SEB Rests has come out with a new, more compact front joystick rest for rimfire and air rifle competition. Designed for benchrest rimfire and air rifle shooting, the new AR250 Rest takes its name from the perfect score of 250 in WRABF competition. Balancing mobility, performance, and cost, this rest features a rigid, extendable central post and two elevation adjustment systems for rapid and smooth height changes. Current price is $620 US dollars, a bargain compared to some other joystick rests.
The new AR250 provides a very stable shooting platform yet is still easily transportable. The versatile design makes it suitable for multiple rimfire and air rifle disciplines. The AR250 joystick travel is designed to be able to cover most target sizes from WRABF to NRA/ARA at 25-100 yards and 25-100 meters. Fitted with an adjustable counterweight system for smooth joystick action, the newly designed top plate secures the custom front bag firmly in place with minimal play. The AR250 rest is offered with three bag options: one 2 1⁄4″-wide bag, one 3″-wide bag, or both sizes.
SEB AR250 rest has very extensive height adjustment range to fit varying rifle styles and target heights.
Initial user reviews have been very positive. Here are comments from customers and testers:
— “I am delighted with the accuracy and smoothness of operation. Brilliant product.”
— “The rest is very compact and lightweight. I recommend for anyone who… has struggled shooting rimfire with oversize pedestals designed for centerfire benchrest.”
— “The joystick feels smooth and precise, and the counterweight makes aiming feel wonderful.”
— “The rest is very solid for as small that it is, and the construction is wonderful.”
— “It transports far easier than any of the rests I have tried so far.”
Included in the box are: AR250 rest and front bag(s), Joystick arm and adjustable counterweight, leveling screws, 3 rest feet with hard neoprene rubber bottoms, spare bolts/accessories, and user manual.
For full product description and more product photos, visit AR250.sebrests.com.
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Available for under $230.00 including front bag, the Caldwell Fire Control front rest is a very good value. It makes the co-axial, joystick design more affordable than ever. We used the Fire Control front rest when testing our Ultimate Varminter 20 Practical AR. Once we removed some sand from the tri-lobe front bag, the rest worked quite well.
Get a Fire Control Rest for $220.99
Right now you can get the Caldwell Fire Control Front Rest for just $220.99, an 18% savings off the regular price. The $220.99 Amazon price is a great deal for guys on a tight budget who want a modern joystick-style front rest (this same Caldwell rest sells for up to $269.99 elsewhere).
With the conversion described in this article, you can put together a system that works pretty darn well, and is more than adequate for many applications, including prairie-dog hunting (from a bench). Put the money saved into a nice custom, hand-lapped barrel or some bullets for your varminter.
Upgrading Fire Control Front Rest with Sinclair Top
While most Fire Control owners are happy with the product, many have wanted to replace the tri-lobe front bag with a more conventional front bag from Protektor or Edgewood. This isn’t as easy as it looks because the width of the Fire Control top is too narrow for most standard 3″-wide front bags. On a “special order” basis, Protektor has crafted some narrower leather front bags that fit pretty well, but some shooters have decided to “upgrade” the entire front assembly.
Forum member Doug M. (aka DrJeckyl), has come up with an elegant solution that allows a Sinclair Int’l Benchrest Rest Top to be fitted to the Fire Control Rest. Doug notes: “The Caldwell Fire Control is a nice rest for the money, but it comes up short in the rest top department. The Sinclair RT-3 [or its replacement, the Gen II B/R top] fits perfect with minor modifications.” Shown below are the main components:
To adapt the Sinclair RT-3 or Gen II B/R top, Doug merely had to drill a couple holes in the RT-3 baseplate, and adapt a spacer to get the height correct: “The Caldwell factory top has a raised mounting portion so a 1/8″ piece of stock will be needed as a spacer to the flat-bottom RT-3. The spacer needs to be cut to the same length as the movable portion on the rest. And you should plan the mounting accordingly so the left thumbscrew clears the vertical height column at full left position (there is a cutaway in the rest under the thumbscrew that allows for easy access to the screw).” We labeled the photo with dimensions, but Doug cautions you should measure your own original plate to insure the drill locations are correct for your unit.
The completed installation, with the RT-3 installed on the Fire Control rest, is shown at the top of this article. Doug says it works very well. To learn more about this conversion, with Doug’s measurements for the hole-spacing and his specs on the fasteners, go to the original thread in our Shooter’s Forum. NOTE: Sinclair no longer sells the RT-3 top, but Sinclair’s $89.99 Gen II B/R top can be converted just as easily. LINK to Fire Control Rest Top Conversion Forum Thread.
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Our friend Sebastian “SEB” Lambang, creator of the great SEB Coaxial Rests, Joystick Bipods (“JoyPods”), and SEB MINI Coaxial tripod rests, is working on a new front bag design. He has released photos of his new, prototype front bag system for the top-of-the-line NEO Rest.
Seb notes: “We are experimenting with a new bag for our SEB NEO rest, particularly for F-Open Class with the heavy 22-lb rifles. This new bag is sewn down the middle, slick enough for the purpose, and made from a much tougher material. The bottom/horizontal bag has two separate compartments on the left and right sides to prevent sand migration. For the production version I think I will use black instead of silver.”
Do you like the new design? Do you have any suggestions on how it could be enhanced? Seb is looking to get shooters’ feedback on this new bag design. You can post comments on Seb’s Facebook page.
New F-Class and Benchrest Front Bags for SEB MINI
Seb will also be offering a new similar bag for his excellent (and very popular) SEB MINI tripod front rest. There will be a sewn-in-middle F-Class version (see right below), as well as a flat-top, conventional bag for registered benchrest matches. Due to differences in the equipment rules, Seb notes: “The sewn-in-middle front bag can be used for F-CLASS matches. However, be sure to not use the F-CLASS bag (sewn down in the middle) for official Benchrest matches.”
COMMENT: The advantage to the Stitched-in-Middle front bag design is that the bag will never develop a hump in the middle that can cause your stock to rock a little (or sit at a slight tilt). If you are not shooting in restricted competition, Seb’s new bag design could prove beneficial — providing a more optimal front support. We don’t have the dimensions of Seb’s center-sewn front bags, but we suspect a version might fit other brands of front rests, such as Sinclair or Bald Eagle (Grizzly).
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You probably know the name Protektor Model for quality front and rear bags. The Protektor DR rear bag is extremely stable, making it the choice of many top Benchrest and F-Class shooters. But guess what — Protektor makes more than leather products now.
Protektor recently introduced a slingshot-style aluminum front rest, and it looks impressive. It is offered with standard top for $195.00. The deluxe version with Windage-adjustable top costs $295.00. Both versions have an adjustable fore-end stop and nice big Mariners Wheel for elevation control. The deluxe windage-top version, shown below, also comes with a bubble level.
The Windage-adjustable version is shown above (as well as in top photo). The left-right Windage is controlled with a simple knob that spins a shaft on the left side of the top. Height adjusts from 4-7/8″ to 7″ via the nicely-crafted Mariners Wheel. NOTE: The black triangular base is a third-part item, NOT part of the rest. Also the $295.00 price does NOT include front bag, which is sold separately. A deluxe Protektor square-ear front bag for 3″ forearms costs $43.00.
Basic Protektor Aluminum Rest is $195.00
Shown below is the basic Protektor rest, a good value at just $195.00 (rest only — no bag). This includes a machined aluminum top, large Mariners Wheel, and adjustable feet. This has a 7.75″ x 14″ footprint and weighs 5.65 lbs without sand-bag. That makes it pretty easy to carry around — a plus for varminters. The rest top fits standard-sized Protektor bags, which, as filled, take the total weight to about seven pounds.
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Here’s a simple solution for lumpy front sandbags. Cut a small block the width of your fore-end and place that in the front bag between matches. You can tap it down firmly with a rubber mallet. This will keep the front bag nice and square, without bunching up in the center. That will help your rifle track straight and true. Rick Beginski uses wood (see photo), while our friend John Southwick uses a small block of metal. The metal block might work a little better, but the wood version is easier to make with simple tools. John Loh of JJ Industries offers a slick Delrin block with a built-in bubble level. Loh’s block helps ensure that the actual top surface of your front bag is level, as distinct from the front rest assembly.
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Available for under $200.00 including front bag, the Caldwell Fire Control front rest is a remarkable value. It makes the co-axial, joystick design more affordable than ever. We used the Fire Control front rest when testing our Ultimate Varminter 20 Practical AR. Once we removed some sand from the tri-lobe front bag, the rest worked quite well.
Get a Fire Control Rest for $197.99 Precision Reloading is running a sale this week on Caldwell products. Now through May 23rd you can get the Caldwell Fire Control Front Rest for just $197.99. That’s a great deal for guys on a tight budget who want a modern joystick-style front rest. With the conversion described in this article, you can put together a system that works pretty darn well, and is more than adequate for many applications, including prairie-dog hunting (from a bench).
Upgrading Fire Control Front Rest with Sinclair Top
While most Fire Control owners are happy with the product, many have wanted to replace the tri-lobe front bag with a more conventional front bag from Protektor or Edgewood. This isn’t as easy as it looks because the width of the Fire Control top is too narrow for most standard 3″-wide front bags. On a “special order” basis, Protektor has crafted some narrower leather front bags that fit pretty well, but some shooters have decided to “upgrade” the entire front assembly.
Forum member Doug M. (aka DrJeckyl), has come up with an elegant solution that allows a Sinclair Int’l Benchrest Rest Top to be fitted to the Fire Control Rest. Doug notes: “The Caldwell Fire Control is a nice rest for the money, but it comes up short in the rest top department. The Sinclair RT-3 [or its replacement, the Gen II B/R top] fits perfect with minor modifications.” Shown below are the main components:
To adapt the Sinclair RT-3 or Gen II B/R top, Doug merely had to drill a couple holes in the RT-3 baseplate, and adapt a spacer to get the height correct: “The Caldwell factory top has a raised mounting portion so a 1/8″ piece of stock will be needed as a spacer to the flat-bottom RT-3. The spacer needs to be cut to the same length as the movable portion on the rest. And you should plan the mounting accordingly so the left thumbscrew clears the vertical height column at full left position (there is a cutaway in the rest under the thumbscrew that allows for easy access to the screw).” We have labeled the photo with dimensions, but Doug cautions you should measure your own original plate to insure the drill locations are correct for your unit.
The completed installation, with the RT-3 installed on the Fire Control rest is shown at the top of this article. Doug says it works very well. To learn more about this conversion, with Doug’s measurments for the hole-spacing and his specs on the fasteners, go to the original thread in our Shooter’s Forum. NOTE: Sinclair no longer sells the RT-3 top, but Sinclair’s $75.99 Gen II B/R top can be converted just as easily. LINK to Fire Control Rest Top Conversion Forum Thread.
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Here’s a simple solution for lumpy front sandbags. Cut a small block the width of your fore-end and place that in the front bag between matches. You can tap it down firmly with a rubber mallet. This will keep the front bag nice and square, without bunching up in the center. That will help your rifle track straight and true. Rick Beginski uses wood (see photo), while our friend John Southwick uses a small block of metal. The metal block might work a little better, but the wood version is easier to make with simple tools. John Loh of 
