First a clear statement. I am definitely NOT a benchrest air rifle shooter. More’s to the point, I am not a competitive shooter in any way. However, I do find it interesting to watch and try to understand what makes for success in airgun shooting competitions.
This post results from attending 2024’s Extreme Benchrest and thinking about what I saw there…
It’s clear that many people get very excited about what constitutes the “best” air rifle for benchrest competition. For years this was FX, but now Scout and the Red Panda have challenged that. Daystate has always been a player too, of course.
Then, at EBR 2024, suddenly the American Air Arms EVOL was the winner, with a Thomas in second place. Interesting!
A fair number of folk also take a big interest in what types of pellets are being used. Of course – as with the guns – these preferences are constantly changing as new products enter the market and fashions change.
Over the course of time, it seems to me that there’s been more interest in barrels. The recent appearance of SubMOA has caused a flurry of interest in this area. Of course the EBR-winning EVOL was fitted with a barrel from that manufacturer.
To me, there’s surprisingly little interest taken in optics. Riflescopes are a critical part of on-target accuracy, of course, but there seems to be less emotion and hype about them than there is with the guns. Sure, people know about Sightron, Hawke, March and other leading brands. But the excitement around scopes seems to be less.
However, there’s one aspect of benchrest shooting about which there seems to be extremely little discussion. There’s also a wide variety of choices and I – for one – am completely ignorant about the pros and cons for each type, let alone the products of individual manufacturers.
This is rifle rests and supports for benchrest shooting.
The purpose of this post is to encourage a discussion about the best techniques and equipment for benchrest air rifle competition. I hope that HAM Community members will help to educate me, and possibly other shooters interested in entering this discipline!
So, what did I see at EBR 2024? I saw benchrest competitions with a huge range of support options.
For example, let’s take two superlative airgun competitors….
First place winner (for the second time) Claudio Flores used a simple bipod at the front end.
He had an even more simple bag support at the rear. Nothing else. This seems to me to be a remarkably “flexible” approach.
In comparison, second place finisher (and previous EBR winner) Jeffrey Hernandez used a hugely complicated-looking front support that looked like it must weigh a ton.
He also used a very substantial-looking rear rest. Both appeared to be micro-adjustable. My opinion is that this was a definite “bolt it down” operation!
Now there was only 2 points separating the scores of these two great competitors in the 2024 EBR finals. So both approaches obviously work about equally well. But why?
Then again I saw some people using a simple bipod front rest combined with a highly-sophisticated rear support.
Others use a substantial, micro-adjustable front rest with just a bag at the rear.
I even saw what looked like a one-piece mount where front and rear supports were joined by a rail.
So that raises another question. What’s the most important support for benchrest shooting. The one at the front or at the back?
And who are the companies manufacturing this stuff? Where do you buy it?
Finally, there’s the question of additional shooting weights that are attached to the gun for benchrest competition.
Again, Jeffrey had them, Claudio did not. Don’t get me started on this one too…
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