Originally Posted by frazod
I got your bi-pod in the mail today. Thanks! I learned over the weekend how useful it is, too.
Drove to an outdoor range on Saturday with my friend who just picked up a new AR. We're both experienced and skilled with pistols, but when it comes to assault rifles and nifty optics, we're both n00bs, and boy did we get an education on exactly what sort of n00bs we are.
For starters, we went there with a cheap red laser bore sight thinking we'd be able to use it to zero our holo sights (he's got an Eotech). WRONG. Red lasers are useless beyond 25 yards, especially in daylight. This meant we needed binoculars or a spotting scope, which we didn't have. I was able to rent a scope from the range, but that brought us to the next problem - the wind.
I have no idea how many MPH the wind was blowing, but it was God awful. The only things that wouldn't blow away the second we sat them down were full magazines and the rifles themselves. Everything else would blow all over the place. It was maddening. Neither of us could keep the scope on the target while the other was shooting because the wind made the scope impossible to steady. Each little thing that went wrong pissed me off just that much more, and they compounded quickly. At some point I realized how utterly useless that light/grip combo I installed was, too. When I was shooting and not thinking about it, I didn't use it at all and frankly it just got in the way. A bi-pod would have been nice, though!
So, after floundering around in the wind like reeruns for a couple of hours, and accomplishing nothing other than pissing ourselves off and undoubtedly giving the experienced shooters a good laugh, we went back to a local indoor range and used our crummy bore laser to zero in our sights at 25 yards.
So, I guess I chalk this up to a series of humbling, yet important, lessons learned. The 3x magnifier I bought and the flip to the side mount for it which was the wrong height are being returned. The bi-pod is installed on the rifle, the grip/light combo are in the parts drawer. I guess if I ever decide to storm somebody's house at night with no thought to where any errant rounds might go, I'll put them back on, but outside of that they're useless toys that do nothing but add needless weight and get in the way. No more gimmicky crap that looks cool on the internet - I need to get my rifle sighted in and some experience shooting it. Period.
The only thing I need right now is a good pair of binoculars, a couple of 20 round mags and a return trip to the range at some point when there aren't gale force winds blowing.
Anyway, thanks again for the bi-pod.
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