A man named David Nance has posted pictures of a shooting bench that is hooked to his Ford Explorer via the trailer hitch of the SUV. The table is a simple design with room to have a rifle laid on it comfortably, along with a section for ammunition or any other accessories. It has a car seat for a seat, and is designed to be used with either the back hatch open or closed. When the hatch is open, this allows for access to the interior of the car, in addition to providing an overhead cover against the elements. When in position, there are two folding legs that support it while it is in use. The entire bench is strong enough that David has been driving around his hometown with it on the back of his car. In addition, he is working on a way to hook up a trailer to the SUV, while still having the shooting bench attached to it.

David is a retired manager, and in his newfound free time, he drives out to go prairie dog hunting. He designed this trailer hitch shooting bench as a way to shoot comfortably while on the hunt. I know that in some states it is illegal to shoot from a vehicle, and/or on a public road. But I assume David will be on private property while hunting, or else he wouldn’t have been able to assemble the bench to begin with.

I am a retired design engineer and owned and managed a Tool & Die business for 32 years. This shooting bench is not too much different from others out there on the market it’s simply designed to attach to the hitch on my Ford Explorer with swing down jacks to stabilize it. I have now done some target shooting off of it at 400 yds. It is very stable. I can also drive long distances with the bench on the hitch. This will leave me room inside the vehicle for other things. I’m planning a 900 mile trip from West Tennessee to Lubbock Tx. this spring to shoot prairie dogs. I’ve been driving around locally with the bench on the Explorer to make sure no problems pop up. This design would have to have dimensional adjustments for different vehicles.

 

Since the previous pictures I have added a receiver to the lower section of the bench so I can pull a trailer if need be with the bench mounted to the Explorer.