But, as I've had opportunity to use it, I found a few things that I could improve. For one thing, when I tried to use it over rough ground, when loaded with rifles, I had quite a time keeping it from tipping. Fortunately, others had seen and solved this problem before.
So I've had my eye out for a jogging stroller every time I visited the local Goodwill. The wheelbase is wider, and it's wide overall, making it more stable, and the wheels roll better on rough ground.
Well, a couple of weeks ago I ran onto this:
So, I took off the seat, the sun shade, and the lap tray, and relocated the lower pan from the Mark I cart. I then modified the lap tray supports to hold a piece of wood furring strip, to act as a cross bar to lash rifles to:
Then I covered the wood with foam cushion (actually a split piece of pool noodle that I bought at the Dollar Store), and wrapped the whole thing with tennis racket grip tape.
Finally, here is the completed Gun Cart Mark II, loaded with Vasilly, Sergei, and Captain America.
Investment:
$15.25 for the stroller
$4 for a drywall mud pan, filled with a piece of foam insulation and used as the pan where the barrels go. (I may replace this with something better in the future.)
$0.75 for the furring strip
$1 for the pool noodle
$1 for the grip tape
Total: $22.00
++++
Some design notes for those thinking of trying this yourself:
> For maximum stability over rough ground, the center of gravity of the rifles need to be between their support points. In this case, that's the lower pan and the cross bar. This limits where I can fix the cross bar. On Gun Cart Mark I this was fixed, since the cross bar was supported by two pieces of all thread running through the stroller handle. But in Mark II I can move it up and down.
> Take measurements of your car trunk before you buy, to be sure the folded cart will fit. One cart I looked at would not have fit. This is also one reason I opted for a removable rifle cross bar, since I can now lay down the cart in the back of my Dodge Caliber 9x19 without laying down any seats.
> If you need to carry more rifles, you could easily add another cross bar, slung below the stroller handles.
