This might be a little long winded so please bear with me. It pertains to the bipod that I use on my M14S, a Harris 9-13 with swivel (HBLMS, I believe?). The reason I didn't put this in Main Battle Rifles is it is more precision/accuracy related. I can have it moved if the consensus is that's better?
So after years of shooting, I realized that I was not putting the butt stock into my proper "shoulder pocket", instead the upper portion of the butt was on my collar bone. I occasionally got a little bruising on my shoulder but with a relatively heavy rifle like a M14, shooting 168gr with a muzzle brake, it never really bothered me. Accuracy was good (sub 1.5 MOA, often slightly sub MOA). I only realized when I got a 20" barrelled Rem 700 .308 and started shooting pretty stout loads with 178s with no muzzle brake. Anyways, I did a lot of reading/googling etc and came to find that I had been "doing it wrong" for years. No big deal with the bolt gun, the versa-pod I use with it allows me to get lower and in the proper position. The higher Harris doesn't allow me to do that without at least slightly propping myself up and hence being less stable and shooting worse (which I witnessed yesterday). I don't want to use the versa-pod with the M14 as it's significantly heavier and I do like to shoot it offhand. The easy answer is to just get the shorter Harris (which I think I will do) but I was curious what I am actually giving up (other than some bruising) by keeping the longer bipod? My recoil control is good and the extra height of the longer bipod is practical at my range as the targets past 200 yards start getting quite elevated. Thanks for any and all help/opinions
So after years of shooting, I realized that I was not putting the butt stock into my proper "shoulder pocket", instead the upper portion of the butt was on my collar bone. I occasionally got a little bruising on my shoulder but with a relatively heavy rifle like a M14, shooting 168gr with a muzzle brake, it never really bothered me. Accuracy was good (sub 1.5 MOA, often slightly sub MOA). I only realized when I got a 20" barrelled Rem 700 .308 and started shooting pretty stout loads with 178s with no muzzle brake. Anyways, I did a lot of reading/googling etc and came to find that I had been "doing it wrong" for years. No big deal with the bolt gun, the versa-pod I use with it allows me to get lower and in the proper position. The higher Harris doesn't allow me to do that without at least slightly propping myself up and hence being less stable and shooting worse (which I witnessed yesterday). I don't want to use the versa-pod with the M14 as it's significantly heavier and I do like to shoot it offhand. The easy answer is to just get the shorter Harris (which I think I will do) but I was curious what I am actually giving up (other than some bruising) by keeping the longer bipod? My recoil control is good and the extra height of the longer bipod is practical at my range as the targets past 200 yards start getting quite elevated. Thanks for any and all help/opinions
