I had finally come around to the idea of using a vertical foregrip instead of a magwell hold (turns out it really is faster, and I burned a finger on the delta ring during some volume training this summer).
I also like a light on my gun. And why not put a bipod on? After all, they're handy out past about 300 yards and a lot of the 3-gun hot shots are using them.
This all looked like a lot of money, weight and bulk - until I found the Fab Defense T-POD with integral light.
You can see the vfg/bipod operation here: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=N6FJl8pmzro , and the light is just a push-button 100-lumen light.
It worked well enough - I could deploy the bipod quickly with a slap on the activation buttons, and collapse it into a vfg almost as quickly using any surface to push the bipod legs back in. The light wasn't a surefire, but it worked well enough - most of the time, see below - and would be good enough for a darkened shoot house.
Here's a quick pic:
Notice the tools in the background. Why would I have tools out?
Because the damned thing just broke while I was putting it away. It's been used for one shoot and enough practise to get comfortable with it.
Notice the kinked spring:
Nothing lasts forever. Did I just get a rare lemon?
In the next picture you'll see the spring and guiderod. The guiderod is supposed to be pressed into the body of the unit and remain stationary as the leg moves in and out. In my case, the guiderod fell out, allowing the spring to kink.
Why did it fall out? Because it's pressed about 1/16" into plastic, with no positive retention, not even knurling. I popped the second one out by hand with almost no resistance. Every time you put your gun down hard on the bipod, those little rods will want to move in and eventually exit their mooring.
Conclusion: nice toy. Don't bet your life on it. Or a competitive match.
Is the light really waterproof as claimed?
In a word, no. The light is activated by a pushbutton at the back - visible in the first pic. This attaches to a small rod that travels through the mount and pushes on a nylon cup. The cup holds an aluminum slug that, when pushed forward, completes the electrical circuit to turn the light on. It works "okay": often the connection is weak and the light dim until you push again, harder. You have to push pretty hard to keep the connection going.
The light proper has o-rings on the body to keep water out - but the `small rod` mentioned above has no water-repelling features. After a day in the rain some water got into the light body, behind the nylon cup, having travelled along the `small rod`. It`s a close-tolerance cup, so the water got no further - but nylon is hygroscopic (it absorbs water, albeit gradually). The day after the rain, the cup had swelled enough - about .017`` - to jam up. Full disassembly followed by several days of drying over a mild heat source shrunk the cup to its original size, and everything worked fine again. But it should have worked fine without that, given that it is sold as `waterproof`.
I've just emailed Fab Defense looking for a replacement. If I get one, it goes up on eBay. If not, one more lump of plastic and metal for the scrap bin. Update: no reply to two emails.
I am now in the market for a nice vfg/led-light combination. The bipod can wait; I do just fine off of my elbows out to a good distance.
I also like a light on my gun. And why not put a bipod on? After all, they're handy out past about 300 yards and a lot of the 3-gun hot shots are using them.
This all looked like a lot of money, weight and bulk - until I found the Fab Defense T-POD with integral light.
You can see the vfg/bipod operation here: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=N6FJl8pmzro , and the light is just a push-button 100-lumen light.
It worked well enough - I could deploy the bipod quickly with a slap on the activation buttons, and collapse it into a vfg almost as quickly using any surface to push the bipod legs back in. The light wasn't a surefire, but it worked well enough - most of the time, see below - and would be good enough for a darkened shoot house.
Here's a quick pic:
Notice the tools in the background. Why would I have tools out?
Because the damned thing just broke while I was putting it away. It's been used for one shoot and enough practise to get comfortable with it.
Notice the kinked spring:
Nothing lasts forever. Did I just get a rare lemon?
In the next picture you'll see the spring and guiderod. The guiderod is supposed to be pressed into the body of the unit and remain stationary as the leg moves in and out. In my case, the guiderod fell out, allowing the spring to kink.
Why did it fall out? Because it's pressed about 1/16" into plastic, with no positive retention, not even knurling. I popped the second one out by hand with almost no resistance. Every time you put your gun down hard on the bipod, those little rods will want to move in and eventually exit their mooring.
Conclusion: nice toy. Don't bet your life on it. Or a competitive match.
Is the light really waterproof as claimed?
In a word, no. The light is activated by a pushbutton at the back - visible in the first pic. This attaches to a small rod that travels through the mount and pushes on a nylon cup. The cup holds an aluminum slug that, when pushed forward, completes the electrical circuit to turn the light on. It works "okay": often the connection is weak and the light dim until you push again, harder. You have to push pretty hard to keep the connection going.
The light proper has o-rings on the body to keep water out - but the `small rod` mentioned above has no water-repelling features. After a day in the rain some water got into the light body, behind the nylon cup, having travelled along the `small rod`. It`s a close-tolerance cup, so the water got no further - but nylon is hygroscopic (it absorbs water, albeit gradually). The day after the rain, the cup had swelled enough - about .017`` - to jam up. Full disassembly followed by several days of drying over a mild heat source shrunk the cup to its original size, and everything worked fine again. But it should have worked fine without that, given that it is sold as `waterproof`.
I've just emailed Fab Defense looking for a replacement. If I get one, it goes up on eBay. If not, one more lump of plastic and metal for the scrap bin. Update: no reply to two emails.
I am now in the market for a nice vfg/led-light combination. The bipod can wait; I do just fine off of my elbows out to a good distance.
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