Forty-plus products is a lot of catalog — ours included. But every support bag ever sewn does one of three jobs. Name the job and the choice mostly makes itself.
Job 1: Prop support
The bag goes between a surface and your rifle. Two different shapes get conformed to at once — the prop underneath (round, square, or flat: tank trap, fence post, rock, window sill, truck hood) and whatever rides on top: rifle, optic, binoculars. This is pinch-top country — the Fortune Cookie family exists for exactly this. Size sets mag clearance (Micro least, Max most); width sets what fore-end fits (see: Does my rifle need the X?).
Why the shape under the arch matters
Most competition bags are butterfly-shaped: flat wings that rely on the rifle’s force to clamp the bag to the prop — nothing grasping the prop, no channel holding the rifle. The Fortune Cookie starts from a round base instead: a low center of gravity and a straight-walled arch that encompasses and hooks the prop, while the rifle presses its own channel into the top — a stable place to rest, and to move in under recoil. Weight plants the bag. The arch hooks the prop. The channel holds the rifle.
Job 2: Positional support
You’re building a shooting position — sitting, kneeling, standing — on a prop or unsupported. The goal is filling as many spaces as possible with bag: eliminate muscle strain, cut the wobble you see through the scope. Soft, light bags win here. That’s the Pump Pillow and Tac Pad’s whole career.
Job 3: Rear support
Under the toe of the stock, squeezed to elevation. Poly fill holds the squeeze; smaller is usually better; a strap or loop earns its keep the day you go prone on a slope.
Then three quick filters
Fill decides stability versus weight — sand and glass for maximum settle, Hybrid for sand behavior at 80% of the weight, poly for rear bags, SpexLite when it rides in a pack. (Full guide: Fill by role, not religion.)
Fabric decides feel and wear. Light waxed canvas is supple — it conforms and grips, the match shell. Heavy waxed canvas takes field abuse, the hunt pick. 1000D Cordura is the hose-it-off workhorse. Waxed canvas runs double-stitched, Cordura triple — every pattern stress-tested during development, and repairable at our own bench when a flat panel takes a puncture.
The honest part. If you shoot twice a year off a bench, a $30 import will hold your rifle up — until it ships empty, leaks its fill, or shows up stuffed with foam scraps, which is what the owner reviews of cheap bags actually say. A serious bag costs more because it’s cut, filled, and stitched to be rebuilt, not replaced. Buy once.
Shooters' notes from College Station
Fill science, match-prep checklists — and limited runs sell to the list first.