I Tried the New Ambush Rest from Kopfjäger—Here’s What Happened
Jan 08, 2020
Around the same time every year (usually about October 1st), retail displays, pop-up ads and random Facebook “friends” all start trying to convince me they’ve somehow revolutionized whitetail hunting. Product after product is paraded in front of me and millions of other whitetail hunters by advertisers who know American hunters collectively spend more than 38 billion dollars (with a “b”) a year on their hunts. Each one promises I’ll fill a tag with the harvest of a lifetime before I even set foot in a stand. Most of these promises fall flat because the solid truth is this: if you’re not a good (or very lucky) hunter, you won’t be filling your freezer. Simple as that.
Having been burned before, I exercise a healthy dose of caution when buying into new products. From camo toilet paper (turns out its only camo until you use it) to cough silencers and blood lights, I’ve faced disappointment almost as many times as I’ve faced the Bargain Cave cashier. Taking everything with a grain of salt, I have the tendency to be salty overall and was initially indecisive about one new offering: the Kopfjäger Ambush Rest Kit. Having given it a shot, I’m here to spill the tea…
WHO IT’S FOR:
Deer hunters, mostly. Basically, it’s intended to be the best option for stand or blind hunters. It fights buck fever and it keeps your rifle at the ready so you can… do… whatever.
WHAT YOU GET:
The Ambush itself (KJ85005) is really just a funky shaped aluminum bar with a three-pronged pad on it; however, the full kit (KJ85005K) includes Kopfjäger’s famous Reaper Grip and a bipod to weight-lock the system into place. Once the kit is assembled, we start to see the value in this (honestly a little odd-looking) contraption. You can pick up the full kit and kaboodle or purchase the arm by itself if you already own a Reaper Grip (which you definitely should).
WHAT IT’S LIKE:
The rest takes some of the work out of being sneaky, holding your rifle in place so you don’t knock the wall or go all pretzel-y as you rush to get your rifle from the corner to the window. More importantly, it offers rock-solid stability as you line up your shot so you don’t have to worry as much about your hands shaking while your heart pounds through your chest. Are you about to get the buck of your life or are you headed home with empty, half-frostbitten hands and a picture of the sunrise?
The head on the grip has a smooth, adjustable drag and pulls your rifle’s stock, no matter it’s size or taper, into its base from the top using an (also adjustable) tapered grip, which locks into place once you get it where you like it. Protective padding on the grip kept my stock from getting scratched or marred in any way. I’ve actually used the Reaper Grip system before while hog hunting (and loved it), but it’s a little bulky, tripod and all, to fit into a box blind. The stability and ease-of-use really are unmatched in the industry, but it didn’t seem practical for hunting whitetail. Or, at least, it didn’t seem practical for ME hunting whitetail.
The meat of the Ambush system is how it mounts the Reaper Grip to a wall or window. It doesn’t work on every blind, but anything with a flat exterior and window should be just fine. The wall-mounted bipod and arm lets you take all the features of the Reaper into your deer stand without taking up much space at all, which is nice if you’re stuck in there for hours with no deer in sight, and, presumably, also nice if you manage to get a shot on one—I did not. I plan to conduct more research on just this topic in the near future. Overall, I was very impressed with the Ambush. Did I come home with the buck of a lifetime? No, but the sunrise sure was pretty.
