Product Review: Champion's Choice Spotting Scope Tripod
Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2016 6:13 pm
So I'm getting some equipment together to do some 3P shooting (and probably air or high power down the road). About 90% of my shooting is indoor at 50 foot, and I take all of my equipment with me from home to the range and back, so I wanted something that was lightweight and easy to lug around in my equipment bag.
You can click the thumbnails below to view them in full-size. I've got the whole album up on imgur at http://imgur.com/a/AKjbl
The stand comes with a lightweight aluminum tripod base, 66" of vertical rod, and a swivel head. I've mounted a cheap scope for demonstration purposes. The unit comes as pictured with three 22" long extension poles, as well as a plastic carry ball on the top pole.
The legs on the base are non-adjustable and measure about 14.5" long. When the base is folded up, it measures 16" overall vertically, and should fit nicely in most equipment bags. If you're at a range that has a crappy irregular floor, you might have a bit of a challenge balancing a heavy scope at off-hand height. Curious if that's caused any issues for anyone here?
The swivel head is designed to work on both 5/8" and 3/4" poles. One difference I immediately noticed is that this stand doesn't use a dedicated pan-view collar to support the scope vertically (like you'd see on a Freeland stand)--so the tension knob is responsible for both locking the scope horizontally as well as bearing the weight vertically. I'm curious how well this will hold up long-term.
The swivel head features a leveling bubble to help get the scope properly centered when you first set it up. To release the scope from the base, simply squeeze the quick-release latch and rotate clockwise.
Here's the swivel head with the quick-release base removed.
Here's a closer look at the base itself. It's a pretty typical swivel-style head.
I'm looking forward to trying this out at the range this coming week. :)
You can click the thumbnails below to view them in full-size. I've got the whole album up on imgur at http://imgur.com/a/AKjbl
The stand comes with a lightweight aluminum tripod base, 66" of vertical rod, and a swivel head. I've mounted a cheap scope for demonstration purposes. The unit comes as pictured with three 22" long extension poles, as well as a plastic carry ball on the top pole.
The legs on the base are non-adjustable and measure about 14.5" long. When the base is folded up, it measures 16" overall vertically, and should fit nicely in most equipment bags. If you're at a range that has a crappy irregular floor, you might have a bit of a challenge balancing a heavy scope at off-hand height. Curious if that's caused any issues for anyone here?
The swivel head is designed to work on both 5/8" and 3/4" poles. One difference I immediately noticed is that this stand doesn't use a dedicated pan-view collar to support the scope vertically (like you'd see on a Freeland stand)--so the tension knob is responsible for both locking the scope horizontally as well as bearing the weight vertically. I'm curious how well this will hold up long-term.
The swivel head features a leveling bubble to help get the scope properly centered when you first set it up. To release the scope from the base, simply squeeze the quick-release latch and rotate clockwise.
Here's the swivel head with the quick-release base removed.
Here's a closer look at the base itself. It's a pretty typical swivel-style head.
I'm looking forward to trying this out at the range this coming week. :)