spandit Posted April 18, 2018 Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 (edited) Like many people on here I shoot from sticks made from B&Q garden stakes. I have a set of quads that I made and they're pretty good but difficult to move the aim point around should the quarry move slightly. A friend of mine came round to zero his rifle and bought with him a Kapita tripod system. It was extremely impressive, very well made but the price tag (£500) reflects that and it's more than I'd be prepared to spend. It's essentially a carbon fibre tripod with a ball mount on top. The ball mount supports the rifle but allows side-to-side as well as up-and-down movement. You can leave the rifle hanging off it and he demonstrated this with his Tikka T3x TAC (I think) - a heavy rifle. For those amongst us who are too cheap to spend out for something like this, I thought I'd have a go at making my own version. Having a 3D printer and a fairly good grasp of how to use the design software, I set about designing my own system. It actually took quite a lot of maths (which I enjoy) to figure out how to make it but by changing a single parameter I can remodel it into a bipod, tripod or virtually any number of legs. I also designed some ends to fit on the garden stakes and clamps to hold string to limit the spread of the legs. The whole tripod system consists of the following parts, plus M6 nuts and bolts to hold them together: 1) tripod body "hub" (3D printed) 2) screw on lid to hold ball in place and change friction (3D printed) 3) ball joint (3D printed) 4) spigot to mount to rifle (machined on my lathe from an M6 joining nut) 5) Picatinny sling adaptor with stud removed (bought from eBay - c. £5) 6) stake ends (3D printed) The Kapita system has a patented attachment method using magnets and a dedicated socket that needs to be inserted into the stock, although a Picatinny adaptor is available. I'm keen not to infringe their patent so haven't used any magnets (and frankly can't see what difference one would make). I also was not keen to drill my stock but fortunately had a spare with a Picatinny rail mounted underneath. To my surprise, it held the weight of the rifle (Sako P94S) without breaking, although there was a fair amount of flex in the system. At the time of manufacture I only had the red colour in stock but there is no reason it couldn't be printed in different colours (you can buy olive green filament, for example). The plastic used is PETG. The rod ends are really tight so don't sit quite as well as I'd like but a few minutes of fettling would make them fit better and it's trivial to change the dimensions in the CAD file (OpenSCAD, for those who are interested). Total cost of materials was under £20, including the sticks (£3.25 each), Picatinny adaptor (£5.89) and filament (£2.38). In use, the friction you can make by screwing the lid down tight isn't really enough to stop the rifle moving if you let go but it certainly lets you hold it quite still whilst moving the aim point around. Should be pretty quick to deploy in the field and the whole setup is very light. It doesn't fold up like the commercial product but then neither do my quad sticks and they're quite useful for support when walking on boggy ground Edited April 18, 2018 by spandit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldypigeonpopper Posted April 18, 2018 Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, spandit said: Like many people on here I shoot from sticks made from B&Q garden stakes. I have a set of quads that I made and they're pretty good but difficult to move the aim point around should the quarry move slightly. A friend of mine came round to zero his rifle and bought with him a Kapita tripod system. It was extremely impressive, very well made but the price tag (£500) reflects that and it's more than I'd be prepared to spend. It's essentially a carbon fibre tripod with a ball mount on top. The ball mount supports the rifle but allows side-to-side as well as up-and-down movement. You can leave the rifle hanging off it and he demonstrated this with his Tikka T3x TAC (I think) - a heavy rifle. For those amongst us who are too cheap to spend out for something like this, I thought I'd have a go at making my own version. Having a 3D printer and a fairly good grasp of how to use the design software, I set about designing my own system. It actually took quite a lot of maths (which I enjoy) to figure out how to make it but by changing a single parameter I can remodel it into a bipod, tripod or virtually any number of legs. I also designed some ends to fit on the garden stakes and clamps to hold string to limit the spread of the legs. The whole tripod system consists of the following parts, plus M6 nuts and bolts to hold them together: 1) tripod body "hub" (3D printed) 2) screw on lid to hold ball in place and change friction (3D printed) 3) ball joint (3D printed) 4) spigot to mount to rifle (machined on my lathe from an M6 joining nut) 5) Picatinny sling adaptor with stud removed (bought from eBay - c. £5) 6) stake ends (3D printed) The Kapita system has a patented attachment method using magnets and a dedicated socket that needs to be inserted into the stock, although a Picatinny adaptor is available. I'm keen not to infringe their patent so haven't used any magnets (and frankly can't see what difference one would make). I also was not keen to drill my stock but fortunately had a spare with a Picatinny rail mounted underneath. To my surprise, it held the weight of the rifle (Sako P94S) without breaking, although there was a fair amount of flex in the system. At the time of manufacture I only had the red colour in stock but there is no reason it couldn't be printed in different colours (you can buy olive green filament, for example). The plastic used is PETG. The rod ends are really tight so don't sit quite as well as I'd like but a few minutes of fettling would make them fit better and it's trivial to change the dimensions in the CAD file (OpenSCAD, for those who are interested). Total cost of materials was under £20, including the sticks (£3.25 each), Picatinny adaptor (£5.89) and filament (£2.38). In use, the friction you can make by screwing the lid down tight isn't really enough to stop the rifle moving if you let go but it certainly lets you hold it quite still whilst moving the aim point around. Should be pretty quick to deploy in the field and the whole setup is very light. It doesn't fold up like the commercial product but then neither do my quad sticks and they're quite useful for support when walking on boggy ground hello, i made my sticks ( X2) like many did years ago with a piece of inner tube to hold together and a yoke made of same, i reckon your 2 stick adapter and a swivel yoke of same material would be ideal. you do not need to go with a ball joint just a slot in peg or ? Edited April 18, 2018 by oldypigeonpopper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_R Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 That's neat work. Still waiting for my printer to arrive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spandit Posted April 24, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 24, 2018 Tried it out last night - far too cumbersome and slow to deploy for rabbiting. Pretty stable though so if you were staking out a warren or den then it might have some use. For longer range deer stalking I can see the attraction but by the time I'm in safe 22LR range of a bunny it's too late and they've gone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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