Our last friendly get-together at Pawnee made me realize I had a need to get better organized when I brought a lot of guns to the range. Bench space is always at a premium, and magazines have a tendency to get everywhere. I had an upcoming shoot at the NRA Whittington Center that was very 1911-centric, so I threw these pistol stands together over the course of this week. Didn't take very many pictures of the process, but here are the intermediate and end results:
https://www.johnnyego.com/wood/2019P...tolracks01.JPG
I cut a couple of templates for the sides out of plywood, and tried to find the balance between comfortable carry and ease of usability. I wanted to keep the height and length at 12" max, so that put some constraints on things. For the racks intended to be used at the range, the handle is biased about an inch and a half towards the rear, which makes it easy to remove and return guns in use.
https://www.johnnyego.com/wood/2019P...tolracks02.JPG
The other two racks are for cleaning and transport between my garage and the safe. They are built around the Hyscore foam modular racks, and hold six guns at closer spacing. Wouldn't be ideal to work out of for two reasons. One is that the foam would probably melt if I put a hot gun in there. The other is that the spacing is pretty tight and I think the foam would wear quickly when guns were repeatedly moved in and out over a range session.
https://www.johnnyego.com/wood/2019P...tolracks03.JPG
Pistol rack is 5 guns in 11 inches of space, solid rock maple. To make it removable and reinstallable without damaging the finish of the tote, the sides of the upper and lower rack are lined in felt. There is no felt in any of the notches, because I had concerns about scraping melted felt off my 1911s. Though I might later add felt to to notches of the lower racks, where they meet with the grips. However, the notches are well-rounded and sanded glass smooth, and do not appear to have caused any wear issues as of yet, so I may just let them be.
https://www.johnnyego.com/wood/2019P...tolracks04.JPG
https://www.johnnyego.com/wood/2019P...tolracks05.JPG
https://www.johnnyego.com/wood/2019P...ttington04.JPG
In use at Whittington. Definitely kept the shooting bench much cleaner, and way easier and faster to shoot than going in and out of cases all day.
https://www.johnnyego.com/wood/2019P...ttington12.JPG
I had mixed emotions about the taller stand with the shelf, but in use, it held plenty of magazines and left the bench clean. I came into this thinking I wouldn't really care for it because it was so tall, but when I build the next iteration of this design, I will definitely keep it.
Got a couple other thoughts to experiment with over the winter, including an iteration of the design with a tambour top so I can take the tote to the range already loaded.
Thanks for looking!
