Tactical Bipod Review - JustinOpinion

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Lightweight Tactical Bipod Review

Hey guys meet the Tier One Tactical Bipod. The tier one tactical is constructed entirely from 7075 T6 aluminum and is available a couple of different ways; you can have aluminum sleeves on the legs or you can have as you see here carbon fiber sleeves.

It’s available in either a 7-9inch or 9-11 inch configuration. That’s 180mm or 230mm if you speak millimetre. The corresponding weights are 242g or 292g and if you convert that to American that’s 8.5oz or 10.3 oz, and those weights are with the carbon fiber legs. You can also get 50mm leg extensions if you need those.

One of the things that makes this system really versatile is that there are multiple foot options available including different spikes and claws and even skis.

The ones you see here are just the standard that come with it. And in addition to the feet, tier one also has a lot of accessories available, they have locks and legs and picatinny adapters, scope levelling wedges, even tools and hard cases. Just about every kind of solution that you would need for your rifle’s mounting system on a bipod, you can get from tier one. And full disclosure guys, tier one sent this bipod to me for evaluation and testing.

This tactical bipod has a retail price of 395 which definitely puts it in the category of high quality accessories. I used the tier one on an AR 15 and it performed perfectly. Its easy mounting and lightweight make it easy to attach when needed and barely changes the balance of the rifle. The bipod stays sturdy even at full extension, something I’ve noticed can be a problem for some.

Unlike the wobbliness that I have felt with some other bipods at full extension I didn’t notice any loss of support or control with this tier one unit. I also mounted the tier one on  a much heavier Sig Sauer 556r that shoots the more jolting 7.62x39 round. And just as with the .223 round from the AR 15, the feet held their spot on the shooting bench and the legs of the bipod absorbed the recoil well and kept my scope on target between shots.

The quality of this bipod is apparent the moment you pick it up and look at it. It’s not an inexpensive piece of gear so you’re probably asking what do I get for my money.

Well from what I’m seeing from my evaluation and testing, is that you get top quality materials, well constructed and excellent design, simplistic operation and a great lifetime guarantee. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s very easy on the eyes.

I’ve been contemplating who I think this beautiful carbon fiber bipod is really for; if you follow my antics you know that I’m not really an experienced rifle guy, but when I do take long guns to the range I am very picky about how everything works. I think I have less patience with rifles or related gear that doesn’t function properly than I do for handguns and their related gear. That’s probably due to my lack of experience and confidence with them.

But that didn’t happen for a moment with the Tier One, not because it does amazing tricks that the others don’t, or because suddenly someone invented a two leg support system that’s revolutionary, nope. It’s just because it’s instantly simple to understand and use and it does exactly what you expect it to do. And on top of all that it looks awesome with all these finely milled aluminium parts and carbon sleeves. But then you know that I’m a bit partial to carbon fiber.

I did have one problem with the tier one which turned out to be my ignorance at work, but since it was the only element of the product hat for me at least wasn’t completely intuitive let me share:

The problem that I was having was that this tension lever controlled picatinny connection wasn’t always fitting the rail I was trying to put it on. It was a little bit too loose, and even through I can see the tightening nut right here as you can, it’s recessed just about flushed with the housing and I was having a hard time trying to understand how am I supposed to adjust that.

So I reached out to tier one and they responded quickly and didn’t even call me names, which they could have done. It turns out it’s really pretty simple as you might expect.

You put the lever in this position which is the unlatched or relaxed position, the open position if you will. And then you push it in, just push in on the end of the lever, as I’m doing here, and you can see that doing it with one finger is not that tough, and you can probably also see that screw then will come out. So that screw will not protrude and it will allow you to turn it in or out as you may need to adjust the tension.

And then once you release the pressure it goes back to being flush and it stays exactly where you put it. Turns out it’s really a pretty good and simple design, I was just too dumb to figure it out.

Once you’ve done that and you’ve gotten it adjusted you won’t likely need to do it again for a very long time if ever, especially if you’re using mil spec gear, and based on how quickly they helped me out and answered my questions, we can probably add great customer service to the list of what we get for our money.

So back to my derailed thought about who I think is the ideal customer; probably not the guy or lady who’s going to shoot the rifle occasionally or go out and do a little bit of plinking with it. This equipment is made for the more serious shooter, whether you’re a hunter r some sort of an operator. Maybe you’re a competition shooter that needs something that’s reliable, simple to operate and very lightweight, or let’s be honest, you might just be the person who likes to put the best accessories on their rifle and wants to make a fashion statement at the range. There’s nothing wrong with that either. 

Tier One tactical bipod also comes with this very awesome case you can see if I turn it sideways here a little bit, you can see there their name and logo sort of embossed into it. Again it’s a nice case, molded custom fit for your bipod and has lots of pockets for accessories like spare feet and leg extensions.

Mounting and unmounting the bipod couldn’t be simpler, you just use this tension level which does have a lock on it so that it can’t accidentally be released even if you were to bump that level, pull back on that lock, flip out that tension lever and that’s it. Mounting is simply a quick reverse of that process. So I’ve used this tier one tactical bipod over the course of several range trips with several different rifles and it has met all my need  and it works very well.

I really like the quick disconnect, I like that a lot as opposed to having to fish through my range bag for the right allen wrench or some other tool to attach or detach the bipod. The bipod also has a decent amount of swivel to it; you can see as I turn the head this way and turn the head that way, I don’t know how many degrees that is, I’m gonna guess that probably 15 or so degrees in either direction. And the head is also capable of cant back and forth, and this bring s me to the only thing that I really didn’t like using this particular bipod is that, this tension screw comes loose almost constantly so if you’re not always reaching down and retightening that the cant becomes so loose and wobbly then your rifles is going to fall to one side of another, sometimes with enough force that it could knock the whole thing over. So that was the one thing that I didn’t really care for. I wish there were a little better mechanism for tightening that and having it stay tight. Other than that I really have no complaints.

If you’re after a sort of minimalistic look or you’re after a really cool look it kind of fits both and I like that, that’s a tough balance to strike but they’ve really pulled that off. And it’s very simple and elegant, and yet very rugged and very efficient.

So for it’s high quality materials, and very, very precise construction and workmanship, and for its simplistic ease of operation, and yes, also for its aesthetic qualities I definitely give the tier one tactical bipod a thumbs up. It is not cheap, but if you are in the market for a bipod in this price range I recommend it.