Smartrest Racken Rest

After the success of reviewing the Smartrest Eagle-Eye Nitro rest I was given this to try out from Bushwear.

I give you

The Smart Rest Racken Rest

Pins securely within the window opening

No Nuts or Bolts to secure

Two point rotating and pivoting platform

“Bench rest accuracy from the comfort of your car. This innovative shooting rest from Australia is pinned securely within the window opening by two gas rams, the entire rest can be popped in and out in seconds, no nuts, no bolts. The rifle is then cradled at two points within a rotating and pivoting platform, so manoeuvrable the user can track targets with ease and take shots with pinpoint accuracy.”

Set Up:

No spanners needed to get this ready to install on your vehicle, however, I do suggest tightening some of the free moving nuts and bolts on the rack itself.

Building the unit straight out of the box takes a few minutes and the instructions are pretty self explanatory so nothing technical involved in the set up.

To install on your vehicle is easy, just put the base onto the window trim and pull back the rams and place into the window recess’s on the upper door frame and your ready to go.

My Thoughts

The Smartrest Racken Rest is a good piece of kit that easily attaches to your door and provides a stable and flexible rest to shoot from allowing you to accurately and safely shoot from your vehicle.

I have used this unit extensively over the last few weeks as a rest while out doing pest control, it truly gives you a very useful platform to work from.

The rotating rest gives you motion from side to side for easier and smoother tracking also allows you to lean forward and back.

The adjustable mounts for the rifle to rest suits “most” rifles from rimfires to cantrefires as well as varmint and sporter stocks. The full weight of the rifle is taken by the rest which helps with the stability of your shooting and removing movement from your breathing.

The price for the rest  is £179.99 which is quite a lot but I don’t think it is too much, I have had a few fellow pest controllers look at this and they think it is very good for the money.

In the past I used a piece of foam cladding on top of a half drawn window and although “I feel” this is completely adequate the cladding has a few issues such as flying off when driving from field to field or a long the road, which the Racken Rest does not do, and the cladding wears sometimes very quickly but for the cost of 50p it done the job. This unit however gives you a far more professional setup and freedom and flexibility and as your using the window fully open it gives you plenty of space to have a good flashlight or IR unit on top of your scope.

All in all the Racken Rest is a very useful rest and there is a lot of variations of window rests on the market varying in price. This unit I would say is the best of what is on the market at the moment, it still has few problems associated with shooting from a vehicle, as a left I find it very easy to shoot our the drivers window and this rest suits me and especially helps when I need to hold a lamp alongside it. Although this suits me the usual problems of elbow room is still there.

I do suggest a try before you buy on the Racken Rest because although most people will find this good some of us bigger lads may find it a little cumbersome.