Neopod Test on a Bolly Featherweight

The Neopod is an exciting new bipod that weighs less than 100grams so we decided to do a Neopod test on a Bolly Featherweight stocked rifle. The Neopod bipod is a natural choice for someone trying to keep weight down on their mountain rifle but want the convenience of a capable bipod. We mounted the Neopod to Tikka T3 Stainless lite .243 in a featherweight sporting a standard sling stud, classic limbsaver recoil pad and topped with a common hunting scope, the Leupy vx2 3-9×40. The entire package was a mere 3.1kg, that’s 6.8lbs complete, with a bolt and a empty 5 round detachable magazine. A reasonably lightweight package but lighter is quickly achieved by using a standard airtech rather than the classic limbsaver and the rifle would be right at home on the ranges chasing medium game.

Mounting the Neopod

Neopod Test Image 1 — Neopod connected using the included sling stud universal adaptor

The Neopod bipod installed easily to the stock using a standard stud mount and utilised a small pin. Disassembly in the field would be ill advised as the pin would be readily lost. The rubber insert used to connect the bipod to the stock was deemed a bit too soft as it required excessive preloading as the rubber continually compressed. This resulted in some difficulty in achieving consistent loading on the bipod. This rubber interface is the contributing factor to the bipod being unable to match the Atlas PSR in terms of achievable accuracy.

We are currently trying to acquire the picatinny rail adaptor as it is believed this will be a vastly superior interface between bipod and stock.

Footage of the Neopod test on a Bolly Featherweight

To see how the bipod confirmed we took some footage to see how the bipod reacted under recoil. Whilst manageable after some practice, it was prone to jumping. The relaxation of the rubber interface really was a detriment to accuracy. After 10 rounds of practice the performance was similar to a harris bipod but with significant weight savings. Preloading the bipod was the main issue but even at 150m using Federal Premium factory ammunition and a 3-9 scope, groups from the system where sub MOA. The group fired in the film below was the best group of the afternoon at 0.9″ the excessive preloading is visible in the video. We only fired 20 rounds during this first test it has been decided that long range testing may be a waste of time with the current interface. When a picatinny rail system arrives we will redo the test.