What to Consider When Choosing a Bipod

9-Hole Reviews • January 14, 2025

Today we’re talking about bipods. For a very long time, we thought very one-dimensionally about bipod use. I’m prone on nice, flat, stable ground; I use the bipod to stabilize the front end of the gun, and that’s that. When you think about it in that context, a $40 or $50 bipod seems and is perfectly reasonable. But when you start expanding past just shooting prone and want to do a bunch of other elements and pieces with the bipod, that’s where it starts to show why one brand or another might be a preferable choice.

The first bipods we’re looking at are the Magpul bipods. They are a very consumer-friendly price, but as Magpul usually does, they balance function and cost. These are an exceedingly popular choice because they do have quite good functionality for the price tag. Even though they are more on the budget side, they do have a tensioning screw. We’ve found that having good tension on bipods is very, very useful for stabilizing rifles.

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Magpul bipod

Up next, Harris bipods. These bipods also have tensioning screws in the back, but we like to run them with the addition of a pivot lock. These let you quickly adjust the tension to be able to make quick adjustments when you need it. One of the best pros of the Harris bipods is that they don’t lock out when deployed. This means you can very quickly deploy the bipod and then also very quickly fold it back down. This makes Harris bipods very popular with military, law enforcement, 3-gun shooters, and hunters who might need the quick-deploy feature.

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Harris bipod

But some people might consider this a negative, which carries us into the next group of bipods, Atlas bipods. With Atlas bipods, everything completely locks out which gives you a very stable platform. They also include a tensioning screw on the bottom which gives you stability during pan if you want to pan or tilt. One thing you can do with Atlas bipods that you can’t do with Harris or Magpul is pull them backward. You could then hook them over a ledge and do a little pulling motion and get a little bit of barricade assist.

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Atlas bipod

Then we get into what Henry calls “the Cadillac of bipods”, Josh’s MDT CKYE Pod Gen 2 Bipod. The extreme range of leg extension and width extension make this bipod capable of creating a solid shooting platform in essentially any situation you might find yourself in.

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MDT bipod

But you have to ask yourself if those extreme scenarios are something you’re likely to encounter on a regular basis or not. You need to be honest with yourself and determine what you are using the firearm for. Then don’t spend the money on an item if it doesn’t make sense.

Watch the video above for a much more in-depth discussion about the functionality of all these different bipods and additional considerations that you should make before you go out and purchase a bipod. We’ll see you on the range.

-- 9-Hole Reviews

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