August 22nd, 2013
Building your own portable shooting bench is a great do-it-yourself project. You can build a sturdy bench for well under $100 in materials. Compare that to some deluxe factory-built benches which may cost $500.00 or more.
FREE Bench Plans on the Web
You’ll find a wide assortment of home-built shooting bench designs (both portable and fixed) on the internet. Renovation Headquarters has links to FREE Plans and building instructions for fourteen (14) different shooting benches. There are all-wood shooting bench designs as well as benches that combine a wood top with a metal sub-frame or legs.
CLICK HERE for Shooting Bench FREE Plans Webpage
Among Renovation HQ’s fourteen featured shooting benches, here are five designs we liked:
Reader Jim Jewell has used the eHow bench design shown above. He recommends it highly. Jim reports: “A colleague and I built two of the eHow permanent wood, sturdy benches for our Pt. Phillips Rod and Gun Club in PA, which had outdated benches. I want to tell you that these benches are very stable and a real bargain. The benches cost precisely $100.00 each using the bill of materials and pressure treated wood. The bill of materials, with careful cutting, using a Chop saw, resulted in almost no scrap wood if carefully measured and cut. The plans are terrific and the benches are great platforms for bench-rest shooting. I made only one modification — I left a 6″ wing on both sides of the table to mount a spotting scope. Further we added a base of dry QuickCrete or similar fast setting concrete mix material. Add it dry, make sure the table is level and fill in the 6″ hole. The hole and QuickCrete add maximum stability. The QuickCrete sucks moisture from the ground, hardens in situ, and adds stability to the bench.
I can’t recommend this design highly enough. It is dirt cheap for clubs on a budget, goes together quickly, the table is very stable and there is no waste if you make precise measurements and cuts. A bag of QuickCrete is enough for two tables adding about $2.00 to the cost of each table. We plan on building new tables for the whole club for under $1000. After about a year, with a completely water-free wood in the bench I recommend a coat of Thompson’s Water Seal and these benches should last a long time.”
Heavy Wood Bench That Converts to Three Sections for Transport
In addition to the fourteen benches mentioned above, here is an interesting break-down bench design. Call it a “semi-portable” bench. The legs and frame are made from stout 4×4 post segments so the bench is fairly heavy. However, this bench can break down into three (3) sections for easier transport to and from the range. Dado-cut channels assure proper top alignment. This might be a good choice if you plan a multi-day excursion to a location without fixed benches. This three-leg bench design can be made from easy-to-locate materials. Note: The dimensions of this bench are are larger than typical fixed benches to accommodate 50 BMGs and other big rifles. CLICK HERE for more details.
Do you like the bench in the illustration at the beginning of this story (top right)? This is a prototype design by Chris Byrne of the Anarchangel Blog. For more details, CLICK HERE.
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You have to admire someone with serious do-it-yourself skills. Not just hammer and nail skills, but formidable design and fabrication skills. Well Forum Member Dave D. (aka “AKShooter”) has a DIY skill set that might put some trained machinists to shame. You see, “DIY Dave” crafted his own pedestal front rest from scratch, using his own design and about $100.00 in materials (not counting the Edgewood front bag). Dave estimates he put 20 hours of labor into the project, but the end result was worth it: “This Do-It-Yourself rest drives like a dream. I’ve played with the Caldwell and a Sinclair, they have nothing on this one.”
Birchwood-Casey brand Shoot-N-C targets are great for fun shooting. When your bullet passes through the target, a large yellow splash of color surrounds the bullet hole. This is ideal for plinking at short range without optics. Even when using a powerful scope, the color splash on the high-contrast background helps you see your hits at long range. We’ve been able to see Shoot-N-See bullet hits at 800 yards with a 42-power scope.
