Built a shooting table

[calvarez]

I got tired of shooting my .50 BMG from flimsy portable tables. Looked around a bit and got a few ideas, then came up with this design. I mostly engineered it as I built it, so I don't have plans or drawings, but happy to answer any questions. Cost is quite low, particularly since I had a lot of the stuff laying around, and I have a plasma, MIG, and metal bandsaw to make it easy. Buying all the hardware, metal, and wood at retail would be around $150 I think. It works great. Putting the seat on the post really made it extremely stable and solid, since the shooter basically becomes ballast.

You can see all of the photos here: http://imgur.com/a/RwGZ2

[shortestbus]

Looks sweet! Great job ! you should use hitch pin for one bolt on each leg make it fold up faster for loading.

[shortestbus]

Opps picture is a little big..

[calvarez]

That had been my original plan, because I'm lazy, but I noticed that tightening the leg nuts even just hand-tight added stability. Could be irrelevant, so I may go ahead and try the pins and see how it goes.

[shortestbus]

Been thinking of building one just like it. love the top.

[Demlockian]

I think your going to need a bigger rifle next time.

[NickP3d]

Maybe try using something like this?

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-qu...-pins/=12n7gln

[Demlockian]

That style of pin is absolutely amazing! We use them on the aircraft here in Kadena and they are a breeze to work with. If they stand up to our abuse I doubt you would ever have an issue with them either.

[joedokes28]

Impressive. Nice rifle as well.

[Cactus Ed]

Seriously cool; nice fab work.

Where do you find to shoot at those distances?

[calvarez]

Thanks for all the comments. As far as the pins, I know they work well, but as noted before, I found that snugging the nuts added some stability. It may not matter under load. It's around a five second process to remove the nut (just hand tight), so even though I'm lazy I'm cool with it for now. I do need to add a hand crank or handle to the seat height ring locking bolt. Once tightened by hand, it can't be removed by hand. I used fine-thread and it seems to lock in place nicely.

The shooting location is just a bit West of Lake Pleasant. There's a bunch of open shooting back there with good backstops, and some long ranges. Also a friend lives near a 600-yard spot in Prescott Valley, between a couple of mountains. If you have a Jeep/RZR, you can reach a lot of good shooting areas.

[calvarez]

Someone on another forum asked, so I figured someone here might care too...


Weight isn't bad at all when it is split up and folded for transportation. The table top and base slide right off the post, and if desired, the base can also be removed from the top with four wing nuts.

I used my luggage scale to weigh the assemblies (in pounds):
Center post with legs: 33
Table with attachment base: 32
Seat assembly: 11

[aribelin]

This is really cool, thanks for sharing. My son is a competitive long range shooter in Utah and his group practices/competes out past 1000 meters. I watched a meet he shot at here in Phoenix, I could barely see the targets with a spotting scope

[calvarez]

Hah, yeah, even the spotting scope is tough to use for the long range shots. And shooting a target at 1k in the AZ heat means you're shooting a randomly-moving target.