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Staging a long gun vertically.


Too Tall Bob

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I am looking for ideas on stands for staging a long gun vertically in a position where there are no tables  or doorways  involved to use as a brace. I am looking for a rather simple solution-not something really fancy because I have to build it! Your help is appreciated-thanks in advance

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This will give you the idea.

 

An art easel, cut a groove in the bottom cross piece to hold the rifle (you could cut two so you can have rifle and shotgun staged if needed) and add a cross piece up top with a groove the barrel sits in.

 

They also fold up for storage and are very stable. If you want the bottom one (photo) can have the bottom cross piece modified to put the rifle butt on it (so butt is off the ground) and add a cross piece up the top for the barrel to rest on (have a groove so the barrel sits in it otherwise they will slip). Its just as easy though to have the butt on the ground and various grooves on cross pieces up the triangle.

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3 minutes ago, August West, SASS #45079 said:

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Isnt it interesting how different gun sports have different ways of doing the same thing? Note, I believe different is just different not neccessarily wrong.

 

These racks are obviously for barrel down while SASS has barrel up.

 

We have a Trap shooter at the club who is constantly moving with his SG open and barrel pointed at the ground (once even over his shoulder:blink:) as he would at Trap events. The poor guy is constantly being yelled at but he is just working on muscle memory.

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I too built a cactus attached to a Walmart wooden bar stool for the base. It stages guns at waist height like Deuces.

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1 hour ago, August West, SASS #45079 said:

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Unfortunately this staging breaks the 170 rule as the muzzle is up range of the rest of gun.  Unless you turn the staging backwards, then it becomes awkward to place the gun into it.

 

Good luck, GJ

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2 hours ago, Redwood Kid said:

At one club I shoot it, we use something like this for 3 out of 5 stages every month. Ours is much, much older, though. Seems to work fine

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Most clubs around here have done away with vertical racks. The potential for a dropped gun or breaking the 170 is much higher than placing guns on a table

or bale. I took great pleasure in destroying the last of the vertical racks. There are a couple good designs, they are not at ground level, they are wrapped with carpet, and they are heavy duty. The style of rack shown above is a notorious sight breaker. 

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56 minutes ago, Garrison Joe, SASS #60708 said:

 

Unfortunately this staging breaks the 170 rule as the muzzle is up range of the rest of gun.  Unless you turn the staging backwards, then it becomes awkward to place the gun into it.

 

Good luck, GJ

Ah. No. It doesn’t break the 170°.  And obviously you’ve never used one. It works great. 

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18 minutes ago, Assassin said:

Most clubs around here have done away with vertical racks. The potential for a dropped gun or breaking the 170 is much higher than placing guns on a table

or bale. I took great pleasure in destroying the last of the vertical racks. There are a couple good designs, they are not at ground level, they are wrapped with carpet, and the are heavy duty. The style of rack shown above is a notorious sight breaker. 

To each his own I suppose. I’ve been shooting there for five years now and haven’t seen one dropped long gun. The trade off to vertical staging is down range movement. We get done fun and unique stages that other clubs don’t get. 

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28 minutes ago, Redwood Kid said:

To each his own I suppose. I’ve been shooting there for five years now and haven’t seen one dropped long gun. The trade off to vertical staging is down range movement. We get done fun and unique stages that other clubs don’t get. 

You don't need vertical racks to have downrange movement. I know a little about movement on stages.  

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I got a stage DQ as my rifle slipped in one of these vertical holders. The clubs around here have all stopped using these vertical holders as my mishap was not the only one.

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2 hours ago, Assassin said:

You don't need vertical racks to have downrange movement. I know a little about movement on stages.  

But you know absolutely nothing about this range or it’s setup, yet assume we’re doing something wrong because you don’t like it. 

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1 minute ago, Redwood Kid said:

But you know absolutely nothing about this range or it’s setup, yet assume we’re doing something wrong because you don’t like it. 

I made no assumption about your range or any wrongdoing, I'm sure it's a wonderful range. Just stating I know about movement on a match, I have the reputation of having the most movement. I've had to tone it down because Phantom got winded and had to break out the oxygen.:)

 

Come on over to Hell On Wheels and you'll find out. 

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The link below is to some plans that were posted on The Wire a while back.

Easy to build and customize to whatever you want.

 

http://www.prvcatlazyarrow.com/Rifle Racks.pdf

 

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38 minutes ago, Assassin said:

I made no assumption about your range or any wrongdoing, I'm sure it's a wonderful range. Just stating I know about movement on a match, I have the reputation of having the most movement. I've had to tone it down because Phantom got winded and had to break out the oxygen.:)

 

Come on over to Hell On Wheels and you'll find out. 

Sounds like a plan 

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Thanks folks - you have shared some good ideas and I appreciate that! All done for now. 

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55 minutes ago, Major Crimes said:

 

Boy are you in the wrong place:P

 

Thats a Fact :lol:

 

But since he asked for ideas, I have one .................  Vertical Staging Sucks :P

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I made this single long gun rack for use either indoors or out.  this can be bolted onto a table, on anchored to the ground with a screw.

the knobs screw into blind nuts, T-nuts, so the structure can fold flat.

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There are some that trap the long gun at waist level with a pad with a raised lip that lean the long gun forward and have a v at the top to trap the barrel.  Those I don't mind and can see them being very useful in setting up stages.  The one's I don't like are the ones that you have to lean over to put the long gun in and don't trap the barrel so it can't fall over.  

 

 

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Let's look at this from a stage writer's point of view.  To the best of my limited knowledge the only other option for long gun staging that allows for downrange movement is to safe them horizontally pointed into a side berm.  That's perfectly safe but it eliminates the possibility of using that side of the bay for the rest of that stage.  It also means your spotters and brass pickers can't use that side of the stage since they're not supposed to walk in front of staged long guns.  Vertical staging allows you to use the entire bay which doubles the "variety" you can write into the stage.  And I think it's universally accepted that variety in stages is a huge plus.   

 

So that brings us to the mechanics of vertical staging.  What are the dos and don'ts?  My #1 don't is do NOT make the shooters bend over too far.  We all know the average age of our shooters and even some of the young guns are dealing with bad backs.  For that reason whichever rack you choose should be set up at a decent height.

 

#2, Security.  In the heat of the moment shooters tend to set guns down with a bit more force than they normally would.  (That's a polite way of saying quite a few throw them down. Yes, I'm one of the most guilty in that respect. ;))  Because of this the rack you choose needs to be very secure.  Out here in the desert we use big landscaping nails that are pounded through the rack and into the ground.  Either that or we take a 2-3' piece of bar stock pounded into the ground and either screw the rack to that or use bailing wire to attach the rack to it.

 

#3 Easy of use.  Building on the last step, the shooter shouldn't have to work to get his gun securely into the rack.  That's why I love the above pictured rack with the big "bucket" at the bottom and rails on the sides.  As long as the butt of the gun goes into that bucket and the barrel is flat against the back board the gun should be perfectly stable with no fear of it falling out of the rack.  It would take about the same amount of time to drop a long gun into that rack as it would to lay it flat on a table.  I love it.

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Whatever device is used for vertical staging I recommend it hold a firearm so a shooter does not need to bend over.  We have senior shooters with limited mobility that have difficulty bending over quickly.

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