Here's a project that I have been wanting to pull together for quite some time now... a gun vise that I can do some at home gunsmithing or cleaning & maintenance. All the material was scavenged from the dumpster of a nearby construction site except for the two handscrew wood clamps. The two 10" handscrew wood clamps were purchased from Harbor Freight for $7.99 each. Since I used a couple of Harbor Freight coupons the total amount of money that I spent was easily under $15.
I had two different ideas in mind... the first is a benchtop vise similar to a simple tool carrier that I could carry all my cleaning supplies around and keep everything pretty well contained.
The second idea was just an extremely simple and lightweight benchtop vise.
I decided to go with the simpler version and put it together quickly. I decided to add foam padding to all the surfaces that could contact the rifle stock just for added protection. The only change that I would make would be to orient the two handscrew clamps in the same direction so that the top screw on each clamp are on the same side... if I make another one I'll make sure to correct that little oversight, sadly a healthy layer of spray Gorilla Glue prevent me from making that change easily on this one.
Later that night I used the vise to mount a new scope onto my muzzleloader. I leveled the rifle and locked it down in the vise, installed the new rings, lapped the rings, and installed my new scope easily compared to my previous experiences with trying to do this type of work on my set of sandbags. I used some non-slip material that my wife uses under the rugs and furniture to keep it from slipping and a couple C-clamps to really solidify the vise on the table. It is an excellent system and I'm extremely happy with it... one of my best recent DIY projects.
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