I wanted to shoot my high powered rifles (7mm model 1885, Ruger 30-06, and Winchester .338) more without worrying about recoil and flinching. I read about a commercial lead sled and thought it was a great idea, but didn't want to spend the money on it plus shipping.
I figured the bench doesn't show me how well I can shoot while actually hunting. It really only shows how well the rifle can shoot while I flinch.
I decided to build one from materials I had left over from another project. The only things I had to buy were the locking knob and the front feet: $12. The rest was 10 hours of my time in the garage, which I like anyways.
My wife is going to make a leather sand bag for the front rest, and I will add leather and thin foam padding to the rear rest.

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Nice work. Looks to be real functional too.

Cheezywan

The rifle on it is my main baby. It's a Browning 1885 7mm Remington Magnum. I has a Leupold 4.5x-14x scope with a 50mm objective lens. I need that leather pad on the comb to raise my cheek high enough to see through the scope.

I had originally planned to have it re-chambered to 7mm x .300 Weatherby Magnum, but I found that the 28" barrel generated plenty of velocity and recoil. It produces 3060 fps and 3638 ft. lbs. with 175 gr. Sierra spitzer boat-tails, and 2850 fps and 3516 ft. lbs. with Barnes 195 gr. semi-spitzers.

I suspect that I could get another 150 fps with the wildcat, but I don't see the point since I am getting almost what that cartridge and the 7mm Shooting Times Westerner generate from the shorter barreled rifles in which they are chambered.

See my later posts in this section to view the finished project with the leather pads and shooting table.

That looks like it will do the job. I built mine because a day at the range with my 8mm Rem mag was just more than I wanted anymore. Also my grand daughters were getting into big game rifles and it is a nice way to get folks into shooting without the recoil problems.

I've got a friend with the 7mm STW and he really likes it for slinging those big 175 grainer's way out there. On the other hand my old hunting partner has been whacking deer and elk for way over 20 years with his 7mm Rem mag and Speer Grand Slams with great success.

Here's my version.

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Alaska_man, I like the rubber feet. Where did you get them?

RJ

Faucettb, that is quite a mean looking rifle rest ya got there! Did the front rest come from a car jack?

Recoil junky, I bought the feet from Spenard Builder's Supply. They're actually plastic knobs for machinery. I thought they were too slippery, so I roughed up the bottoms with sand paper and put on a coat of Shoe-Goo to sticky them up a bit.

Yup Alaska it was laying in my shop and I saw a rest with one in a Cabela's catalog. Lightbulb went on and the next thing you know my brand new welder was dragging me over to the welding table. The welds were really bad, I didn't have the gas adjusted right, but I've got it down now.

I'm retired and on a fixed income and just plain cheap. I figure that besides a couple of hours of my time there's at least two bucks of scrap involved in this project. I already had the bags from some other rifle holders I had.

I've always wondered about these "lead sleds" or other non-moveable rest that contains the rifle's recoil. Aren't you guys concerned that it could damage your rifles, if they are heavy recoiling? Seems they would make the rifle to absorbs forces and shock that the bedding and stock was never designed to absorb.

I just picture all that steel slamming around into the wood or bedding material, because something is giving, at least a little bit, somewhere.

I don't think it would be a big deal on a rifle handling low recoiling cartridges or if it was just used every once in a while, but when the rifle's recoil exceeds the weight of the rifle, seems there could be some damage occuring...

Maybe not, but for some reason that concerns me.

i made something to hold a gun so i could site it in better.. i quit using it because i realized it had to be rough on the gun and scope without any give in the recoil allowed.

I've always wondered about these "lead sleds" or other non-moveable rest that contains the rifle's recoil. Aren't you guys concerned that it could damage your rifles, if they are heavy recoiling? Seems they would make the rifle to absorbs forces and shock that the bedding and stock was never designed to absorb.

I just picture all that steel slamming around into the wood or bedding material, because something is giving, at least a little bit, somewhere.

I don't think it would be a big deal on a rifle handling low recoiling cartridges or if it was just used every once in a while, but when the rifle's recoil exceeds the weight of the rifle, seems there could be some damage occuring...

Maybe not, but for some reason that concerns me.


That's a good point and I was worried about that very same thing, but mine sits on half inch bolts and it does move on the bench rest when fired enough that you have to push it back in place at least for the big boomers I've shot off it.

Even though the lead sled type of rest takes most of the recoil out of a rifle I to think that any rifle holding device that would fasten solidly to a heavy bench rest may eventually cause damage to a weapon.

I've been very careful about checking to see if there's any scope slip or any other damage and luckily haven't had any. So far this rest has seen a bunch of rounds fired with my 8mm mag, a 300 ultra mag and a 7mm stw along with my 280 Remington, 308 Win, 7mm Rem mag, 243 and 204 Ruger.

I usually never fire more than 20 to 40 rounds out of any of the high recoiling guns at a time. I would think that careful checking would be in order if your range count went into the hundreds for the magnums or on super light weight rifles with a good amount of recoil.

I lap all my scope rings and keep them tight so that also may help. I've noticed no damage to anything internal on any of the stocks.

I haven't shot any of the really big boomers off this rest so my info is limited, but you have a valid point when it comes to some of the really big cartridges and probably the advice to shot those off a standing bench rest would be very good advice when sighting in.

I don't believe that any rifles or shotguns would be damaged by a lead sled, if used properly. The sleds have a padded rest for the butt of the rifle, and that is in addition to any padding the rilfe already has there. I imagine that it would not be any different than if one were to slam their rifle butt into a moveable padded weight at the same velocity at which the rifle would recoil.

Modern rifle stocks for high-energy calibers in good condtion are designed to take much higher recoil forces than that. Remember that there is no play at all between the action and the stock, and that modern scope and scope mount manufacturers love to say how many hundreds of "G's" their products can withstand.

Here are some reviews at Midway.com. Some of them shoot very hard recoiling rifles with no reports of broken rifles.
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductreview.exe/GetReviews?productid=152664

Just a quick thought. A lead sled or other rest should also increase your scope life. As a rifle recoils the scope tries to remain stationary. "A body in motion tends to stay in motion. A body at rest tends to stay at rest." Recoil is a scope killer because of the rifles rearward movement. Seems this would solve that issue.

Just a quick thought. A lead sled or other rest should also increase your scope life. As a rifle recoils the scope tries to remain stationary. "A body in motion tends to stay in motion. A body at rest tends to stay at rest." Recoil is a scope killer because of the rifles rearward movement. Seems this would solve that issue.

Actually it works kinda in reverse. That's why the lead sled can damage a scope. The initial recoil of the rifle is stopped just as it begins so scope and rifle begin recoiling. The recoil is stopped so suddenly that the scope can keep recoiling and slide in the rings damaging the scope.

The same problem exists between the rifle and the stock. The barreled action recoils when it's fired. The stock is fixed and can't move with the barreled action which subjects lots of force into the immobile stock. These recoil forces are concentrated on the recoil lug and exert much more force on the stock that if the whole thing recoiled normally.

That's the reason even a lead sled should not be fastened to a bench with high recoiling guns and allowed to slide or be able to move under recoil. The weight of the lead sled and any lead shot attached increases the weight of the gun and make recoil much easier.

Having a really good glassbedding job on your rifle will help this situation some, but some shooters have a real concern with the possible damage this can cause with stocks and scopes. Given a high enough recoiling gun it may be possible to actually cause interior scope damage or even shear off scope base mounting screws.

All in all it's a valid concern. I've been shooting my own lead sled version now for a couple of years and haven't noticed any problems, but when I built my version of the lead sled I did so with the knowledge that I did not intend to limit all recoil. I don't think that would be good at all for the gun/scope system.