BRADLEY ADJUSTABLE CHEEK REST

About a year ago we took a look at the Bradley M1A Cheekrest which was designed to work with the Springfield Armory M1A and M14 series of rifles which have been around for a while and have all had the same problem of getting good scope alignment. That Bradley setup worked well and we liked the simple and effective design of the strap on cheek rest.

While the Bradley M1A was designed to work with just a single type of rifle, Bradley recognized there were a lot of other shooters that could benefit from a similar type of cheek riser, so this time around we are looking at the Adjustable Bradley Cheekrest. The concept of this design is to cover as many types of rifles as possible with just a single unit, and then to make it possible to work with various different scope mounting heights. The only way to accomplish this was to make the cheekrest adjustable, and that is what Bradley has done here.

Just like all of the cheekrests in the Bradley lineup, the adjustable one comes packaged in a small burlap sack that gives a very military and utilitarian look to the unit. Though once you pull the unit out and mount it on your rifle, the use of the sack becomes very limited. There were also some basic instructions included with the cheepiece to explain how to adjust and mount it onto a rifle.

The basic design is very similar to the nonadjustable units but this time the cheekpiece assembly has four sets of holes on either side of the elevated cheekpiece section to allow the user to raise or lower it to fit just about any rifle and scope combination. These little holes have small little screws that screw into a flat rivet type of nut to hold it in place. It takes a little bit of time to remove the screws, adjust the cheekpiece, and then reattach the the screws when adjusting the cheekpiece height, but once set it should not need to be readjusted again, at least for that particular shooter.

Like the other Bradley cheek rests, the adjustable version comes with a piece of neoprene that fits between the cheekpiece and the stock, acting as a buffer as well as providing a snug and nonmoving contact between cheekpiece and buttstock. To attach the actual cheekpiece to the buttstock of the rifle, there are three adjustable Velcro straps, one that goes around the back and the other two that strap around the bottom of the buttstock. The three straps are all adjustable for length and there is an additional long strap that can be swapped out for any of the three. The combination of all three straps work together to insure the cheepiece is held firm in place. The same mounting system is used for the straps here as is used on the other models with a loop that the straps must be threaded through in order to then snug down and pull the Velcro straps back over onto themselves to mount it up. It requires a little bit of effort to get the straps threaded through the loops, but is not overly difficult.

For our testing we decided to use a bolt action Remington 700 rifle that had a Bell and Carlson light tactical (Model #2956) stock with the butthook on bottom. We figured if the setup worked here it would work on just about any standard bolt action rifle. After adjusting the height of the cheekpiece to be just a notch up from the bottom, we then worked on adjusting the straps to get them to fit the buttstock. One problem we had was that the rear strap on the bottom was too short, so we swapped it out for the longer one, which was then too long and would not work! We went back to the short one and was able to just barely make it able to grab. Bradley does have some additional strap lengths and for odd stocks like this one or the McMillan A2, they will send out a middle length strap, just contact them directly. The standard strap lengths work for a vast majority of the rifle stocks out there. Once the cheekpiece was attacked it held firm and has stayed nicely in place since. The little nuts and screws used to attach the top riser to the main cheepiece has some extra bulk over the rivets on the standard nonadjustable unit, so there is a little bit of gap between the two that is not as nice fitting as the original. But once it is all setup, it works well and does not seem abnormal.

Functionally the cheekpiece works well. Once adjusted, it setup well on this Remington and allowed the eye to align very well with the Weaver scope on top. The cheekweld is again a little slippery with just the bare Kydex used as a cheekrest, but it is a solid cheekweld without movement and it stays put during recoil. Some mole skin or other solution can be added to the cheekweld area to help reduce the slickness of it.

This particular unit came in a tan/brown color which matched the custom camo on this particular rifle well enough. The units are light and do not add much weight to the rifle and they have been holding up well. If you are in the market for a cheekpiece that gives you some flexible mounting options and adjustable cheekweld heights but you do not want to permanently modify the stock, then this Bradley adjustable unit might be what you are looking for.

To purchase the Bradley cheekpiece, visit their web page here:
www.bradleycheekrest.com/

Sniper Central – 2013