As requested, pics of my range room. I bought remote as hell just so I could do this. Closest full time neighbor is 7 miles by road, 4 miles as the raven flys. My 200yd berm is that little spec in the back of the shooting lane. Heavy growth keeps the wind down unless its directly west and then its a headwind. Biggest issue is mirage from heat escaping the window. Still working on that. I freeze it down with the dozer and then keep it snowblowed all winter. Its good exercise setting and retrieving targets. Still waiting for a wolf to pee on the berm…… while Im in the room

The video camera above the Pope Rest lets me monitor traffic in the front yard as I shoot. It works splendidly to let me know someone has driven in, whereby, I “close up shop”. Part of my routine is to glance at the screen just before firing.

Very nice. I am in a similar situation and have found the mirage to be troublesome as well.

In my 8x8 100 yard shooting building I keep it about 40 and can open the door briefly to clear the mirage.

My 1000 yard range house is also my reloading room so is more difficult to deal with, its both bigger and kept warmer. For scoped shooting I have adapters for some scopes that I can fasten thin clear plastic tubing to like a long sunshade to get it out the window to outside air.

Randy,
I now have a couple thousand shots over the Pope/Storie rest, so feel somewhat qualified to review it. For starters, and just like you said in your excellent article, it IS NOT a “one hole” benchrest savior. It takes a LOT of shooting and experimenting to get consistent results off this rest. Anyone thinking it may be an unfair advantage is welcome to sit behind mine and try to beat their current system. A healthy wager says they wont for a LONG time. That said, I think once you have a technique, it MAY be more consistent and less prone to influence than bags. Because I spend a lot of time developing loads, I wanted something heading in the direction of Rowland’s Gibraltar rest. Rather than wood, my base is a modified turn of the century HEAVY cast iron lathe bed. I had literally hours of experimenting on wooden planks, enough to satisfy me that any form of wood was not the answer. The cast iron had plenty of issues in itself, the major obstacle that needed to be overcome was a recoil “bounce” that I believe was happening the instant of firing….barrel harmonics/whip during bullet travel. I cured this issue by installing first cereal cardboard and then UHMW sheet (1/32” thick) under the Pope muzzle rest. The cereal card had enough “give” to have a very obvious impact on crosshair movement. The UHMW has none. Also note that my base is 3pt contact….a must! 

Another issue that took a lot of time to  unravel was the tendency of the muzzle rest to float. By design, it served its purpose well for ‘Ol Harry. As we continuously strive to improve not so well now. The design has the rear rest VERY near a stocked rifles balance pt. or CG. Minuscule inputs on the butt stock make my rifle pivot or teeter here resulting in a near float/weightless condition of the muzzle rest. Conventional rests put the rifles CG well between the rest points of contact. I think I have a fix. 

Free recoil was another eye-opener. I shot a consecutive 248 and 249 in practice so had technique and load dialed. Using the same load, I shot (10) shots COMPLETELY free recoil off the Pope rest. The result was a 3 1/2” long straightline  diagonal group. I kept that target as I did not understand what was going on, I just knew it wasn't the answer.

Any, and I mean ANY tendency to “force” the crosshairs with the Pope rest will result in an impact outside of the normal group. In experimenting, it is amazing how light of a force on the stock or wrist will affect impact. Consistent force = consistent results. As an example, I get my best groups with my right elbow lifted completely off the bench. If I forget or get tired and rest my elbow, I will get a 5 o’clock flyer. Its counter-intuitive but is fact.

I hope it came off in a positive way? I may never go back to bags. Here is a pic of the old Starrett adjustable level that I use.

Thanx Randy. 
I am always happy to share what I have learned. If anyone is interested, here are a couple resized shots of the whole outfit with the background clutter masked. The parallel rails surrounding the muzzle rest have 1/16” of clearance over the muzzle rest feet width and only serve to guide the vee back to mate the index pin. I wish the resolution on the photos didn't go to hell when I resize!

Ha, thats funny! Notice that all the jars are the “OLD” recipe. I was on a bender for a while buying all the full jars that showed up on ebay. My last purchase was a quart bottle from 1968……the good stuff. I want what's left put in the poop-poo-ri pots at my funeral.