Ridge Warden Tripod Head Giveaway by Wiser

[Hnthrdr]

Nice he will be here to get it I’m sure

 

[PathFinder]

Alright Guys, @Baseballandhunting is MIA.

Alternate is (drumroll)...
@PathFinder

Again, Please respond to this thread and shoot me a DM to claim.

Hope everyone is getting ready for a relaxing Thanksgiving week next week.

Whoa man this is awesome, thank you! I'm really excited to put this head to work. Shooting you a DM now.

 

[Wiser Shane]

Whoa man this is awesome, thank you! I'm really excited to put this head to work. Shooting you a DM now.

You were quick on the draw there!

I think we'll get your head out today then!

 

[PathFinder]

You were quick on the draw there!

I think we'll get your head out today then!

That will be awesome! I'm heading out on a coues hunt that will involve an unreasonable amount of glassing and lots of potential to shoot from steep sidehills, so it will be a good test. There will be some feedback from shooting prior to that trip, and from the trip itself. Thanks!

 

[Wiser Shane]

That will be awesome! I'm heading out on a coues hunt that will involve an unreasonable amount of glassing and lots of potential to shoot from steep sidehills, so it will be a good test. There will be some feedback from shooting prior to that trip, and from the trip itself. Thanks!

Head is in the mail! Hopefully USPS doesn't drop the ball on this one too and you have it for your Couse hunt.

 

[TylerK11]

Have never heard of this brand before but this head is intriguing. Looks like it checks all the boxes for a good backcountry setup.

 

[high_hunter]

Have never heard of this brand before but this head is intriguing. Looks like it checks all the boxes for a good backcountry setup.

They are an awesome local to me company. Hope the winners enjoy the head and put it to good use. Looking at one myself as an upgrade to my current setup.

 

[elkhunter505]

Back at home and just threw the head on my new Aziak (thanks to another rokslide member). Looking forward to putting it to use in a couple days. Thanks guys!!

 

[PathFinder]

The head showed up yesterday, thanks @Wiser Shane for getting it out so quickly! First impressions are positive, I spent some time playing around with it and installing on a Slik 622 last night. Tension settings and movement are easy to dial in and seem very smooth. Seems to have quite a bit more resolution in the adjustments vs the Tricer LP. Will update with more thoughts with some actual use.

 

[sndmn11]

Speaking of giveaways, this just popped up in my email.

 

[Wiser Shane]

Back at home and just threw the head on my new Aziak (thanks to another rokslide member). Looking forward to putting it to use in a couple days. Thanks guys!!

You are very welcome! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts after you get some real time behind it.

 

[Wiser Shane]

The head showed up yesterday, thanks @Wiser Shane for getting it out so quickly! First impressions are positive, I spent some time playing around with it and installing on a Slik 622 last night. Tension settings and movement are easy to dial in and seem very smooth. Seems to have quite a bit more resolution in the adjustments vs the Tricer LP. Will update with more thoughts with some actual use.

You're very welcome! Glad to hear first impressions are good. I would agree with you, the "resolution in adjustments" is extremely impressive with this head. Part of my QC process is glassing with a Kowa 77 spotter at max magnification (60x). The Ridge Warden can pretty easily follow a deer walking while at max magnification with that spotter.

 

[elkhunter505]

So first impressions after a very minimal amount of glassing time. Solid system that does exactly what it is supposed to do. The tilt is smooth and the pan is also smooth with one caveat. Take this with a grain of salt as I didn’t fiddle with it before I took off to the first hunt. It seemed as though the pan function was stiffer when starting out in cold weather. Say 28 degrees or so. It seemed like it was very stiff and the ball would jump out of the pins to where the ball itself was panning rather than the pan. I didn’t spend the time to fiddle with the micro adjust for the pan, will do it in the future. The other thing that seemed different on mine than the one in the intro video was when the ball snapped back into the pan mode, it didn’t make a very noticeable sound or give too much haptic feedback. The video sounded like it would be relatively noticeable. However, that being said, I am very excited to keep working with it as once I got pretty used to it, I was very satisfied with the functionality especially the lack of bounce back when I would stop panning or tilting. Hopefully I can provide some better feedback here in a week or two.

 

[PathFinder]

Analysis so far, after a couple range days and a 5 day coues hunt:
I'm coming from 2+ years of using a Tricer LP, so much of my thoughts come from comparing to that.

Glassing: Very positive overall. One thing I don't love about the Tricer LP is that the UNC threads on the tension knobs leave very little resolution in tension adjustment. Meaning, there's a very narrow range where the friction is ideal, and small adjustments make a big difference. For the Ridge Warden, the amount of adjustment resolution on the vertical axis is excellent. There's a lot of range to get the tension dialed just right. The adjustment knob can get in the way and hit the head above it, but it's a simple matter to reorient it by unscrewing it enough to rotate the screw in its captured feature. It can have ~3/4 rotation of adjustment, which is enough to go from very light for small binoculars to very tight for shooting or large optics. I haven't messed with the horizontal axis tension, the factory setting has been good so far. The only thing I've found that isn't ideal for glassing is that when trying to spin an optic around quickly (change glassing direction, flip glass around to clean objective lens) the pins tend to pop out of the detents (as intended for shooting). Not a big deal, just have to make those movements somewhat more slowly or turn it by the panning section above the base. Movements are extremely smooth and controllable. No issues with steep angles or wind. This is a small scope, but it handled it really well.



Shooting: Haven't shot from it yet, just messed around with the rifle in it. The ARCA opens up plenty wide to drop ARCA straight down into the clamp. Rolling the rifle on the ball feature, to unlock the pins from the detents, is very smooth. It feels seamless. I didn't feel any need to lock the head, just left the same tension on it as for glassing with a pack as a rear support. Panning, tilting, and leveling were all very controllable. I haven't clipped in on ARCA for a few years, but I'm planning to do a lot of shooting that way in the coming months. There were a few spots I set up on the coues hunt where the tripod would have been the primary option to shoot.

Here you can see the detents in the head. Don't laugh too hard at my hasty stock work and paint. I dug all the factory putty out of this Manners, gave it some proper structure, and it lost 8 oz.


Other: This thing is impressively small and light. Notably more so than the Tricer LP. Having it fold tight to the tripod is nice too. It has me convinced that an adapter like the Sparrow would be nice vs the Outdoorsmans adapter I've used for years. I'll likely give that a shot for next season. The ball itself is really the key feature of the head. It's a clever design that I'd like to nerd out over the production of some more. Whether the detents in the ball wear or not will determine a lot of the head's longevity, I don't see that as a concern so far. I used it from 10F to 65F with no changes in performance. It got drug around in the dirt a bit while strapped to my pack with no issues, didn't notice any debris sticking to the ball or affecting it.

 

[Hnthrdr]

Analysis so far, after a couple range days and a 5 day coues hunt:
I'm coming from 2+ years of using a Tricer LP, so much of my thoughts come from comparing to that.

Glassing: Very positive overall. One thing I don't love about the Tricer LP is that the UNC threads on the tension knobs leave very little resolution in tension adjustment. Meaning, there's a very narrow range where the friction is ideal, and small adjustments make a big difference. For the Ridge Warden, the amount of adjustment resolution on the vertical axis is excellent. There's a lot of range to get the tension dialed just right. The adjustment knob can get in the way and hit the head above it, but it's a simple matter to reorient it by unscrewing it enough to rotate the screw in its captured feature. It can have ~3/4 rotation of adjustment, which is enough to go from very light for small binoculars to very tight for shooting or large optics. I haven't messed with the horizontal axis tension, the factory setting has been good so far. The only thing I've found that isn't ideal for glassing is that when trying to spin an optic around quickly (change glassing direction, flip glass around to clean objective lens) the pins tend to pop out of the detents (as intended for shooting). Not a big deal, just have to make those movements somewhat more slowly or turn it by the panning section above the base. Movements are extremely smooth and controllable. No issues with steep angles or wind. This is a small scope, but it handled it really well.

View attachment 982226

Shooting: Haven't shot from it yet, just messed around with the rifle in it. The ARCA opens up plenty wide to drop ARCA straight down into the clamp. Rolling the rifle on the ball feature, to unlock the pins from the detents, is very smooth. It feels seamless. I didn't feel any need to lock the head, just left the same tension on it as for glassing with a pack as a rear support. Panning, tilting, and leveling were all very controllable. I haven't clipped in on ARCA for a few years, but I'm planning to do a lot of shooting that way in the coming months. There were a few spots I set up on the coues hunt where the tripod would have been the primary option to shoot.

Here you can see the detents in the head. Don't laugh too hard at my hasty stock work and paint. I dug all the factory putty out of this Manners, gave it some proper structure, and it lost 8 oz.
View attachment 982224

Other: This thing is impressively small and light. Notably more so than the Tricer LP. Having it fold tight to the tripod is nice too. It has me convinced that an adapter like the Sparrow would be nice vs the Outdoorsmans adapter I've used for years. I'll likely give that a shot for next season. The ball itself is really the key feature of the head. It's a clever design that I'd like to nerd out over the production of some more. Whether the detents in the ball wear or not will determine a lot of the head's longevity, I don't see that as a concern so far. I used it from 10F to 65F with no changes in performance. It got drug around in the dirt a bit while strapped to my pack with no issues, didn't notice any debris sticking to the ball or affecting it.

View attachment 982225

Great review I’ll have to give this a hard look in the coming years!

 

[sndmn11]

Great review I’ll have to give this a hard look in the coming years!

just come grab mine.