Rifle Bipods
A rifle bipod turns the ground, a log or a truck hood into a rest that holds your crosshairs still when it counts. This collection covers bipods for hunting and range work, sorted the way you actually choose one: by how it attaches to your rifle and how tall it needs to stand for the way you shoot.
Shop bipods by fit
- Sling stud bipods for factory hunting rifles with no rail
- M-LOK bipods for AR-15s and modern handguards
- Picatinny bipods for railed forends and chassis rifles
- Tall bipods for sitting and kneeling shots
- Swivel and tilt bipods for uneven ground
- Lightweight and carbon fiber bipods for carrying miles
- Precision and long range bipods
- Shooting sticks for standing shots in cover
- Rifle slings and sling swivels
- Riflescopes
Start with how the bipod mounts
The first filter is the attachment point on your rifle. There are three you will run into.
Sling swivel stud. The small threaded post under the forend of most factory bolt-action hunting rifles. A sling stud bipod clamps onto it, and most include a stud of their own so your sling still has somewhere to go. If your rifle has no rail, this is almost certainly the one you need.
M-LOK. The slotted handguard on most current AR-15s and many chassis rifles. The bipod bolts straight into the slots, which keeps it lower and lighter than adding a rail section first.
Picatinny. The ridged 1913 rail found on tactical forends, chassis stocks and some hunting stocks. Picatinny bipods clamp on with a lever or a knob and move between rifles in seconds.
Adapters exist in every direction, so a rifle is rarely locked out of a bipod. Every adapter adds a little height and a little play, though, so matching the bipod to the mount you already have gives the most solid result.
What height bipod do you need
Height is set by the position you shoot from, and most hunting shots are taken from one of two.
Prone. A 6 to 9 inch bipod is the standard for lying down on flat ground or a bench. Step up to roughly 9 to 13 inches if you shoot over grass, run a large magazine, or have a stock with a deep belly.
Sitting. Legs that reach into the low-to-mid 20s put the scope at eye level for a seated hunter, which is how a lot of ground blind, field-edge and hillside shots actually happen. See the tall bipods collection for these.
Kneeling and standing shots are usually past what a rifle-mounted bipod can reach. That is the job of shooting sticks.
Fixed, swivel and pan
A fixed bipod holds the rifle at whatever angle the ground gives it. That is fine on a bench and on flat dirt, and it is the lightest and simplest design.
A swivel or tilt bipod lets the rifle cant side to side while the legs stay planted, so you can level the crosshairs when one leg sits lower than the other. On a hillside or a rocky slope this is the feature hunters miss most when they do not have it. Pan adds left-right rotation, which lets you follow an animal a few degrees without picking the rifle up.
Hunting bipods versus range bipods
A bipod for hunting gets carried a long way before it is used for a few seconds. Weight, how quietly it deploys, and whether it snags on brush all matter more than they do at the range. A bipod for the bench or a precision match can afford more weight in exchange for rigidity and fine adjustment. Plenty of hunters use one of each.
Getting steady off a bipod
Set up behind the rifle so your body is in line with the bore, then lean gently forward into the bipod. That light forward pressure, called loading or preloading, stops the rifle hopping on recoil and makes every shot recoil the same way. Confirm your zero from the bipod too. A rifle can print differently off a bipod than off sandbags, and you want to find that out on paper.
Rifle bipod FAQs
Do I need a bipod for deer hunting?
You do not need one, but it makes any shot from the ground, a blind window or a field edge noticeably steadier. If most of your shots come from a tree stand with a shooting rail, a bipod adds less.
What size bipod should I buy?
For prone shooting, 6 to 9 inches. For shooting sitting down, a bipod that extends into the low-to-mid 20s. If you are unsure, think about where your last three shots at game came from and buy for that position.
Can I put a bipod on a rifle without a rail?
Yes. If the rifle has a front sling swivel stud, a sling stud bipod clamps directly to it with no rail needed.
Will a bipod change my point of impact?
It can, particularly on lighter rifles. Zero or confirm your zero shooting off the bipod if that is how you plan to hunt.