by Robert Badgett | Jul 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
Effective July 11, 2023 WieBad will be transitioning over to a new website.
The new website will centralize all orders into one location. Allowing the company to streamline processes and prepare us for bringing in other manufacturing technology in the near future. The website is also more feature rich than what we have used in the past and will allow for a better shopping experience for customers. Keep an eye out for added features in the future such as the already integrated Order Tracking. Questions or comments can be directed to admin@wiebadgear.com.
by Robert Badgett | Jun 27, 2023 | Rear Bags
Let’s take a moment to discuss rear bags, what they are used for, other purposes and the ideas behind our design.
To start off with, I would define rear bags as: a multi-shaped, often square or rectangular, bag that provides a shooter multiple elevation options with squeezable adjustability that allows an individual to make and hold micro-adjustments on their aiming point through iron sites or a scope reticle.
The rear bag is a necessary piece of kit that every shooter, whether you are a hunter or competitive shooter, uses on a regular basis. It is just as essential as the rifle. No matter what discipline we are practicing we are eventually going to find ourselves in a shooting position that requires rear rifle support. In the beginning, we were limited on the gear. Over the years companies, such as WieBad Gear, have emerged offering solutions to fit all styles of rifles and the terrain we shoot from. Coincidently this is a forever evolving venture.
Early in my shooting experience, mostly what was available to the average hunter or shooter were Manners or McMillan Stocks. These rifles didn’t require much height out of a rear bag due to its sloping rear butt-stock design. This design allowed the shooter to use square or even tube like designs. In fact, you saw many shooters using socks filled with rice or beans. Some time around 2013 Todd Reynold came out with one of the first available skeleton style chassis systems called the Rock Solid Stock. All of a sudden the standard square rear bags didn’t offer enough height as a rear bag due to the empty space in front of the butt stock of the stock. That’s where WieBad’s design was conceived, planned and born. The bag was designed with a multi-deminsional purpose in mind to accommodate all stocks. It measured 1″x6″x9″. Flat on its side, as a squeeze rear bag, it could elevate with grip pressure from 1″-3″. On it’s side, it could elevate from 3″ fully compressed to 6″. When stood on its end, it could elevate the rear of the rifle from 6″ to 9″. This rear bag, referred to as the Loop Bag, is still offered and in use today. The design has stood the test of time and still manages to fit new chassis systems being released.
Today, there is a wide variety of rear bags in use designed to fit any need a specific shooter may have based on rifle and terrain. Often, shooters use their favorite bags that were not originally intended to be a rear bag, but fill the need quite nicely. Take the Fortune Cookie for instance. This product was spin off of our Range Cube product line. By simply cutting an arch out of the Range Cube and flattening the top by half an inch we created a useful bag that can be placed on anything from tree branches to a pipe fences in the field. The versatility of the Fortune Cookie is, in fact, unparalleled by any of our other products. Competitive shooters that use this bag adapt it to a rear bag by either using the arch as a pinch point or by using one of the points as a squeeze bag to manipulate elevation. I invite you to see what we have to offer and what may fit your shooting style. You can look at our Stability Bags to see the entire shooting bag offering or more specifically our Rear Bag category. What ever type of product you choose and grow your proficiency with, there is no doubt, these products are necessary for accurate shot placement.
by Robert Badgett | Jun 27, 2023 | Uncategorized
That’s a funny name, where did it come from and how did WieBad start?
As most of you are aware, WieBad Gear is comprised by two owners, Robert Badgett and David Wiese. We had been friends for quite some time prior to the conception of the company. I think we met sometime around 2005 or there about. I can always think back to the age of my youngest child because he’s known her since she was a baby. Anyhow, David and I had common interests in hunting and shooting. We even met in a gun shop through a common friend. Needless to say we quickly became friends and that friendship eventually spawned one of the best shooting gear manufacturing companies in America.
Fast forward to 2009, I was invited to go on an annual mule deer hunting trip with David and his father-in-law in Terlingua, TX. On the drive, David and I spoke about how awesome it would be to own a company in the shooting industry that could afford us the time and money to hunt and shoot more. Of course, we all have those dreams about our favorite hobbies. It wasn’t till a couple of days later. I was on the back of a 4-wheeler headed up to the plateau to do some scouting when it hit me like a ton of bricks, the name! WieBad, the first three letters of David’s last name and the first thee letters of mine. I turned around and raced back to camp and told David. He also thought it was cool and cleaver, but then the realization that we needed more than a company.
Originally, I thought WieBad would be the Nike of the shooting industry. Let’s order shooting products and re-brand them with a badass logo and the WieBad name. Funny story that I will spare you the details of, but our first product in 2009 was going to be a trailer hitch toilet seat we could park outside of a buddy’s tent that used to hunt with us in Terlingua. I’m sure you can use your imagination on why. On a side not, we did see that product came out years later and we laughed about it.
About a year later, David had already been shooting with another buddy of ours, in fact the guy we met through, at a match down in Kingsville, TX called Rifles Only. It was the Snipers Hide cup back then. For some reason David decided that he wanted to make his own rear bag and bought a Consew swing machine and made one up for himself. Just like that, the company was born. Once you begin to make product for yourself and other shooters on the firing line begin to take notice of it. They want it. Even to this day, guys ask us to use our gear to see if it will help them.
Needless to say, the rest is history. WieBad Gear was formed in 2010 and officially made into a LLC partnership in early 2011. We started in a bedroom at David’s home, migrated to my Man Cave, upgraded to 1000 sq. ft, then 3000 sq. ft and today we are in 6000 sq. ft with the ability to expand to 12000 sq. ft. Oh yeah, and that comment about having more time and money to hunt and shoot. Yeah right, we now have less time and practice reinvesting into the growth and success of our business, but we wouldn’t trade a thing.
