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I got me some Claryville Creek sand down the road from Gordon E's house, and I improved all the way to second from last in the last IR 50/50 shoot......
but I talked with Speedy a lot and modified slightly his advise. What I did was get a protector bag with rabbit ears. I filled the rabbit ears fairly hard with parakeet sand from walmart. Not so hard they don't deflect, but don't slump either.
The bottom I filled with parakeet sand mixed with small aquarium gravel about half and half by volume. My goal was to not allow any packing. I am a bag squeezer and wanted some compliance in the bag. I wanted to be able to solidly squeeze the bag and have the gun move enough such that it showed about an inch on the target and returned when let go. I used to use a protector with hard sand and it would not do that.
I shoot a 30br and the old bag kept giving me vertical. After moving to the new bag it went away. The only issue is I think the sand tends to migrate to the bottom in the bottom and the lighter gravel floats up. I put the bag in the car upside down so the vibration tends to undo it as I travel around.
Not a world class shooter at all. Not even a local class shooter. Worked for me and made engineering sense to give a better damping and reduce vibrations (and its not so damn heavy to carry around).
I got the same idea from Ed Watson and Gary Conaway many years ago - and this is what I use. Don't pack the front bag too hard. Remember the 1/4" deflection rule. A lot of poor shooting rifles have been fixed over the years by simply softening the front sandbag. I use heavy garnet sand in the rear bag...also not packed too hard.
Greg Walley
Kelbly's Inc.