Sighting in On Big Game with Caldwell's Lead Sleds

While the swallows of Capistrano mark the beginning of spring, a herd of green lead sleds at the public range mark the start of hunting season. Lead sleds are popular among hunters because they are the easy button for zeroing a riflescope and greatly reduce recoil.

What Is a Lead Sled?

A lead sled is a rifle shooting rest that cradles a rifle from buttstock and forend and holds a weight. Without the weight, it is just a shooting rest. The rest holds the rifle steady while the weight counters recoil through the added mass and friction. The adjective “lead” is derived from the bags of shotgun lead shot that are used as weight. Water, sand, and weight plates are also used.

The Benefits of Using a Lead Sled

Zeroing a centerfire rifle accurately is not as easy as it sounds. The crosshairs of the scope must be steady on the target, and the recoil must travel straight back and not sideways. A shooter can undermine this with a poor body position, putting too much shoulder pressure on the buttstock, or grasping the grip aggressively. Terrible follow-through and flinching can also screw up your shots. When you pair a light rifle with a magnum cartridge, the rifle can buck like a wild mustang, thereby undermining accuracy. A lead sled minimizes shooter input on the rifle and greatly reduces recoil.

With a lead sled doing most of the work, getting your shots centered on target will conserve ammo. I can’t count how many shooters I’ve helped at a public range who have emptied a 20-round box of ammo and are still not centered on target. The problem is usually twofold: an unstable rifle setup and poor shooting skills.

There are more benefits to a lead sled. Once an accurate zero is established, it can serve as a benchmark when a shooter begins to shoot with the tools that they will normally take into the field. This includes a backpack, bipod, and a host of other rifle supports. Shooters sensitive to recoil can incrementally reduce the weight to accustom themselves to a rifle’s recoil.

One of the bad raps that lead sleds get is that they can damage scopes. To get an expert’s take on this, I reached out to Michael Cottrell. Cottrell is a project engineer for American Outdoor Brands, the company that owns Caldwell. He stated, “A big part of this myth is the misconception that a lead sled 'captures' the recoil of the firearm.”

He explains that their lead sleds have a thick pad to dramatically reduce the recoil force. The pad increases the amount of time the gun recoils, thus reducing the acceleration and recoil force. Additionally, the lead sleds sit on feet, allowing them to slide under force. The weight increases the friction of the feet to the benchtop surface, but the weight is not so great that it prevents the sled from moving. The recoil energy gets distributed throughout the rifle system, including the bench or ground the sled is on.

Caldwell Lead Sleds

Caldwell has long been synonymous with lead sleds. The 5 sleds I recently saw at the range were all Caldwell’s. There are 5 models in their catalog, 4 of which have been updated for 2025. Prices range from $132 for the Lead Sled Solo 2 to the $495 Lead Sled FCX. For review, I received the Lead Sled DFT 3 ($286) and Lead Sled Max ($330). The DFT 3 replaces the DFT 2, and the Max is a brand-new model.

First impressions

Although I’ve come across lead sleds at public ranges for the 10-plus years I’ve been a rifle shooter, I’ve never shot off one. I was trained to shoot with a bipod using a rear bag as a support. Pulling the parts out of the boxes made me realize that the Caldwell Lead Sleds are nothing like the lead sleds I have encountered in the wild. The DFT 3 and Max are heavy-duty by comparison. The majority of the parts are steel or aluminum. The buttstock rests employ a steak-thick, high-density, rubber recoil pad. This should comfort anyone who is concerned about their optics. Caldwell didn’t cut corners with the construction: all the parts look overbuilt and should last a shooter a lifetime. Except for the elevation screw, all the metal parts are painted or coated to prevent rust and corrosion.

The sleds have a telescoping rear support that can be sized to fit youth to standard-size stocks. The telescoping support also makes them travel-friendly; the sleds in this review collapse to 23 inches or less sans weight.

Assembling the sleds is easy, and if you get stuck, the manual provides clear instructions on assembly and details about the unit. I couldn’t wait to hit the range with them.

Lead Sled DFT 3

The DFT 3 is an open design, making it a versatile sled for hunting rifles, ARs with 30-round magazines, and lever-action rifles. One of the major updates the DFT 3 received was moving the dual tube frame below the weight tray. The DFT 2 had the rails above the tray, making mag changes burdensome. The open design makes magazine changes and lever action cycling a breeze. The V-shaped front rest is made of a non-marring rubber and carries a removable rubber strap across the opening.

Elevation and coarse windage adjustments are built into the front rest. Spin the large, metal elevation wheel to raise or lower the rifle. The wheel on the left moves the rest side to side. Once you have the crosshairs centered on the target, turn the wheel on the right side of the rest. This presses a polymer-tipped screw into a slot in the windage screw to remove any play. Although it may attract dirt later, I lightly lubricated the elevation screw with gun oil and greased the ball bearings the wheel rides on to smoothen the operation. The rear rest includes an elevation control knob for fine-tuning the point of aim. The rest is supported by 3 heavy, steel feet.

No weights are included with the sled. I ordered the Lead Sled Weight Reservoir, which comes in a 2-pak. They are made of a bladder-lined 600 Denier fabric with carrying handles and can hold water or sand. I filled them with sand, and they fit perfectly in the DFT 3 tray. The straps on the reservoirs fit nicely over the hooked sections of the tray, preventing them from falling off.

Lead Sled Max

It would be hard to come up with a better, more succinct name for this lead sled than Lead Sled Max. It offers a secure hold for any rifle whether it has a classic hunting stock or a modern chassis. It can also serve as a pistol rest. Like the DFT, it is an open design that makes it friendly for ARs, lever actions, shotguns, and drop magazines. It offers maximum use, hold, and adjustments.  

The front rest utilizes a clamp with rubber non-marring inserts along the interior walls. It will hold a forend 3 inches wide and narrower. The rest’s base includes a grippy rubber insert. Once you clamp your rifle in, there’s next to no forend movement. The front rest also pivots back and forth which allows the forend to rest on the entire length of the rest, not just a small portion.

Gross elevation adjustments are handled by the large wheel. The small right-side wheel removes the small play in the elevation screw.

On the sled’s rear is where the crosshair’s elevation and windage are finetuned. The elevation knob sits below the rear cradle and accessible with either the right or left hand. The windage adjustment wheel sits on the left side of the cradle but can be switched to the right side by removing a screw.

The sled includes a 2-gallon removable container that is shipped empty. It can be filled with water, sand or other heavy material. Set up is minimal and toolless. Pull the sled out of the box, disengage the rail detents, flip the front rest around and insert the rails. The container is connected to the frame by two removable pins that are tethered to the container via a wire.

Testing

My testing started with the DFT 3 using the two Lead Sled Weight Reservoirs filled with sand on the weight tray. I placed a Christensen Arms Modern Precision Rifle (MPR) chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor with a Vortex Venom 3-15x50mm riflescope in the sled. I shot Fiocchi Hyperformance Match Ammo with 142 SMK bullets which is impressive shooting ammo.

I began by bore sighting the rifle. The controls were easy to operate and get the crosshairs on target. Once I centered the reticle on the100-yard target, I lightly touched my shoulder against the back of the cradle to get a feel of the recoil. The Christensen Arms MPR has a squarish forend, so it took a little rail adjustment to get it well-planted in the sled. Since the V-shaped didn’t fully surround the forend surface, my shooting hand stepped in to steady the rifle.

Cracking off the first shot surprised me. I felt about 90% less recoil. When the recoil wave hit the rear cradle, it spread forward through the sled and rifle. The sled moved slightly rearward too. My first shot was 1.0 mils high, and .5 mils left. Once I made the scope adjustments, I fired 3 shots to gauge the center of my point of impact. I was .1 mil low and right and made a correction. That was easy.

After shooting a few more groups, I found that the recoil forces still pushed the rifle around which increased the group size. I shortened the rail length to find the rifle’s sweet spot where it liked to track directly rearward instead of heavily favoring a left jump.

When it came to using the Lead Sled Max, it offered much better rifle support due to the clamp. It solidly connects the rifle to the sled. The only input it needed from me was pressing the trigger. Once I moved the crosshair in the ballpark with the front elevation wheel, I fine-tuned the elevation and windage with the rear controls. They allowed very precise placement on the 1-inch target stickers. After firing a shot, the sled moved back some which clearly shows that the recoil forces are not being trapped but spread through the rifle and sled. Due to the 2-gallon jug being connected to the frame, the recoil seemed less than the DFT 3.

The felt recoil difference between shooting from a sled and off my bipod and rear support bag was significant. The sled was a light tap while the latter was a shoulder shove. I was curious whether I could shoot better with the sled or a bipod and rear support. Shooting off either lead sled showed me that I had to fiddle with the rifle position in the sled to get the best groups. The groups were larger from the sleds than when shooting off my bipod and rear support. I have years of experience shooting off a bipod and rear support, so that plays a factor. I’m sure with more ammo, I could find a consistent sweet spot in the sleds.

Another notable difference was the point of impact shift. When shooting from the Lead Sled Max, the point of impact was 1.25 inches higher than off the bipod. I double-checked this and got the same results. That’s a big difference. I highly recommend that after zeroing the rifle on the sled, recheck your zero with the support you will be using in the field.

Summary

One of the biggest benefits of a lead sled is that it tames recoil forces greatly. It allows new shooters a quick way to stabilize their rifle and zero their scope. The Caldwell Lead Sleds reviewed here are versatile rests for many types of rifles. Of the two, the Lead Sled Max was my favorite because it solidly holds the rifle, and the integrated 2-gallon reservoir deadens recoil the best.