[silence]
As far as setting up the All-Purpose Mount, you want to purchase a few additional items.
You'd want to get an eye bolt. This is the size I got, 1/4 in - 20
times 2 1/2 inches long. And if you can, you'd want to get it open eye bolt.
I could not. There were only closed. So what I did was I bought a closed one.
And then I clamped it in my vice like this.
And took a small pipe, inserted it and slowly raised it.
Until I created an opening. And you want to purchase a washer.
The outside diameter of that washer is 3/4 of an inch.
And you want to buy a locking nut with a nylon insert.
And you want some string. Or in my case I've got a
short length of wire that I just used a crimp to connect it together
and we'll show you later in the video where this is used.
And you would want a number 3 metric hex key.
So let's open up the box.
[box opening]
Now there are no instructions inside the box.
[unwrapping]
Now at first it might look a little awkward. But that's because the legs are in the
opposite direction for compact storage ...
The legs actually go this way.
[tripod unfolding]
Now if yours is like mine, you might find that this whole area up here is really loose.
So what we're going to do is, secure this to the center post.
And just to make it easy .. to work with in the video ...
I'm going to ... unscrew this bottom part out of the post.
To do this you really don't have to .. unscrew it. But just help make the video.
To tighten this up is we're going to remove tripod head.
We're just gonna hold this .. knob .. and turn this off.
[disassembly]
Then we're going to take our number 3 metric hex key.
And loosen the set screw just to back it off a little bit ...
And then we are going to finger tighten .. the threaded bolt.
Then we are going to .. is snug up the knob. It doesn't .. take much at all.
And then we're going to take the hex key ...
and we're just going to snug up .. the set screw.
It doesn't have to be guerrilla tight.
Now this point .. the threaded bolt is secured to the center column.
Now before I reinstall the tripod head to the post.
Let's talk about the tripod head a little bit.
It's what I call a semi ball head.
You can rotate within this groove. And it can twist in this groove.
If you hold, this like rubberized knob ... You can see ... how it turns.
And when you tighten this ... not only does it tighten the ball head.
But, it tightens .. here also so you cannot rotate it.
Now the reason I call this a semi ball head.
Because I want to show you a still picture of what I call a full ball head.
But for the purposes of Labradar, this is gracious plenty.
So I'm just going to tighten this on ..
and then ... reattach ...
So now, the tripod head is secured to the center post.
Okay. The tripod head comes with one quick-release plate.
Which I have attached to the bottom of my Labradar unit.
The quick-release plate is actually square shape. So there's not really a
particular orientation of it. Since it is square.
To mount it, you have to open up the lever. Until it is held open by that brass pin.
Possibly could see a little lip here.
So the quick-release plate is going to go in at an angle,
underneath the lip. And once it is underneath the lip, push down.
Which will push down on this brass pin. [snap] And close it.
To release it, you just open it back up.
So you would take your quick-release plate.
Put it in an angle, when it is in, push .. down.
Now it didn't quite close completely. So you just finish closing it.
To release it, you just open up the latch. And pull it up at an angle.
Now before I install the center post back into the tripod,
I want to talk a little bit about the settings of the tripod legs.
Each leg has three positions. And what I call an adjustable stop.
This bottom setting will allow you to get the maximum height out of the tripod.
You raise this. This is an intermediate setting.
Raise this. And this will allow you to get the lowest position of the tripod.
When you want the lowest position you do want it .. in that notch.
You do not want to raise this and go past it.
And we'll show you some heights on each of these settings on the tripod legs.
Let's go ahead and reinsert ...
Just going to tighten it.
And I am going to reinstall this bottom piece.
[reassembly]
If it wasn't clear in the videos. This knob in the center here, this is what controls
the height of the center post. It doesn't raise it much, but it does give you an
additional inch to maybe two inches. Also these adjustments extend the legs.
It's not a large extension. If you're used to, like, full-length camera tripods.
But almost doubles .. the length of the leg.
Here I'll be setting the tripod up for the lowest position.
I'll point out something to you.
Let's say you want to get it low. So you ..
open this up and drop this.
And then you put it down.
As you can see ..
the center post is interfering
with the tripod laying flat.
So what you want to do.
Is raise .. the tripod.
Get it flat. And again,
you use those stops.
To put it into the lowest position on each leg.
And then ..
you can loosen the center post.
Gently drop it.
And then tighten it
And then you check
to make sure that the tripod is still solid.
If you do get that rocking motion. It's simple to fix.
Just loosen this.
Lower it so it touches the bench.
Raise it up a hair .. and then tighten it.
Let's see if it's any different if we extend the legs, in the lower position.
I don't know if you can tell, this has gone too far.
That's because the stop has gone over
it's indicator. So I need to fix that.
Because if the tripod actually goes flat. That means,
check your stops to make sure that it's ...
there in the right place.
I am going to lower this.
Check for stability ... Feels stable.
Now let's take a look at the intermediate position.
All right. The legs are at the intermediate position. I've got the center post as high as it can go.
If I drop the center post.
Alright. Let's take it to it's maximum height.
[silence]
Now what I want to do next, is actually put on the Labradar unit.
And let's talk about stability.
Now I know you can't see the entire Labradar unit, but that's okay.
Because we're really not going to talk about the unit. We're going to talk about the tripod.
And I've got my battery pack installed. For those of you who use the self adhesive.
You probably have your battery pack over here.
I prefer to keep the battery pack covered. And away from muzzle blast.
That's just me. I want to talk about stability.
The tripod, with the tripod head, is around 23 ounces.
The Labradar unit by itself, is 57 ounces.
And the battery pack, is 8 ounces. So the two of these,
are going to be at least 65 ounces.
From here up, you're going to have 65 ounces of weight.
From here down, you're going to have 23 ounces of weight.
So obviously this is a very top-heavy.
As you can see that the legs, just barely make the width of the Labradar unit.
So one could argue maybe this is a little bit unstable. And what can we do about it?
We're actually going to add weight to the bottom of the tripod.
And this is where that eye bolt comes into play. If you recall this bottom piece unscrews.
And also it has a hole in the middle.
So what we're going to do, is we're going to take our eye bolt.
Insert it into this piece.
Drop on that washer. And then we're going to install ...
our lock nut. I'm going to go ahead and finish installing off-camera so you don't have to watch it.
Now you could run the lock nut all the way down to the point where this is tight.
But you don't want to. For two reasons. One.
If you make it tight, you're going to get rid of your opening.
And number two. You do want this opening to be able to pivot.
So you can easily get to it.
So now, I'm just going to reinstall this.
[silence]
So I've got the black piece snug up against the center post. But this is free.
If for some reason you find it is difficult to screw this back on.
It may be because your washer is too big of a diameter.
The diameter of the washer has to be smaller than .. this black piece.
So once we have the eye bolt installed,
we take that piece of string or wire we talked about at the beginning of the video,
and if you have, like a box of ammo that's relatively heavy.
You can put it in there.
And if you have a sandbag.
Now you can take one of your wife's training weights because we know you don't have one.
That will add a lot of weight below the center of gravity.
Which will make this whole setup much more stable.
Now what you don't want to do, is hang weight so that it's suspended in the air.
Because then it will just act as a pendulum.
And it will start slowly shaking the entire unit. Which you don't want.
So let's say you've got this set up and then the next
thing you want to do is bench rest your rifle. So you want the tripod as low as it can.
Is this eye bolt going to get in the way? No, because ...
[silence]
Just like we installed it ...
We can remove it. And just set it aside.
So you can lower your tripod. And then when you're done.
You can reinstall this.
So that is the Labradar Bench and Tripod All-Purpose Mount.
I hope this video was useful to you.
And thank you for watching.
Links to my other Labradar videos can be found displayed on the screen.
[silence for rest of video]