Everybody shoots better when they have something soft to rest their rifle on. Competitive shooters bring all sorts of bags to the range, and hunters have been using rests — purpose-built and improvised — for centuries. Â Shadow Tech, the folks who make the great PIG Saddle and tripod combo I reviewed earlier this year, have come up with a simple and effective soft rest that attaches directly to your rifle’s stock. They call it the PIG Skins Barricade Pad.
In order to try it out, I installed the PIG Skin on one of my most tried and trusted hunting rifles, a Remington 700ADL in 7mm-08. This was the rifle that started long(ish) range shooting for me, and has taken hundreds of white tail deer, antelope, pigs, and varmints all over the country. I’ve bedded the factory composite stock, and it looked like a prime candidate for the PIG Skin.
Installation of the PIG Skin Barricade Pad is easy, and everything required is included. Pick a spot on your stock, clean it with the included alcohol pad, and stick the pile side of the Velcro on the gun after it dries.
Then just set the barricade onto the Velcro and…you’re done. It’s that easy. When you want to remove the barricade just peel it off the pile side, which stays firmly stuck to the stock.
The pad is genuine unicorn tongue, urethane, the same stuff the pads on the Hog Saddle and Pig Saddle are made of. It has a bit of a soft feel to it, but still retains its shape and rigidity. The material is extremely durable and UV resistant.
If, for some reason, that pile gets worn out over time, Shadow Tech has included another section in the package. It would take a lot of years and a whole lot placements and removals of the pad to get both pile sections to wear out.
The 7mm-08 is known to be a light-recoiling caliber, one of the many reasons it’s one of my favorite chamberings. Still, it pushes back enough to get an idea on how well the hook and loop hold together in recoil. It holds together.
I put 50 rounds through this gun over the course of a few of weeks while trying to decide if it needs a new barrel (sadly, yes). At no point in the firing did the hook and loop ever separate, or really move under recoil in any way that would require adjustment.
The barricade pad provides a good grip, with a little extra texture for offhand shots. More importantly, it gives lots of extra texture, as well as a soft surface for shooting off of hard objects, such as a rail, a bench, a rock, or a tree branch.
No mater the shape of the object it rests on, the PIG Skin barricade pad’s urethane horn allows the shooter lean into the gun, further stabilizing the rifle for precise shots.
The PIG Skin Barricade Pad with Horn as shown is only $14.99. I wouldn’t put it on any of my rifles with a fine wood stock purely for aesthetic reasons, but for any of my composite or aluminum stocks, it’s a great addition. Another good product from a company I’ve come to trust.
Shadow Tech PIG Skin Barricade Pad with Horn
MSRP: $14.99
Rating (out of five stars):
Overall * * * * *
The PIG Skin Barricade Pad with Horn is a simple, effective piece of gear to help with all sorts of rifle shooting. It’s great for the blind or the brush, or for shooting off a bag. Plus, it’s dirt cheap. It was an easy five stars for this one.
$15 is cheaper than alot of recoil pads and the shaping is already done. I do prefer attaching with sling studs over the velcro though. But a lot more work. So, pretty decent inexpensive execution of an old time hack I think.
Uh yeah
Might wanna screw that in. I dunno where you all are at but it about 100andOMG here and then it drops to -Icantfeelmyface and that cutsie little glue pad is going to fail at the worst time.
I’m in the Texas Hill Country. It’s a hundred degrees and I’ve been shooting this thing for weeks. It’s not going anywhere.
50 rounds!! 50 whole rounds!!!
Just like your body armor thing, you obviously need someone else to design your testing process for these esoterica thingy reviews.
Daw..it’s so cute you’re back. I was missing my favorite stalker.
In his defense, that body armor failing by the 3rd (if memory serves right,) round is seriously a pretty big issue. Fifty rounds does seem a bit scant for moderate recoiling rounds, but it’s more a bridge between a dedicated handstop/barrier wedge and nothing at all. Seems like a good, inexpensive addition. Worst comes to worst, you’re out some pocket change.
Body armor needs to be tested with a solid, human body type backing, not hanging off a steel plate. Ergo, my testing error barb. Taylor slandered a perfectly good body armor company in the process with unknown damages to the company. He also embarrassed himself with his new LE employer. Don’t worry, you guys shit-canned those articles down the memory hole but Wayback Machine and Maybe Gator never forget.
Honestly, Taylor, I wouldn’t give you such a hard time if you would just admit you make mistakes just like everyone else. But, you can’t.
I didn’t embarrass myself with anybody. And I stand behind every word I wrote. In that very article I wrote that I had it wrapped around the steel too tight, so I took it off and tested other ways.
That armor failed being loosely hung not even wrapped around the target. It failed hung up with no backing whatsoever. It also failed just laying on the ground.
The company argued that the ground was too hard. It argued that hanging in the air was too soft.
TTAG agreed, against my wishes, to pull the article if the company would agree to allow us to do further testing. The company agreed to that as well. I just wanted to show the video I had of bullets sailing through it while it was hung up with no backing at all.
I suggested wrapping the armor around a dead pig and shooting it, but the company did not agree to any testing other than a duplication of the NIJ test. I am not interested in if it will pass the NIJ test. I am interested in if it will stop a bullet from entering my body while I am on duty. I have no faith that it will.
I admit to mistakes TTAG all the time. But that wasn’t one of them.
I don’t really care if you give me a hard time. I know you sit there at night in front of your mirror, putting on your lipstick over and over again wondering if I’m thinking about, you too. I’m not.
Steel targets don’t wear body armor, loosely or tightly. The ground doesn’t wear body armor. Pigs don’t wear body armor, though pigs are at least getting closer to the real thing. That’s why I am virtually positive that body armor is tested wrapped around an object that very closely simulates the upper torso of the human body. I don’t even have to look it up. I know it by nature and is reinforced by an engineering degree. You very possibly caused financial/reputational damages to a body armor company run by hard-working business owners. These folks probably built that business from the ground up with blood, sweat, tears and money and you potentially damaged all that by doing a non-realistic test in your freaking back yard and then yapping about it to possibly hundreds of thousands of people on the internet. You were incapable of looking into their actual testing methods and results, which in all likelihood were done properly, which is what anyone with an iota of engineering sense would have done. You did this because you think nobody can do things as well as you. I got news for you: you were 1 of 2.5 million American soldiers that visited the sandbox, one of millions of EMT’s out there, one of millions of cops out there and one of billions of regular people out there with less than ideal childhoods. In spite of what Farago said, you aren’t special.
I know you will never admit you did anything wrong. You literally aren’t capable of it.
TLDR
But I totally forgot about how you said Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t real wars and that the fighting over there was so easy.
Your opinions are invalid.
Precisely
Come on, that’s it?
You aren’t going to tell me again how combat in Afghanistan and Iraq is really just as easy as a video game? You’re not going to educate us all with how the members of the Taliban, militia members, and Al Qaeda are all completely untrained and barely armed? No more stories of how combat is just child’s play?
Come on. I want to hear, from your experience, how it’s really just not very hard.
“Pigs don’t wear body armor”
C’mon, man, don’t tell me you’ve never worn body armor.
Ironicatbest never did shoot a 7-08 but he thought the idea a good one.On the larger game you mentioned he thought it would be a better alternative then the 6-08.
I’ve been using the original Pig Skin on PRS matches for more than a year now. Each match is typically a minimum of 80 rounds and includes the use of barriers made of wood, concrete, rock, roofing material, steel and pvc pipes. The Pig Skin has been used on both bolt action rifle and AR-10 “Gas Guns”, both chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. I have also used these during practice and range sessions as well as classes.
It has not shown any kind of failure or weakness despite being switched back and forth using only the velcro attachment. I have also used it on my AR-15 in 224 Valkyrie, although not yet in competition or any courses.
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