Product Review: Accuracy Solutions – BipodeXt
Colin Burns Ballistic_XLR November 22, 2017
My first statement holds. After using BipodeXt in competition and supplying selected students with it I can’t speak highly enough of it. You can see me using it in competition below. The day was as filled with challenges as it could be. I was using new ammo, a new BDC scope, a .223Rem in high wind conditions and transitioning targets under time pressure.
This round (Stage 7) I’m shooting from just over 200 yards to 500 yards using the BDC reticle on the Primary Arms 4-14×44 FFP scope with their brilliant ACSS HUD/DMR reticle on his Mossberg MVP with the BXT 40X3 model BipodeXt from Accuracy Solutions. The BipodExt bipod extender pulled every bit of wiggle out of my holds. It was like shooting from a machine rest. The thing didn’t slow me down either. Transitions between targets were just as fast as without it. My best .223 score at that match was a 22 of 50 in mild wind. My best score with the .223 in strong winds was 15 of 50 until this match. I scored 20 of 50 this time with strong winds up to 30mph. I attribute this score to the combination of stability from the BipodExt and the integrated wind hold-offs in the reticle on the Primary Arms 4-14x optic I was using. The 5 shots I picked up over my previous record could be split up 80/20 for accounting purposes favoring the BipodeXt as the causal factor. How can you tell?
You’ll notice that I’m calling my own shots throughout Stage 7. Part of that is the low recoil of a .223 but I’m calling those shots at close and far targets with a .223. Far is no big deal for the most part since you have time to recover from recoil. Close means recoil cannot have affected you enough to pull the target out of the scope view during recoil. Kinda rare even with a .223 unless recoil control is really given more weight than it normally deserves. The long lever length provided by the BipodeXt gets rid of muzzle rise even if you fail to load the bipod like you otherwise might.
Stage 5 above has me perched a little higher than is optimal due to the way the ground lays but that didn’t add any instability because my rifle was being rested so far from me, any wiggle I put in is not as effective at pulling the rifle off target. It takes quite a bit more input force to move the rifle around a sufficient distance. In a conventionally placed bipod arrangement the effective attachment point or fulcrum is about 20 inches from the shoulder and about 10-20 inches behind the muzzle toward the action. With the BipodeXt you can have an effective fulcrum 30-50 inches from your shoulder and up to several inches in front of the muzzle. What’s that matter?
Well it’s a little like the effect of altitude over the target for a long range shot. If you’re 100 feet above the target at a distance of 100 feet then the angle is 45 degrees. If you’re 100 feet above your target at a distance of 1000 feet then the angle is about 5.7 degrees. MASSIVE DIFFERENCE. What the inventors have created is a way to get that effective distance to grow without making the weapon system unwieldy.
Stage 6 you can see something that I’m normally very bad at being done really excellently, follow-through. I’m staying on the optic and keeping that trigger back much better than normal. I attribute that to the sensation I got of watching a show on TV instead of through a magnified optic. The great glass in the Primary Arms optic helped but the stability from the bipod extender getting rid of all the jitter also got rid of my bloody near instinctive habit of slapping the trigger and coming off the scope too damned soon. It seems the jitter doesn’t play well with my brain and I am prone to taking subconscious steps to deal with that which are exactly counter productive. Add BipodeXt and I turn into a really sparkly good shooter with much improved execution on the fundamentals.
So what about the extra bulk and weight and all that. Well, my rifle still fits in my drag bag and there’s no extra weight to speak of thanks to carbon fibre and aluminum construction. It’s quick detachable so the idea that that’s something to legitimately gripe about is laughable. The cost is pretty tall but you have to come to grips with the fact that good kit costs good money. Sorry, no freebies in this world.
What I didn’t cover at all above is the amazing versatility of the BipodeXt. Turn that forward section 90deg and brace your bipod against a window opening or a barricade or a fence post for PRS and similar action shooting matches. Put a long and short bipod on it if you want for rough country hunting to go from prone to kneeling to sitting to whatever rapidly. For police and military and those few that hunt mountain goats and sheep and such where extremely high angle shots are frequently the only shots to be had, you can stand up comfortably behind your rifle, set the bipod up in front of your muzzle and keep your spout out of the dirt, be ridiculously stable (tried this with great results), minimize fatigue and increase first round hit probability. For cops on top of skyscrapers and in the rafters at sporting events overwatching us with their sniper rifles stuck in tripods and hog saddles, they could be just as precise and more flexible and have an easier time concealing their position if they didn’t have to be so high up to use a tripod. Lower fatigue means improved interdiction and lower chance of collateral casualties or damage.
Any way you can get your bipod farther from your face will increase your ability to be stable and make precision shots rapidly. Yes you’ll lose some compactness and decimal points of speed/agility. Isn’t the decimal point loss in agility worth the orders of magnitude increase in endurance and precision? I think so. I won’t shoot a match without a BipodeXt again if I can possibly help it.
For a direct comparison, here’s the same gun, same shooter, same range just without the BDC scope and without the BipodeXt. In the beginning at stage 7 you’ll be able to see the side to side and vertical wiggle at my muzzle during firing and the much more dramatic appearing recoil and me missing more than I should be despite having massively more magnification (16x fixed instead of the 10x I was actually using on the Primary Arms 4-14x) and dialing precise DOPE instead of holding off. If I’d used the 16x SWFA optic along with the BipodeXt I probably would have picked up a few more targets.
The difference made by the BipodeXt at my last match was probably me picking up 3-5 targets I would have certainly missed regardless of the optic and because I was using a BDC at long range it was probably responsible for me not blowing that completely. The BDC was easy to use but very sensitive to cant and user error. It was really easy to avoid those two conditions with the bipod extender. Thanks to Accuracy Solutions for the loan of this amazing kit. I’ll have to buy one now, not so much because they’re excellent but because of the two I have for use by students, I’m never giving one of them back.
Dan, Seth and company. You guys really knocked this out of the park. I knew when I saw it at RX17 that it was going to really change my game and I think it’s going to change a lot of games. Keep these badass ideas coming!
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The Snake Gun equipped with BipodeXt |
This round (Stage 7) I’m shooting from just over 200 yards to 500 yards using the BDC reticle on the Primary Arms 4-14×44 FFP scope with their brilliant ACSS HUD/DMR reticle on his Mossberg MVP with the BXT 40X3 model BipodeXt from Accuracy Solutions. The BipodExt bipod extender pulled every bit of wiggle out of my holds. It was like shooting from a machine rest. The thing didn’t slow me down either. Transitions between targets were just as fast as without it. My best .223 score at that match was a 22 of 50 in mild wind. My best score with the .223 in strong winds was 15 of 50 until this match. I scored 20 of 50 this time with strong winds up to 30mph. I attribute this score to the combination of stability from the BipodExt and the integrated wind hold-offs in the reticle on the Primary Arms 4-14x optic I was using. The 5 shots I picked up over my previous record could be split up 80/20 for accounting purposes favoring the BipodeXt as the causal factor. How can you tell?
You’ll notice that I’m calling my own shots throughout Stage 7. Part of that is the low recoil of a .223 but I’m calling those shots at close and far targets with a .223. Far is no big deal for the most part since you have time to recover from recoil. Close means recoil cannot have affected you enough to pull the target out of the scope view during recoil. Kinda rare even with a .223 unless recoil control is really given more weight than it normally deserves. The long lever length provided by the BipodeXt gets rid of muzzle rise even if you fail to load the bipod like you otherwise might.
Stage 5 above has me perched a little higher than is optimal due to the way the ground lays but that didn’t add any instability because my rifle was being rested so far from me, any wiggle I put in is not as effective at pulling the rifle off target. It takes quite a bit more input force to move the rifle around a sufficient distance. In a conventionally placed bipod arrangement the effective attachment point or fulcrum is about 20 inches from the shoulder and about 10-20 inches behind the muzzle toward the action. With the BipodeXt you can have an effective fulcrum 30-50 inches from your shoulder and up to several inches in front of the muzzle. What’s that matter?
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| TiborasaurusRex getting his giddy on behind the BipodeXt |
Stage 6 you can see something that I’m normally very bad at being done really excellently, follow-through. I’m staying on the optic and keeping that trigger back much better than normal. I attribute that to the sensation I got of watching a show on TV instead of through a magnified optic. The great glass in the Primary Arms optic helped but the stability from the bipod extender getting rid of all the jitter also got rid of my bloody near instinctive habit of slapping the trigger and coming off the scope too damned soon. It seems the jitter doesn’t play well with my brain and I am prone to taking subconscious steps to deal with that which are exactly counter productive. Add BipodeXt and I turn into a really sparkly good shooter with much improved execution on the fundamentals.
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Former SEAL Charlie Melton wringing out the BipodeXt.
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| I am Meccastreisand victory over barricade stages. |
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| RX17 Live Fire 002 Student taking advantage of increased stability. |
For a direct comparison, here’s the same gun, same shooter, same range just without the BDC scope and without the BipodeXt. In the beginning at stage 7 you’ll be able to see the side to side and vertical wiggle at my muzzle during firing and the much more dramatic appearing recoil and me missing more than I should be despite having massively more magnification (16x fixed instead of the 10x I was actually using on the Primary Arms 4-14x) and dialing precise DOPE instead of holding off. If I’d used the 16x SWFA optic along with the BipodeXt I probably would have picked up a few more targets.
The difference made by the BipodeXt at my last match was probably me picking up 3-5 targets I would have certainly missed regardless of the optic and because I was using a BDC at long range it was probably responsible for me not blowing that completely. The BDC was easy to use but very sensitive to cant and user error. It was really easy to avoid those two conditions with the bipod extender. Thanks to Accuracy Solutions for the loan of this amazing kit. I’ll have to buy one now, not so much because they’re excellent but because of the two I have for use by students, I’m never giving one of them back.
Dan, Seth and company. You guys really knocked this out of the park. I knew when I saw it at RX17 that it was going to really change my game and I think it’s going to change a lot of games. Keep these badass ideas coming!
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