ransom rest mounting question

[jaredr]

question for everyone who uses a ransom rest mounted to some sort of portable platform which you can clamp to a bench at the range:

Chuck Ransom's instructions tell you to mount the rest on a platform of 3/4 or 1" plywood, and then on the bottom of this platform, nail & glue a 2" wide strip of wood at the front and back of the platform so that your mounting board, when clamped to the bench, only makes contact with the bench on these front and rear 2" wide strips.

I have used one owned by another fellow who shoots at the same range as me - he just mounted his on a piece of plywood without the feet that are described in Chuck ransom's instructions. He seems to get acceptable results with this (his contender in .22 rimfire will deliver 25 yard .3-.5" groups with the ammo it favors from this rest arrangement).

I would expect that Chuck's instructions should be followed since he actually built the thing, but wanted ask other folks what there experience has been before I go ahead and varnish up the mounting platform I am building. If anyone reading has to carry their rest out to a shooting range, I would be very interested in learning about what sort of portable mounting platform you use.

Thanks for reading,

Jared

[Duane Thomas]

I made the sort of platform with feet that Ranson recommends. Of course, that means I can't comment on its performance without the feet since I've never used that.

[Intel6]

Before I got my own I used a buddys and it was just mounted on a big chunk of 2x10 or something like that. I clamped it to the cement benches at our range and it worked great. When I got mine it came with directions and discovered that the other one had been mounted "incorrectly."

I knew I wanted a decent sized chunk of solid wood for the base and then figured I would add the strips to the bottom like the directions said. I searched and wasn't having any luck down here in small town Sierra Vista, AZ. I then thougth of something along the lines of one of those thicker laminated cutting boards or possibly a chunk of a kitchen cutting board counter top. I went by a kitchen remodeling place and asked to see what they had. They had a corner chunk off a "L" shaped 2.5-3" thick cutting board counter top they did that worked perfectly.

I mounted it up and it looked great. I added some strips of hardwood I had and took it out to the range. It turned out the base was just too thick to where I couldn't get my big c clamps to work clamping it down. I took off the strips and was able to clamp it down fine. I have been using it for the last 4 years and have had great results with everything I have used in it including my .44 Redhawk shooting my own LBT 350 gr. LFN's at 1,200+.

I always wondered if I should put thinner strips on the bottom but since It has worked so great I never bothered.

Neal in AZ

[RogerT]

I think that the idea behind the strips on the bottom of the plywood platform is to stabilize the platform AND to lift the platform free of the table it's secured to, so that fastening screws or an uneven tablesurface don't give you inconsistent results of the testfiring.

[jaredr]

Thanks for everyone's replies! If I could find some butcher block type material like Neal describes, I'll use that, but I'll probably end up using 3/4" plywood and take two squares (14" wide by the depth of my club's shooting bench) and then nail/glue them together cross-grain for rigidity as the base. that still won't be as rigid as a the 3" think piece of butcher block Neal describes, so I'll do as Chuck Ransom has instructed and use some plywood (or hardwood if I can get it easily) to free-float the mount over the center of the bench.

Jared

[Ray S.]

The strips also aid in vibration reduction between the bench, the main mounting plate and the rest (the open area between the strips help reduce surface area in contact with the bench). If you look at some of the high-end audio furniture, you'll see that some have the shelves resting on four needle-shaped feet, as are wind flag poles to reduce surface contact.

The less contact surface between the source of vibration and the bench (or shelf or floor, etc) the better. I think groups are dependent upon a certain set of forces. Adding or reducing vibration is one of those forces.

[kidcoltoutlaw]

does the ransom work and is it hard to get good results.can it out shoot you,thanks,keith

[Duane Thomas]

Whether the Ransom Rest "works" depends on what you expect it to do. Yes, it can reliably duplicate the accuracy the average, good bench rest shooter could extract from a gun, without actually requiring the user to possess that level of skill. No, it will not fire the gun to the limits of its mechanical capability, nor as well as a truly skilled bench rest shooter could. What it CAN do that no human being on Earth can is have an extraordinarily extended attention span and endurance. You can bolt a gun into a Ranson Rest in the morning, and it'll still be firing the same sorts of groups as the last light of the sun fades away, dozens of groups later.

The Ransom Rest isn't really hard to use, but it does require the user know what they're doing to extract best results. Fortunately, Ransom includes instructions with every Ransom Rest that tell you what to do.