One of the oddly positive sideeffects of having COVID again is that staying away from people is somewhat encouraged. That gives me an opportunity to wrap up with a few things that I have been meaning to write for a while. As is always the case, the plan is to do a video later as well, but writing is faster, so at least I can get some information to you.
With my studio in complete disarray after the flood and the wind making sound recording tricky outdoors, making videos is a little more involved than it used to be.
Since I have been preparing for hunting season for a little while, my focus has been, to a significant degree, on lightweight gear. However, it is sometimes nice to take a detour and focus on simply looking for precision. In one of the recent livestreams I joined (by SlavGuns), the subject of intro-to-precision optics came up and I opined that if I were starting out with a basic rpecision setup, I'd be looking at Vortex Venom or Element Helix FFP. I'll talk about the Venom separately, but as I was talking I realized that I still ahve the Venom here, so I dug it up and decided to go do some shooting. It was zeroed a couple of years ago and I simply wanted to see if it has remained zeroed. The rifle it is on ended up crash landing on the concrete floor of my garage as I was shuffling things around a couple of times. I was not particularly concerned about the scope shifting zero, but spring loaded QD mounts are notorious for this kind of stuff. They really do not like side impact. Well, I am happy to report that the Burris XTR one piece mount stayed zeroed just fine and once I pulled the rifle out, I decided to give you an update on the GRS bipod I was shooting off of.
Before you read further, this bipod is neither cheap nor light. Together with the picatinny spigot adapter it tips the scale at a bit over two pounds and costs a bit over $500.
https://bit.ly/3Qiklkw and https://bit.ly/3rRsxik
You can also by the spigot only if you have GRS Bifrost stock. https://bit.ly/46uq7Fv
I suppose you can say that price and weight are negatives for this bipod. The other negative is that on some picatinny rails, it will not work. You need to have crosslots go all the way to the fron of the rail, so on my Fix, for example, I can not use this bipod in the top mounted configuration.
It works fine if I reconfigure the adaptor to mount on the bottom of the handguard.
Also, while you can adjust for tilt, the bipod does not have a panning feature.
That's pretty much a wrap for the negatives.
Let's move onto the positives, then.
In the top mounted configuration (which is why I got it). This bipod is stupid sturdy. The geometry helps (top mounted bipods are generally sturdier).
The rifle it is currently on is not a particularly heavy kciker, but I have tried it on a few. It is seriously sturdy. Everything in this bipod is either aluminum or steel.
The feet are reversible with a flat smooth surface or clawed feet. I shoot of of a concrete bench fairly regularly, so I wrapped the smooth side with a little electrical tape to avoid metal on concerete contact.
So far, tripod feet have been very secure on any surface I have tried to date. The legs extend and there are notches that help with granularity.
Splay angle is not adjustable, but forward angle is. You can set the legs at 90, 68 and 34 degrees, in addition to fully folded parallel to the barrel.
In every position, the legs are extremely secure. I've had the rifle index on the barricade using the legs (one or both), load it against a variety of surfaces and it was always sturdy and secure.
Beyond this, I really do not know what else to add. When something is wrong, I can always offer a lto of commentary. However, when the bloody thing just works no matter what I throw at it, there really isn't much I can say that does not sound like a sales pitch.
It is not a bipod I would take hunting simply because of weight. However, I have a long running heavy precision rifle project that will eventually get completed. The GRS bipod is going to go on that. Until then, it will stay on the large frame AR you see in these pictures.
