Stumbled accross this dohicky a while back and thought it was just the thing. A bit rich for my blood I passed on it until I found a coupon code (panteaoprp) for $50 off at Botach. Since it was already on sale at the time, I got this puppy for 74 something shipped.
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This is a heavy chunk of aluminum, Taste like 6160. Some machining marks here and there, over all the finish is very good anodizing.
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The mount is an adjustable throw lever mount with an engagement tab on each end for the cross slots in the rail. The adjustment knob itself is a nice large steel piece with good knurling.
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The very large throw lever is quite similar to ADM mounts in how it locks to the rail. The rail engagement section is spring loaded and pushes open when the lever is flipped off. You can see in this pic I greased it with a bit of frog lube. Despite the length of the lever, I found it took a good bit of force to operate, once it was adjusted to my AR10s bottom rail. This may or may not prove to be the weak link in the system. I'll just have to see if it breaks.
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This is what is inside the unit. There is a corresponding nylon insert in the top that I couldn't get to tonight.
They way this all works is that you attach the base to the head of your heavy duty tripod, then mount your weapon on top. you get the full 360 rotation and around 30 degrees of tilt. The textured mid-section is then rotated to adjust tension from free swing without resistance to full lock and anywhere in between. A removable steel lever is supplied to give speed and leverage to the adjustment, with 4 threaded holes to clock the lever where it will work for you best.
Since it is a ball & socket affair there is also adjustment for cant, should your tripod be on uneven ground. The manufacturer claims it is rated for a 100 pound weapon and recoil up to a .50 cal. My initial impressions of the quality and over all robustness of the unit, I tend to believe it. even without mounting it to my tripod, I can twist down on it enough that I can not make it move and do so without torquing to a point that I can't undo it.
One thing to be aware of, the base included with the unit is threaded for a 3/8 heavy duty tripod. while they do sell an adapter for standard 1/4 camera mounts, I suggest looking around as manfroto sells a 3/8 - 1/4 insert that should work just as well at half the price. Since I am using a dewalt construction tripod, I am having to stack adapters to go from a 5/8 thread to a 1/4, then back to 3/8 with the part from manfroto. all available through amazon.
I will post more when my adapters arrive and I should get some shooting video after that.
