BEST OF THE BASEMENT: REVOLVE TACTICAL TRIPOD
Tripods have proven themselves extremely useful to shooters, whether for recreation, hunting, competition, or tactical applications. They provide a steady platform for both shooting as well as spotting and observing. For years, shooters have adapted photography tripods for their purposes.
But the basic design of a tripod essentially hasn’t changed — three long legs attached to hinges with a head on top. Manufacturers have taken advantage of materials, such as aluminum and carbon fiber, to reduce weight. However, the legs themselves still take up quite a bit of space — telescoping designs nest leg sections within each other so they can extend for use and collapse for transport.
However, you can only have so many sections and make them so narrow before you really compromise rigidity. So even compact tripods still collapse into cumbersomely long packages — and the sturdier you go, the longer, girthier, and heavier they are.
Rolatube is a British company that manufactures a unique rollable composite material —think of it as a reverse slap bracelet. Envision a long rectangle that can flatten and roll up along the long side for compact storage. But when you unroll it, it snaps into place as a rigid tube. Some of their core products to date include lightweight communications mast systems used by the military and inspection booms for industrial applications.
Expanding into new product segments, they realized that their rollable material could be used for an ultra-compact tripod — the Revolve Tactical Tripod. With legs made of their composite, you can flatten and roll them up for storage, making for a complete tripod system that fits in an impossibly small 6×7-inch bag. Once deployed, you snap the tubes into a polymer head and secure feet to the ends.
The head includes a short center column to provide some height adjustment since the legs are fixed length (short and long legs are included). Hinges allow the legs to spread out and lock at specified angles, like regular tripods. Revolve had pre-production samples at the show, rated to a load capacity of approximately 44 pounds and with deck heights ranging from 6 to 51 inches.
Revolve will enter production later in the year with pricing to be determined.
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