I'm about to make a DIY set of shooting sticks out of bamboo in the paracord bound, cobra weave style, and i was wondering what is the best length. I want them mostly for off hand shots but i also want to be able to use them sitting. I'm 5'8" if that makes a difference.

I have three pair of different lengths that I made for different uses and positions...depending on the chair or shooting position I plan to use...

If you go to Varmint Al's website, he has a formula that works pretty well for most people, according to a person's height... It's a good place to start for building your own sticks and while it's just my personal opinion, they work much better than most commercial ones on the market..

I started out with 1"x2" hardwood slats and wound up getting replacement 5/8" diameter handles for push brooms at the local hardware store and fastening them with small bolts with lock nuts and a washer in between the poles..I cover the part where the rifle rests with a piece of plastic water line tubing that is screwed to the pole..A paracord wrap would work just as well..

You can paint them with Krylon camo paint if you want...

I just made a pair for sitting 'indian style' out of 1/2" pvc pipe. I ended up using this super thick rubber o-ring/gasket thing i found, threaded through a short section of the 1/2" pvc, I just finished painting it. All i had was some rust-oleum paint my mom used on some crafts. I did a base coat of "fossil" which is just a slightly lighter shade of coyote tan, then i took some black and held down the nozzle just barely enough for the gas to spew out which made a cool black speckling pattern over the tan. I can post a pic of the paint job but i need to wait a bit to show them assembled because the paint is still to soft to put on the rubber piece.

Each stick is 26" long

You might want to consider how you are going to anchor the tips of them...If you leave the ends open, they will tend to dig into sandy soil in FL, or slide around on any rocky ground in OK...You might be able to add an end cap to the bottom and epoxy a long nail through it..

The rubber binding works great but i think im going to re design it, maybe a more simple paracord binding like i planned. I am probably going to put some grippy rubber lacrosse stick butt caps on the ends, they will add more surface area to avoid sinking into soft ground, and will grip better on rocky ground.

What do you guys think about the paint job though? The tan turned out better than it looked going on, it got darker and has a slight green tint that i really like and will be great in the fields.

I like the paint job. That would be great for my area.

My homemade sticks are made from 1/2" square dowels I get from Home Depot. I think they are 3' and thats the length I leave them. For me, any longer and they would become a pain, any shorter and they would not work. Although I wish I could have some longer ones for when on a good slope. Thinking of building a set that can be lengthend if needed and keep short when not.. hmmmmm.....

For the rest, incase your curious, prolly not but they work for me.
about 8" down I make 1" notch where i lash them together with a length of paracord, leaving a long tail to make a loop for slinging over my shoulder.

In the area where my gun rests. I put a lengh of thick walled heat shrink tubing. keeps me from eating up the wood with the knurling on my R-15 and doesnt scratch the paint on what ever I happen to be shooting (most of my guns are krylon'd)
I have black on it now, but before I had read heat shrink. this helps me find em when I stand up and run away from them when I get excited after a kill. LOL

At the ends I taper them down, drill a pilot hole and screw field tips for arrows in.
The points give me good traction in any terrain. Ill admit its a bit tricky in snow, but uless i put 10"x10" plates on them, it would be with any tip.

About 8" from the bottom i put two strips of magnetic tape. This keeps them together untill I get to where I need to be. Its not so strong I need both hands to pull apart but it keeps the clacking around to a minimum, adds a bit of ease to carry as well.

The next mod will be some sort of clip maybe a pocket clip stolen off a knife or something made of Kydex that i can use to clip it to my vest/shirt/pants/bibs/parka. NO, its nto that difficult to carry sticks but it may make it a smidge easier.

Here is the new and improved version. I scrapped the rubber ring design (which smudged my paint somehow and left it gummy) and i drilled a hole all the way through one pipe, then i drilled a hole through the other but about an inch lower. Then i took some lacrosse string, tied a knot on one end, threaded it through the lower hole, then wrapped figure 8's around the sticks until i reached the top hole in the other pipe, then i threaded it through and tied it off.

Does the wrap job still allow them to collapse on each other...It looks like it might, but still put a limit on how far apart they can spread, which is really nice...

What do you mean by collapse on each other? If you mean have the sticks go strait for carry, yes it does, if you mean like if one of the feet on it slips and they open up too wide, then not really. the nice part is even though every time you open them it loosens the loops, but when you put them strait again, you can rotate them counter clockwise in their loops and it will re tighten the loops and it will hold them strait until you open them out again. When you tighten them up strait, they also dont clank into each other at all.

I bought 2 green 30" tomatoe stakes from Home Depot.
The are kind of a rubber coated with a wire that keeps it stiff.
I used an "O" ring from an auto parts store and used 3 smaller "o" rings to space them.
I then used an epoxy to glue about 4 inches of a foam pipe wrap to pad for the rifle.
I used a bit of epoxy to keep the "o" rings in place.
Few shots of camo paint and ready to go/