Last year after I had pretty well equipped my woodworking shop with all kinds of nice machines, I made a wonderful solid oak shooting bench. Nothing was spared. Trouble was, after it was finished it wasn’t worth a darn for shooting. Two hundred pounds of bolted and screwed oak just weren’t designed properly. When Royal Stukey contacted me about his new portable shooting bench I was very interested. So along it came in a rather large and pretty heavy box via UPS. When I unpacked this jewel I was really impressed. A heavy welded steel triangle forms the top frame and has a welded steel handle on it for ease of carrying. The legs are about two inches in diameter and are heavy walled tubing. These legs are bundled together with rubber straps with one leg having a carrying handle welded in place. The whole unit weighs about 75 pounds but is easy to carry in two pieces. All the steel components are powder coated for rust resistance and the plywood top is heavily varnished with polyurethane. Once set up, which takes about 30 seconds, the tripod design takes care of any irregularities in the terrain and is absolutely rock solid. One of the smart features of Stukey’s design is the threaded legs which fit into sockets in the top frame assembly. Instead of just relying on the 5/8” threaded bolts for rigidity, the legs are firmly pulled up into the sockets making for a very solid assembly. The replaceable plywood top is a good idea as well. Most of the front rests have rather pointed legs that tend to dig into wood and it may be necessary to replace the top at some time in the future. As a final and very practical touch, the bench uses a Contico tool box that is the perfect height for this bench. Not only is it a great stool, but it’s light and holds all you “stuff”. The picture in his ad on page 9 shows me sitting in the middle of the bench, it could easily hold three more adults or more, it’s that solid. This is without question the penultimate shooting bench.
The Single Shot Exchange: January 2002 by Col. Brett Boyd
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