I never did that. I never saw anyone do that.
look at these videos that show how HP XTC competitors go standing to prone. my search didn't find a single video demonstrating breaking ones fall with the rifle butt
beginning of this video
skip to 21:50 seconds in this video
a few seconds into this video
Guess we are both devulging our age, taliv.
Back in the day of wood and steel rifles (early 50's), we were taught to break the fall with butt of rifle, then with a canoe paddle-like motion to pull body forward and push buttstock firmly into cheek/shoulder pocket, all in one fluid motion. With strong hand placed firmly adjacent to the buttplate, there was no strain on rifle stock. One other thing that was different back then was the 300 RF command was, "On the line, with 2 or 5 rounds, Lock & Load........." so it was not necessary to pull the charging handle after assuming prone position, as is shown in the videos.
IDK, but can only assume that with the advent of the mouse guns, which came along much later, that such a maneuver might be a bit hard on the plastic stocks, thus the modified version shown in the videos?? The mouse guns were becoming pretty popular about the
time my competition days were winding down (late 90's) and I never paid much attention to how they assumed prone w/them.
The first video @ approximately 3:30 and second @ 21:45 or so show a very similar maneuver to what was used years ago w/exception that strong hand is used to break fall and then moved to butt of rifle for remainder of the maneuver.
Since there were no videos other than VCR's of the day and I have long since given away all my Army AMU manuals, it took me a while to locate this article which shows how us old codgers used to do it.
Oh, and yes, I did not see many coonskin caps on the line, but lots of competitors really
did wear those Smokey Bear hats.
Regards,
hps