Ridge Warden Tripod Head Giveaway by Wiser

[Hunterscamera]

Was just looking at this head this morning very much appreciate the updates!

 

[Matt5266]

I've been shooting and glassing off mine. Its not the master of anything, but its very good at everything. Size and weight are awesome. My new favorite head.

 

[LFC911]

My new favorite head.

 

[PathFinder]

Couple more updates:

Spent more time shooting from it. This time was an ~8.5lb 243 Improved, a total of about 30 rounds. Did some shooting seated, some prone, and some seated shooting steep uphill. Distances were 300m and 480m. Ended up concluding that clipping in worked really well for getting and staying on target through multiple shots with this rifle. The head has plenty of range to track targets well away from the original shot. I've been leaving the tension setting just slightly tighter than typical for glassing. It got pretty dirty in the wind and dust, but didn't seem to be affected.
Also took this head on a 4 day backpack spring bear trip. This was the first time using it for an extended period in cold weather. When temperatures got into the 20s, the pan axis got stiff. At one point, that meant it wouldn't hardly move. After playing with it a bit, the pan axis loosened up and was fine. The other glassing periods that were similarly cold had the same effect. It seems to loosen up after a bit of use while cold. In the future, I'll probably take the allen key to loosen the pan axis a bit. Maybe a different, Teflon-based grease would help? @Wiser Shane any input? Is it better to adjust the pan axis slightly, or would a different grease in it work?

 

[mthayr]

You're welcome, I appreciate you facilitating the giveaway!

It has been really good so far. The BT-20 seems to occupy a nice Goldilocks niche for backpack hunting. I plan to update this thread with more experiences throughout this year.

As I have the same setup, the large flat disc at the top of the center column on the 632 can spin right off, and the Ridge Warden can spin back on. Save an ounce or two and streamlines the setup some.



As far as the Seekins Arca plate, it does work, but the clamp knob is a bit tight to the bottom of he stock when using it, so I don't know that you'd be able to recess it and still use the knob to close the clamp. I've been on the hunt for a super-lightweight clamp with a lever, but then you lose the handle. It'd be great if @Wiser Shane could come up with something for that

 

[arlenmyles]

Zeiss SFL 8x40 and my Tikka 6mm CM!

 

[elkhunter505]

Wanted to add a brief update here on my use of the head recently. I spent a significant amount of time in the last week spotting for bighorn sheep lamb captures during field work. Using both my personal vortex razor HD 10x42 and a loaner Swaro ATS 85 (I believe?), I found the head to be great under both conditions. You definitely need to tighten it up to handle the Swaro but it is workable with the big scope. I find it an absolute breeze to glass with my binos. Really happy with the head combined with an Aziak backcountry. Insanely small and light package that actually seems to have a similar amount of rigidity as my previous Tricer AD + LP combo.

To this point, my only issue is the tight panning feature in cold weather or when the tripod hasn’t been used that was pointed out above by @PathFinder. Glad to know it wasn’t just user error on my part for that.

 

[PathFinder]

Shot about 120 rounds with the Ridge Warden on Saturday. There was quite a bit of shifting back and forth to shoot at different individual prairie dogs and clusters of holes. I really didn't notice much of anything from the tripod head while shooting, which is to say that it just functioned correctly and didn't require any special attention. Set the tension and left it, and was able to take the rifle in and out or move to new spots/directions without any hassle. Transitioning from one p-dog to the other was seamless. For an application that would have been better served with a heavy duty, large tripod and head, the Ridge Warden worked really well.

 

[Muleys32]

Will add my 2 cents. I’ve got the aziak back country and the wiser precision head. I was testing 10’s, 18’s, and a 86 mm athlon cronus spotter (heavy), off the side of the road. The wind was stiff at about 20 mph sustained. I was comparing this to a sirui va5 and a sirui 1204 tripod.

I expected the gap to be quite large but the wiser and the aziak held their own! I zoomed in on some sage at about a mile with the spotter on both and couldn’t see a big difference. The smaller tripod held the 86 mm Cronus just fine although it did have to be clamped down a bit tighter than the binocs of course. The va5 and the larger tripod definitely helped, but slightly. I’ll still keep the heavier setup for day hunts but the aziak and the wiser will win out for backpack hunts for now.

Once I’ve got actual hunting time into the new setup I’ll see if that sticks but I’m expecting it will.

 

[guitarpreston]

The ridge warden and this little oven tripod play well together…I clamped my rifle to it and the tripod was unhappy at full extension, seated/kneeling it should get by in a pinch. The warden is so smooth.