How to best use shooting sticks

[Kurt]

Arnie explained it well.
Years ago I was in the bench rest shooting and back then there was a popular thing called a barrel donut a lot of bench shooters used including me. I used a sink anode ball that is used on boat prop shafts to keep the electrolysis from eating the aluminum or steel holes plus other metal. The donuts dampen the harmonic wave flexing. The cross sticks properly placed will minimize the up and down motion close to the same at the same point at the muzzle as the bullet clears it.
There was a post no long ago about this subject that had a video on U-Tube of a test using the locations on the cross sticks on the down range effect the sticks had.