' out of the equation as possible when I'm handloading for accuracy and then establishing that the POI (point of impact) coincides with the POA (point of aim). I always start off with my rifle firmly bedded in a Lead Sled so there is no flinch, muscle fatigue, or old guy shakes affecting the rifle's and the load's accuracy.

Once I have established the rifle/handload combination that provides the most accuracy then I start to shoot the rifle off sandbags, or even unsupported if a match demands it. Remember that many rifles can have a slight change in POI in the transition from Lead Sled to being held when shooting.

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Posted: February 22 2026 at 11:10am

I tried the LED SLED & didn't like it. I went back to the setup shown above. before deciding on your bench kit try them out as its an expensive mistake to pick the wrong type!

Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)

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Posted: February 22 2026 at 11:32am

What I do like about the traditional tripod front rest and rear bag is that recoil is taken in the same way as shooting prone, onto the shoulder and taken by the body. The rifle is essentially supported in the same way between bench rest and prone.

I always set up on the bench such that the fore-end is sitting in the front rest about at the same position the support hand is while shooting prone. There may be some change in POI between bench rest and prone, but doing it this way it is minimized. You don’t want a fully rigid support.

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Posted: February 22 2026 at 11:35am

It took me quite some time to build up good shooting habits. For a long time, I used my left hand to hold the rifle as if I was shooting standing (at the range on a bench). That doesn't do very well. When out hunting in the forests, I try and use a tree to lean onto to steady my body and that does help when there are trees right near me. Buck fever can and does take over sometimes, I start to tremble with anticipation. Practice practice practice....

Castles made of sand slip into the sea.....eventually

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Posted: February 22 2026 at 1:31pm

britrifles wrote:

What I do like about the traditional tripod front rest and rear bag is that recoil is taken in the same way as shooting prone, onto the shoulder and taken by the body. The rifle is essentially supported in the same way between bench rest and prone.

Yes this is my thinking also.

Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)

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Posted: February 23 2026 at 4:15am

You don't need to spend much money to get a decent rest for testing on the bench.

I made a front bag support out of a cooler back for a six pack of beer. With three zip lock plastic bags of sand. One in the bas and two in the top, to allow a slight hollow channel for the rifle. I only support the front with a bag, using my left hand to support the butt in my shoulder. It's good enough for testing ammunition loads, it's not a bench rest rifle.

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice!

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Posted: February 23 2026 at 5:07am

"Load development" and "sighting in" are two different processes requiring different approaches in my opinion. Finding which primer/case/powder/powder quantity/bullet/COAL can be a very lengthy process and the last thing you want to have to worry about is whether a flyer or larger than expected grouping in any specific string was the load or you the shooter. If you do your load development from a Lead Sled or similar rest that takes 'you' out of the equation then you've saved time and money. You know definitively that the load is at fault. I don't worry about POA and POI coinciding yet.

Once you've finished your load development and worked up an accurate handload, now you set up your rifle up at the bench to sight it in. This is when I shoot off a tripod and sandbags and ensure the POA and POI coincide as well as build a range table so I know which setting on the aperture sight matches the ballistics of my load as well as what shooting with my input (fatigue, flinch, shakes, poor eyesight; whatever) does to my accuracy as you will find when shooting from a bench or prone at a meet.

You may find other ways to do the same thing but with the cost of ammo whether you buy commercial or roll your own investing in a Lead Sled soon pays for itself, again in my opinion. Others may hold contrary positions.

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Posted: February 23 2026 at 6:25am

Sapper740 wrote:

"Load development" and "sighting in" are two different processes requiring different approaches in my opinion. Finding which primer/case/powder/powder quantity/bullet/COAL can be a very lengthy process and the last thing you want to have to worry about is whether a flyer or larger than expected grouping in any specific string was the load or you the shooter.

Yes indeed!

Over my years of shooting various forms of “Service Rifles”, my thoughts on load development have evolved somewhat. If it’s a new shooter who may be prone to flinching, the more stable the rifle is held, the better.

My usual procedure for load testing was to fire at least four 10 shot groups off the bench of each load, 40 rounds. This explodes very quickly if you want to test different powders, different charge weights, different primers, different bullets, different cartridge overall lengths. Heck, you can shoot a barrel out just doing load development this way!

The problem when it comes to shooting these old military surplus rifles is we are also dealing with things like bore condition, stock bedding, and a host of other things that can affect accuracy. We shoot one 5 shot group and it’s 1 MOA, great, we call it done! The next 5 shot group might be 4 MOA, what happened?? Is it the rifle, the load, the shooter?

If we are dealing with say a new AR-15 for Service Rifle match shooting, we can probably eliminate the rifle as a cause of poor shooting. With a good AR, just about any safe load should group quite well with an appropriate bullet.

I’m a bit embarrassed to say I shot thousands of rounds, tried 3 different barrels, experimented with different loads to get my T to shoot as it should. No amount of “load development” got me the results I wanted. I may not be out of the woods entirely, but I see some big improvements now that specific rifle and scope issues were remedied. To this, I’ve learned that you should first give an honest evaluation on how well the rifle shoots with ammunition intended for that rifle, or with a load that reasonably replicates the service ammunition. If groups are wild, you probably have a rifle issue.

I’m now a fan of the “ladder test” method. It is a very efficient load development approach. We look for a load that is fairly insensitive to bullet muzzle velocity variations by plotting the mean POI on the target of each load in 0.2 to 0.3 gr increments. I do this with 5 shots of each powder charge, but can be done with just 3 shots.

This is all probably way too much information for someone who just wants to sight the rifle in! And what Zed suggested is entirely suitable for that purpose.

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Posted: February 23 2026 at 10:56am

ive been using sappers method for load development and add a chrono to the mix

i use shammu/brittsrifles method for sight in with a target thats gridded in inches

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Posted: February 24 2026 at 4:11am

I would add, that if you are new to rifle shooting, start with some good factory ammunition.

I would recommend the PPU .303 174 grain bullet is a good place to start. Keep the empty brass for reloading later on.

It will show you how good the rifle is and how good you are. Later on you can work on reloading to get the extra bit of accuracy and regularity.

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice!

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