I am wanting to build a gun vise to keep on the bench. I know there are commercial units but I have seen some nice looking ones on here in pics that were wood and looked hand made. Just figured it would be a nice project. If you have a pic of one you have made I'd appreciate seeing it

Look at the Tipton brand of gun vises, get your ideas an design it to fit your style. You can use 99 cent flip flops for the padding, they come in all colors and with contact glue they will be permanently stuck. If you want you can cover the padding with leather, when I covered the pads I used suede I got from Tandy. Make sure you either add a deep tray or drawer on the bottom for all of the junk. The tray or drawer helps to get rid of the clutter look. If a drawer do not make it to deep, if you do you will constantly be looking for the little stuff that settles to the bottom.

I would use maple, then dye it with ferric nitrate and follow the instructions so that it looks like the old gunstocks. Sorry I have no pics, and I haven't made on in over 15 years, way before I got a digital cameras. Basically I followed a design I found years in a hunting magazine, one of the Peterson magazines, but now it is easy, just look at the commercial one, then copy what you want.

I have made a couple like this.
They work really well for sighting in rifles as well as cleaning them.

Youtube has quite a few DIY gun rests. Also, Academy and Amazon have some inexpensive rests.

Once you get ready for the leather Stoney don't buy any. I've got tons of scrap from my projects. Just shoot me a PM with the measurements you need.

Thanks guy's, I have been looking a lot at the plans and videos recommended. I am pretty sure I have come up with the one I want to make, I will update progress

I just went through this too and decided a four inch bench vise was the way to go for me. Got rubber jaw insets and wrap some leather around the barrel and tighten the barrel down in the vise. Make it nice to clean or mount and the part I like since the vise is bolted to the table nothing moves.

Walter