I had forgotten about these
- my report to Rod & Gun club Board of Directors favored Ransom Rest
(which they bought) mainly because the person holding the gun had such
a large influence on the group sizes - while the sighting is consistent for
the start of the pull of the trigger the follow through was dependent upon the shooter being able to replicate same muscle tension each time.
http://www.shootersforum.com/attachm...istol-rest.jpg
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/arch.../t-142214.html
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Awhile back I posted in a thread on Lee Precision about the Lee Pistol Rest.
Well, I called Lee Precision, and they straightened me out.
The rest was a product of Lee Custom Engineering, which was never related to the Red Reloading folks.
They later changed their name to Mequon Reloading, and then went out of business in 1988.
The base is a cast steel piece weighing about 3-4lbs.
It bolts down with four bolts to a large piece of wood, which you then could C-clamp to your bench.
I suppose you can also bolt it directly to the bench, if you're privileged to have a dedicated shooting area of your own.
You attach your pistol to a cast alloy armature by means of special alloy grip plates.
They bolt onto the grip-frame of your revolver, or act as a dummy mag in the case of a semi-auto.
They would be quite easy for a machinist to create for most any revolver, or pistol.
In effect, it makes the pistol "one" with the armature.
You then set the armature down onto the base, where it makes contact in four, distinct places.
You cock and fire the gun with your own hand in an otherwise normal hold. It's free to recoil back up and off of the base as normal. You then simply seat it back down onto the base as before, where it will be in perfect alignment once again. As long as the base does not shift around on the bench, and the bench itself does not move, you will have a true picture of the gun's mechanical accuracy.
Due to the fit of the magazine insert within the frame of the pistol, I would suspect some slight variation with semi-autos. Revolvers are bolted on far more securely, and it should prove every bit as repeatable as a Ransom unit. I honestly don't know why nobody else has picked-up on the idea.
As to pictures, I do have them. However, we recently got new confusers at work, and MS Photo-Editor was not installed. Thus, I cannot shrink them down to the right size for hosting on Hunt-101. If one of you would like to try receiving them, then performing the alteration to post them here, I'd be glad to forward them on. For that matter, anyone who's interested can ask, and I'll send them along.
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...DSCN0867-2.jpg
http://www.pistoldynamics.com/Machine%20Rests_2011.html
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What groups can I expect from one of your custom guns through a Ransom Rest?”
This is one of the most commonly asked questions we receive regarding the gauging of pistol accuracy and there are a number of issues that need to be addressed, so I decided to answer it here. To bottom line it, I’m going to suggest that you don’t use a machine rest at all to test accuracy of a locked breech pistol. Chances are it will frustrate you and place unnecessary doubts in your mind regarding the accuracy potential of your handgun. The machine rest is a good tool and has a number of legitimate uses, but it has limitations, and testing the accuracy of a custom 1911 is one of them; especially when the difference between a 'good' custom 1911 and a 'great' one could be as little as a quarter to a half an inch on a target at 25 yds. Unlike a revolver, the sight and barrel axis of these pistols is independent of the frame and this produces variances that make mechanical rests a risky tool for testing accuracy in my opinion. I can’t argue the fact that there are some 1911’s that will perform well through a mechanical rest; usually newly built custom guns with a hand full of rounds through them. But I’ve never seen a rest that can’t be outshot over a bag by a good shooter and because of that I've never been able to justify using one.
The value of a machine rest in my opinion (other than certain safety advantages in proofing procedures) is in testing ammunition against a known benchmark through your own gun. In other words, lets assume that 185 Wadcutter delivers the kind of performance you’re looking for in a hand-load. It doesn’t matter what group the gun prints out of the rest with the wadcutter because theoretically, the relationship of the loads you are building will always be a percentage of the performance of that benchmark regardless of whether your loads are better or worse. I use the word ‘theoretically’ because there are a number of factors that determine if the pistol will repeat to position after each shot and if in fact if you can actuate the trigger without upsetting the pistol in the inserts. Remember that a well built 1911 will have the barrel precision fit to the slide, bushing and slide-stop to eliminate as much of the variance between the barrel lock-up and the sight plane as possible. It doesn’t matter if there’s a controlled amount of horizontal and vertical 'play' between the slide and frame in battery when you’re holding the gun because you’re always compensating for that as you align the sights. But even secured correctly in a mechanical rest, the pistol can actually produce unrepresentative groups because of those operating tolerances in the slide and frame fit. Further, mechanical rests are seldom secured to a solid enough base. Most rests are not adequately anchored and often move on the base under recoil.
It’s also unreasonable to assume that the rest is always good when in fact the sum of potential mechanical variances in the machine rest itself (to say nothing of the ammunition) substantially outnumbers those in a well-built pistol. I’ve seen way too many good guns get ‘sold down the river’ because of a machine rest. I’m not just talking out of a hole in my head on this one. My opinion is based on years of experience at Pachmayr Gun Works attempting to attain the mandated 1.250” group out of a rest with our painstakingly built Pachmayr Combat Specials. Frank insisted that we use the rest for targeting and we battled to get the groups without cheating; literally chasing accuracy ghosts in the guns that didn’t exist. The groups always seemed to hover just outside the mark. It was only after we started shooting the guns over a bag that the acceptance rate climbed.
As with all things, there are exceptions to the rule. The wide-link and ground pin used in some of our target pistols enhances the stability of the barrel and because of the width of contact and precision between the pin, slide stop and link; the barrel and slide unit may tend to repeat better when anchored in a rest by the frame. But the system is not totally impervious to the accumulated tolerances that could be magnified by the machine. There are also a couple of people I know who are experts in getting guns to perform out of a rest. They’re almost ritualistic in the way they load the gun and reset it between shots. They sometimes back off the weight of the triggers and use a string through the trigger guard in place of the trigger actuator to get an even backward pressure on the trigger face. They have an uncanny knack of being able to get guns to perform acceptably in these machines. I just don’t have the skill, time or patience for that.
In final answer to the question that prompted this essay I can honestly tell you that I don’t know what groups my guns will produce through a rest. Chances are that the result would be different from machine to machine. I’ve never owned a rest and I’ve never personally fired a Pistol Dynamics custom gun in one and I cringe when people do, because I know that no matter what the result, it's not a true representation of the performance of the piece. I can tell you how the gun will perform in my hands, on a bag, with my benchmark ammo. The targets that are supplied with my custom guns are not faked and are also not the best of the bunch. I fire five groups of five rounds each at 25 yds and ship the group that best represents the average. If the gun doesn’t produce my expected level of performance then I find out why and either adjust the handgun or wake the next morning, get out of the right side of bed, and do it again. The target is included so that you can rest assured that the performance of the handgun is commensurate with your investment. I value my customers greatly and your peace of mind is of the utmost importance to me. Relying on a machine to do that which under every other circumstance is performed manually is the wrong way to test accuracy. That's why I take the time to personally target every custom gun that leaves my shop.
Paul Liebenberg
http://www.ransomrest.com/faqs.html
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Chuck Ransom Answers: A Shooter's Hard Questions About the Ransom Rest
Question: I have been shooting in my local club matches for several years now and I am beginning to reload my own ammo and get really serious about competing in several kinds of handgun sports. I've heard about this Ransom Rest and I'm wondering---Am I the kind of shooter who needs one?
Answer: You are exactly the kind of shooter who will get the most out of the Ransom Rest. Properly used, the Ransom Rest will give you a big boost in confidence when you go up on the firing line to compete---in any handgun sport.
Question: I can't take a machine rest on the line with me. How is using the Ransom Rest going to help me out when I'm on my own, out there in front of God and everybody?
Answer: Using the Rest helps in the preparation stages of the match, because it gives you a means of insuring that your handgun and your ammunition will do their part if you do yours. This means you can approach your shooting with confidence.
Question: I know that a machine rest holds the pistol in some kind of vise arrangement, but I don't understand how it works to build my confidence in my gun and ammo. What gives?
Answer: It isn't really a vise. The Ransom Rest is a fixture, precision cast from aluminum, which cradles your pistol in such a way that it will return to the same position each time it is fired. This means the Rest will literally aim the pistol for you---and do it with 100% repeatability.
Question: Do you mean that my custom Colt .45 is going to be clamped into a metal gizmo? Won't that chew up the finish and ruin the blue job?
Answer: No, not at all. When you set up a particular pistol to be fired, you remove the grips and place the pistol into a set of what we call "inserts" which are faced with a rubber-like material that is guaranteed not to mar the surface. One shooter just used the Rest to test a 1902 Luger Carbine worth almost thirteen grand---No problem.
Question: OK, so it won't hurt my gun. But I still don't see what mechanical aiming of the pistol is going to do for my "game day" outlook. Where does the confidence factor come in?
Answer: The Ransom Rest builds confidence simply because it tells you exactly what a particular pistol will do with a variety of different loads. Conversely, if you are shooting ammo of known quality, you can find out which of several pistols delivers the best performance. When you go on the line, you know what your equipment will do---and you shoot with greater confidence.
Question: Well, I sure can't argue with that; there have been a bunch of times when I had doubts about the quality of my gear. But it's beginning to sound like this Ransom Rest is some kind of robot. How does it put the gun back in the same spot each time?
Answer: Properly mounted and correctly manipulated, the Ransom Rest will place the pistol back in the same relative position to the target, time after time. It does so by mounting the pistol, in the inserts on a short rocker arm. When the pistol fires, the arm pivots upwards against spring tension and a friction fit of the arm to the base of the rest. The two major sections of the Rest fit together precisely and, when the shooter manually returns the rocker arm to battery, it goes right back to the spot it just left. This is mechanical aiming---the first big advantage of a Ransom Rest.
Question: Now you're getting me interested. But you say the this mechanical aiming is the first advantage of the Ransom Rest. Are there other advantages that I need to know about?
Answer: Sure there are. If you're working hard to master pistol shooting, you must have by now discovered the fact that sight alignment and sight picture are a big part of it, but there's such a thing as trigger squeeze and follow-through. In the Rest, there no problem with the trigger---you trip it with a little lever on the side. Unlike the human shooter who wants to relax when the shot is fired, the Ransom Rest stays on the job. It reacts to recoil in exactly the same way, time after time.
Question: So it responds to the kick the same---is that some kind of big deal?
Answer: Of course it is, particularly with the hard-kicking magnum revolvers used in silhouette shooting. The gun starts to move in recoil the instant the shot is fired. It comes back and up, well before the bullet leaves the muzzle. That affects where the bullet strikes the target. The Rest has a consistent response to recoil, while most shooters just simply don't. That is one particularly true when the test-shooting session is a long one.
Question: I guess you're telling me the Rest will aim a handgun and respond to the shot better than anyone can. Doesn't this make it sort of like a robot?
Answer: One of the writers who uses the Ransom Rest to test handguns for the gun magazine uses that word. He says the Ransom Rest is a robot---with an infinite attention span. It sure does shine when you are shooting all day. It leaves you free to pay attention to other things.
Question: What "other things" would you be concerned with?
Answer: There are certain characteristics of both revolvers and automatics that bear watching. If the Rest is holding and aiming the handgun when it is fired, the shooter can focus his attention downrange---on the target. Many, maybe most, new automatic pistols have a tendency to shoot the first shot from the magazine to a different spot than the rest. Only by watching the group develop on the target can the shooter become fully aware of how his pistol is performing.
Question: How about revolvers? What do you find out in their case?
Answer: For a whole bunch of complex reasons, revolvers usually have one or more chambers in the cylinder that deliver their shots to a different point of impact. A careful six gunner with a Ransom Rest can mark the individual chambers, then shoot groups with each to determine which is best and worst. He can also find out which one to leave out when he is using a six gun in a five-shot event.
Question: Well, I can sure see how this all makes sense, but it sound like a complicated---and expensive---arrangement. How much does the Ransom Rest cost?
Answer: A Ransom Rest with one set of inserts, enough to get you going, costs a lot less than a single high-quality handgun. Also, we have an optional windage base available. It makes the Rest a bit easier to use by aligning it more readily with the target. Over eighty different kinds of inserts are currently offered and the list grows longer all the time. What we are seeing more often is the gun club buying a rest, or even five or six guys getting together to buy one and a small library of inserts. The way I see it, if you're serious about your hand gunning, you're going to need a Ransom Rest.
http://americanhandgunner.com/machine-rests/
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Love At First Sight?
My job would be much more difficult without them. The alternative to a pistol machine rest is to shoot handguns from a sandbag rest. Although never very good at sandbag shooting I can do it — for a short period. After a bit my eyes blur, my hands get sore, and I tend to start jerking triggers. Then I never know if flyers are caused by me or by a fault of guns or ammo. My limit for group shooting from sandbag rest is perhaps two score rounds of light to moderate power (.22 LR to .44 Special) and not more than a dozen full-bore loads from magnums.
On the other hand, when using a machine rest I’ve fired several hundred rounds in an afternoon, and figure the results are as valid for the last cluster as for the first. The hitch is changing targets, as in it’s a time consuming 50-yard roundtrip after every group. On my luckiest days I’ve conned Yvonne into being my target changer, but usually can only prevail with considerable whining about my bum knee.
Before I had my own home range, a Lee Pistol Machine Rest was handy. It needs no permanent mounting because the handgun actually isn’t anchored to the rest. It’s a sort of brace affair. The handgun, sans grips, is mounted between aluminum grip adaptors, which are then pushed against stops in the base plate. Although still handheld, it’s aimed the same each time. Back in the ’70s I made up a portable bench out of an old redwood picnic table. Then I would find a suitable backstop on secluded public land and be able to start shooting in a matter of minutes. Too bad Lee Rests have been out of production for decades now. It was a good idea.
By Mike “Duke” Venturino
I'm glad you found one and like it.
