A shooting form question for the rifle gurus

[Nicole]

Short version: Can you recommend a supporting hand position (while shooting rifles when stationary) for someone with reduced wrist extension ability?

Long version: My rifle shooting has never been particularly impressive. I spent years shooting Bullseye pistol and have a good grasp of sight alignment, breathing control, trigger pull/press, etc. My mind is far too much "SQUIRREL!" and not enough zen, so I don't expect to ever be a great shooter in the be-still-slow-motion type events, but I was competent for the amount of time I put in.

I have never been happy with my rifle shooting. I have been instructed on form by my Marine father, CMP match shooters, and Appleseed. I think I'm clear on what it is that I'm supposed to be doing, but the rifle would always move around A LOT. I chalked it up to never putting in the time to build up the needed muscles. So this summer I committed to putting in the time - over the past two years I've been doing strength training as opposed to just running and this summer I started doing a lot of dry fire practice with my rifles, mostly working on standing. It didn't seem to be getting any better, still much more movement of the gun than acceptable.

So I asked my chiropractor to look at my position and tell me what muscle groups I needed to strengthen. He takes one look and says my muscles are fine but my wrist will never work in that position.

Here are examples of how your supporting hand is allegedly supposed to look:

(From http://www.thecmp.org/Comm/publications/PDFs/TeachingRiflePositions.pdf)

I was trying to do variations of the first one as my default position. Fingers on the left side of the rifle is a bit more natural feeling, but I've played with it both ways. The problem my chiro noticed was that this is how far back my hand wants to go:

Notice that in the first example photo, the palm is flat. The angle between hand and forearm is about 90 degrees. Now look at my hand again. Not nearly that far back. Apparently this makes me a freak once again - women are supposed to be able to bend their hands back well past 90. I can make it go back to nearly 90 degrees without pain by putting the weight of the rifle on my hand, but it doesn't want to be there. The position of my body is then unstable and very quickly leads to a significant tremor.

This does explain why when I shot Attila's AR with the Magpul angled forward grip, it felt positively lovely...it was one of the few times I've shot a rifle and wasn't trying to force my wrist to do something it just isn't set up to do.

I have tried playing around with some of the variations shown in the CMP pictures above with my AR - the outstretched fingers, second from the right seems to work best. However, when I go to the range, a center fire rifle jumps right out of my hand in that position. The first under the mag also works pretty well dry firing, but not so much when the AR is fired. The gun jumps right off my hand and it's actually kind of painful when the mag gets drug across my fingers.

Now for run & gun things I'm fine - I can grasp the mag well and pull towards me which is just dandy (and I have an angled grip inbound), but for an unsupported standing position when I'm trying to be still and really line up a good shot, I'm kind of at a loss. Also, what to do when I don't have an AR with a mag well to hang on to or rails to hang things off of? Or something with big-boy recoil as opposed to my AR? Any suggestions on how to set up a good supporting hand position (in light of my most recently discovered physical abnormality) that minimizes muscle tension and keeps the gun from jumping completely out of my hand when firing?

Thank you

 

[bpm990d]

All those pictures don't show the glove that most bullseye shooters use when firing. It protects their hand and provides a fair amount of wrist support.

B

 

[colt_fan]

Are you just focusing on an AR? Also what application are doing this for? I hold my match rifles very differently from my IALZK AR/AK.

 

[Nicole]

Yeah, I know that if I want to be very serious about my rifle shooting, I need to get the gloves, jacket, etc. Not likely to happen. Should I get to the point in life where I have the time and inclination to do rifle matches, I will look into such shooting aids. Right now I'm looking for what I will describe as field competency here. I should be able to achieve good form and reasonable groups without having to get all geared up.

People used to do this without that kind of gear and were good shots. The Olympians of a century ago look a little different than the rifle shooters in London this summer, but they would still kick my ass.

 

[Nicole]

Are you just focusing on an AR? Also what application are doing this for? I hold my match rifles very differently from my IALZK AR/AK.

Assume a standard AR as a starting point - it's what I take out most often. I will occasionally show up to casual matches with other things with more "classic" stocks, e.g. my M1 carbine at the military shoots at Sippican last year.

I'm not interested in shooting CMP or NRA High Power at this point, I just want to have a nice standing, offhand, sitting, and prone form for casual matches, a good time at the range, and to carry over to my hunting (which is largely on hiatus due to my work schedule and the no Sunday hunting in Mass thing)

 

[colt_fan]

I would use whatever works then, you said you were comfortable with the Magpul VFG. So just practice with that and keep track if how you do.

 

[[cerberus]]

It is going to up to your personal preference. I hold my AR similar to style 1, but my .22 match rifle I hold more like 3. I am not a fan of 4 and 5 because with me, it puts to much stress on my fingers and I focus on it when I shoot.

The best position will be one that you do not focus on while you are busy focusing on sight alignment. Another thing that makes a difference is how long your torso is, the longer it is, the taller you may need to make your rest for proper bone on bone contact between your elbow and your hips. This is the reason why I like the fist position on my match rifle, I need the extra height to keep the gun level.

Depending on how much you want to put into it, get a book called "Ways of The Rifle". It is probably one of the best books at breaking down a shooting position, but last I checked it is in the $50 range.

 

[colt_fan]

Ways of The Rifle is a must have book. Don't get it off Amazon though, go to Champions Choice or Champion Shooters.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Nicole]

Thank you for the advice guys. I will definitely add "Way of the Rifle" to the library here and keep playing with my position.

 

[Twigg]

I didn't read if you are using a sling. Since you like the AFG I'd suggest trying the AFG in combination with a standard USGI sling. I use an AFG with the USGI sling and the combination locks my left hand in place rather snugly. Set the sling up so the adjustor positioned on the outside just below your left hand and you'll be able to reach over and adjust the sling tension between positions on the fly.

 

[Nicole]

I didn't read if you are using a sling. Since you like the AFG I'd suggest trying the AFG in combination with a standard USGI sling. I use an AFG with the USGI sling and the combination locks my left hand in place rather snugly. Set the sling up so the adjustor positioned on the outside just below your left hand and you'll be able to reach over and adjust the sling tension between positions on the fly.

In appropriate positions, I do use a sling on most rifles, although I confess that I don't have the AR set up for it at the moment - for a long time it was just for shits & giggles, i.e. NES shoots. I do need to fix that.

And to colt_fan and cerberus: Holy cow - Ways of the Rifle came in the mail last night. WOW. This thing is fantastic. I'm seriously impressed and I haven't even started reading. This book is a model of stereotypical German-ness. There are scads of pictures on every page, diagrams all over the place....absolutely fantastic in the amount of detail and thoroughness. I'll be wading into it on the MBCR this morning.

 

[colt_fan]

Take video of you shooting so you can compare later on. This will be one of the few times I praise a product from Apple. But an iPad works great to take vid snd watch at the range. I know the .mil Academy coaches are doing it with great success.

 

[Nicole]

Take video of you shooting so you can compare later on. This will be one of the few times I praise a product from Apple. But an iPad works great to take vid snd watch at the range. I know the .mil Academy coaches are doing it with great success.

No ipad but will do with one of the assorted gadgets.

 

[[cerberus]]

Yeah that book is fantastic. I got it when I was shooting in college.

 

[brass hound]

The way of the rifle is a very good book ,but is gear more torwards olympic small bore .I think it has 90 some odd pages on offhand.But not gear to high power shooting .David Tubb's book rifle shooting would be a good choice .As for hand position for ar if your using a 10 round mag try having your palm facing you with the bottom of the mag resting in your palm and the hand gaurd between your fingers in a V. I have found it to work well

 

[fencer]

I didn't read if you are using a sling. Since you like the AFG I'd suggest trying the AFG in combination with a standard USGI sling. I use an AFG with the USGI sling and the combination locks my left hand in place rather snugly. Set the sling up so the adjustor positioned on the outside just below your left hand and you'll be able to reach over and adjust the sling tension between positions on the fly.

+1 - Learning how to wrap the sling is key to a stable shooting platform when shooting off hand. It is also why so many guys in Boot camp got sling palsy.

 

[colt_fan]

Since we are on the topic of books, look up Nancy Tompkins. She has a great book on distance shooting. Jose was the person that got me turned onto her book.

All these books are targeted to different applications, but the fundamentals all carry over.

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[PatMcD]

If you go to this website: http://cmp1.zenfolio.com/f347310106
And click on the following collections: Presidents 100, National Trophy Individual, Hearst Doubles, National Trophy Team, and a few others, you will find a lot of different front hand support positions being used. These are all geared toward the NRA Highpowere shooter, but there might be one that you see that will work for you.

 

[Nicole]

The way of the rifle is a very good book ,but is gear more torwards olympic small bore .I think it has 90 some odd pages on offhand.But not gear to high power shooting .David Tubb's book rifle shooting would be a good choice .As for hand position for ar if your using a 10 round mag try having your palm facing you with the bottom of the mag resting in your palm and the hand gaurd between your fingers in a V. I have found it to work well

Noted and thank you!

Since we are on the topic of books, look up Nancy Tompkins. She has a great book on distance shooting. Jose was the person that got me turned onto her book.

All these books are targeted to different applications, but the fundamentals all carry over.

Agreed, and that one is on the list now too.

If you go to this website: http://cmp1.zenfolio.com/f347310106
And click on the following collections: Presidents 100, National Trophy Individual, Hearst Doubles, National Trophy Team, and a few others, you will find a lot of different front hand support positions being used. These are all geared toward the NRA Highpowere shooter, but there might be one that you see that will work for you.

Ah ha!!! I've got a folder of stuff on the desktop to try out this weekend - brilliant!