I know how to hold my rifle, thank you...

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morcey2

morcey2

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I'm not making a tactical entrance. I'm not practicing making a tactical entrance. Heck, I'm not even _pretending_ to make a tactical entrance.

So shut up about my chicken wing!!! I'm not an 'operator', but a shooter/hunter, depending on the day. I've yet to find a target that shoots back, so I'm not going to get my elbow shot off by a can of expired corn niblets that's sitting at 100 yards. I'm not trying to keep my body squared up to the front to get max protection from my body armor. My body armor is pretty soft and is a result of too many good meals. On top of that, have you tried holding a C-stock 1903 without a chicken wing let alone a straight stocked rifle like a 91/30? It doesn't work!

This rant brought to you by every tacti-kewl mall ninja who has criticized my or my kids stances over the last couple of months. Especially those who have never shot a real rifle. You know the kind with smokeless powder cartridges and not with paint or plastic BB's.

Gotta post now before my iPad battery dies. Will add more shortly.

K, here to add more.

We went shooting as a family a couple of months ago and we posted lots of pictures of it on facebook, because we had a blast both literally and figuratively. Here's one of the pictures of me shooting a VZ-24 offhand:
vz24.jpg

(That's the picture that motivated me to switch to Diet Mtn Dew and I've lost about 30 lbs since then.) We had a comment on that picture on facebook today which is what got me agitated. On about a half dozen occasions at LGS/LPS, I've had other customers and sometimes 'helpful' employees try to correct my stance when I'm holding rifles. I got irritated with a particular employee, handed him the mosin, and told him "Here. Show me how to hold it." The owner (who's become a pretty good friend) was tripping over things laughing trying to watch this guy get a tactical stance with the straight stock.

A chicken wing isn't good for everything, but it's very good for general shooting and is very stable and keeps the gun laterally stable. When I get an AR or FAL or AK, I'll probably shoot those without a 'wing' because contorting for a chicken wing on those makes as much sense as a tight-elbow-to-body stance on a straight stock.

Or I could be in the midst of a tryptophan, chocolate, and gravy overdose.

Matt
 
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I shoot in a similar stance off-hand with my Mosin and '03. Just not comfortable any other way, really.
 
LOL, I hope to have as distinguished a stance as you some day sir. I played paintball (i can remember when it was popular to emphasize your elbows in position so much that they change the grip frames on markers to accommodate 90* Y frame etc LOL) for so many years that if the gun has a steep or pistol grip i automatically drop my elbow down a bit, tho not nearly enough to be an operator :( (its a failing i know, maybe oneday ill be kwell Inuff). Tho i must say, i dont exactly chicken wing my 91/30 anymore then any of my other rifles. That one i hold like my bow, just my middle finger and thumb, the other fingers curled under.....go figgure :s
 
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morcey2:
A buddy or two sort of chuckled at my 'chicken wing'.

They don't have any Enfield "Jungle Carbines":) or Spanish FR8s:), and the recoil pad is kept on the SKS.

The chicken wing prevents discomfort for people with skinny shoulders.
Let them chuckle. Who cares?
It's only a matter of time before we are all six feet under ground, water etc. Life is shorter than we realize.
 
It seems that people can get tooooooo judgmental on these boards!

I applaud the position, and standing up to shoot offhand is getting to be a rarity at ranges these days. As far as the "chicken wing" position goes, that's the way the military taught shooting prior to the plastic guns. Millions of soldiers and civilians can't be totally wrong, can they?

Congratulations on the weight loss, it must surely have came off harder than it went on.
 
Bah. I quit shooting standing up years ago. Now I only shoot from various urban prone positions switching sides every three shot and spinning my legs like a break dancer when I switch sides.

But if I do get to shoot standing up, I prefer the turkey leg method.
 
The way to stand/hold/breath/whatever your rifle is: what ever is comfortable and meets your needs.
Those who complain can just complain to themselves or other like them, must be some control problem on their part.

As four your drink preference, I don't know your area but in my area we have diet A&W root beer. I like it better then the others. Not that sugar isn't better. Congrats of the 30 lbs. Wish I could be as committed.

As for the photo, two questions. 1) were you and the family having a good time? 2) did you shoot as well as you wanted?

The nay sayers can go sit in the corner.

Enjoy and be safe,

OSOK
 
Looks like good basic rifle skills . Wished I had a place like that to shoot. Lots of gun snobs around , heck with them.
 
Agreed. I've had AR-15 owners tell me to square my body with my M1 Garand. I ask them to do it and demonstrate. Hilarious results.

I use the M16 family of rifles for work, some stances just don't translate well between rifles.
 
ants said:
I like the innovative use of living room furniture, morcey.
Click to expand...

I forgot the table we usually use as a rest. It was sitting on the front lawn patiently waiting for us to return.

Zerodefect said:
Bah. I quit shooting standing up years ago. Now I only shoot from various urban prone positions switching sides every three shot and spinning my legs like a break dancer when I switch sides.

But if I do get to shoot standing up, I prefer the turkey leg method.
Click to expand...

I thought about that, but I'm (quite obviously) not in good enough shape to accomplish it and I couldn't afford the ball-bearing tactical shooting coveralls to make me frictionless enough either. And I prefer white meat so the turkey leg doesn't work either.

oldpapps said:
As four your drink preference, I don't know your area but in my area we have diet A&W root beer. I like it better then the others. Not that sugar isn't better. Congrats of the 30 lbs. Wish I could be as committed.

As for the photo, two questions. 1) were you and the family having a good time? 2) did you shoot as well as you wanted?

OSOK
Click to expand...

The reason I'm drinking Diet Mtn Dew is that I don't want to deal with the 5 days of horrific headaches that I will go through when I quit drinking it altogether. :)

We had a great time, other than the Marlin 60 constantly jamming. Dang remington dirty ammo.

hardluk1 said:
Looks like good basic rifle skills . Wished I had a place like that to shoot. Lots of gun snobs around , heck with them.
Click to expand...

There are lots of places here to shoot, if you're willing to drive a little bit. It's about 30 miles south of Clayne_b's 'range' in this thread:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=626182

ThePlato said:
Agreed. I've had AR-15 owners tell me to square my body with my M1 Garand. I ask them to do it and demonstrate. Hilarious results.

I use the M16 family of rifles for work, some stances just don't translate well between rifles.
Click to expand...

With me, there's an aggravating factor. I broke my right arm, both ulna and radius about 2 inches from my wrist and my right hand won't rotate out as far as my left. This makes it very hard to shoot any straight stock rifle without an exaggerated chicken wing. :) That's another reason that my 1903 is wearing a C-Stock.

I've shot a few AR-type rifles and they're actually more comfortable on my wrist with the vertical pistol grip. No chicken wing. Ok. maybe a little. ;)

Matt
 
Am I the only one curious about the wires leading from the table to (I assume) the target area?

As for the stance...if it works it works, I use a sling the proper way as well and the giggling usually stops after the targets are scored.
 
451 Detonics said:
Am I the only one curious about the wires leading from the table to (I assume) the target area?

As for the stance...if it works it works, I use a sling the proper way as well and the giggling usually stops after the targets are scored.
Click to expand...

As for the wires, that was my high-tech rangefinding system. I took a roll of twine to a football field and and marked off 25, 35, 50, 75, and 100 yard distances with it. :)

The last time I went shooting, my 16 year old son figured out how useful a proper sling is in gun stability. It helps quite a bit offhand, but it's indispensable in kneeling, sitting, or prone. Especially urban tactical stealth break-dancing prone.

Matt
 
:cool:

I wish there was an "applause" smiley!

Greetings and good wishes from a fellow NON tacticool shooter!!!
 
Back in my yout... When I was competing in the NRA Junior program, that 'chicken wing' was the position we were taught to use with our .22s for crissakes.

BTW, I made it all the way to Distinguished Expert. That's two shots at each bull on a five bull target page. Each target on the page had to be an 18 or greater score or the entire page was null and void. This was iron sights at 50'. 10-ring was one bullet in diameter. ...and that was fired in the Standing position!!! Only 20rnds/day were expended. And you had to shoot twenty of those qualifying pages to make Distinguished! Try it sometime!!!
 
I really don't care how you stand. Did you hit the target? Did it explode nicely? Did you shoot again and blow something else up? These are the important questions!
 
Elbow up = better offhand accuracy.
Click to expand...
+1

If you went through Basic Training when I did, and didn't have your elbow up and the stock in the pocket?

Some irate drill instructor would be along shortly to kick you square in the pants with a size 12 black combat boot.

It also worked real well for our AMU rifle team members and snipers as I recall.
At least they won a truck load of trophy's doing it.

I see the Army AMU guys on TV holding their Match M16's with the stock on top of their shoulder now, so I guess anything goes today.

rc
 
Lol. I appreciate modern combat shooting techniques at sub-100 yard distances with modern rifles, but I'll dig it with a military sling and traditional marksmanship techniques if I'm not shooting silhouettes inside those distances.
 
Got to wonder how many of today marksmen would hold a rifle butt over thier shoulder if they were shooting walnut stocked full power 30-06 & 7.62 battle rifles instead of .223 poodle shooters?

I know one thing for sure.
A lot of them would have bloody noses and black & blue cheek bones, and a much lower score!

rc
 
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