Hi calmac,
Hello muir and for others who know better than I and have done it, (It's darned difficult barging in as a new boy and airing ideas. Most of it is old hat and amost forgotten about so it doesn't get mentioned until someone pokes you with a sharp stick).
If anyone has dismantled enough factory rounds of any manufacture, and weighed bullet, powder and brass prior to re-assembling for velocity, accuracy and field testing, you will be interested to find that there can be quite a variation in powder weights; yet all the time, decent shots are check-zeroing and killing with them with no problems.
I read some comments by several fellows on one of the threads on this forum some time ago - and it scared the effluent out of me as I suddenly realised that I was swimming in shark-infested waters. These fellows do a lot of in-depth target shooting, and their argument was that it's not the precision of powder weight which matters, but the bullet seating depth.
Now THAT takes for a lot of patience and repetition until the precise depth is found, and it's well out of my league in singular concentration because I know several things.
The only rest I use in the field in the prone position is a rolled-up rifle slip or a convenient knoll. If I require to do so, I get up on my elbows or sit with my elbows locked between my knees in the sitting position and also use my walking stick as an extra prop on the forend.
On the range - because my sole reason for doing so is checking the rifle for the field, I'll use a better rest, but it's really to prove that the rifle can produce the goods within certain perameters and that it's really a better tool than I am. Every shot on the hill and in the woods is different. The reason for problems is most often not the rifle - but US - and the only way to get around that one is to keep ourselves as fit as possible so that when we reach the shooting point we are in good condition to hold and use that rifle.
I know the advantages of a bipod. I used them on on a Bren then the LMG and later the GPMG for years, and as a young 'squaddie' I peeled quite a few spuds as punishment for placing neat holes in the triangular shot pointers which the other lads used for pointing out the shots in the butts. They pointed out my last shot and I put one in beside it. I had good eyes in those days, and the black imp in me ran strong. No credit to me there !
But I hate carrying a bipod on a sporting rifle because I don't like the extra weight and know that 90% of my shooting will be adequately done without one. If it looks risky, then back off as there's always another day.
I have good and respected hill-stalker friends who use them. They are willing to carry them about and heft the extra weight, and that's their choice - good on them. They like the stability, the end-result convenience and the confidence it gives to their shooting.
They still hand their rifles to me on the range during the final check though, so bipod or no bipod, the difference in choice is respected, but of course, on the side of being paranoid, maybe they are trying to make 'uncle 'K' feel better !
I guess that I'm just getting a bit lazy. There was a day when I'd walk a mile to cast a fly on a puddle in the road, now I have rods a-plenty but there always seems to be tasks to do nearer the door.