Rifle Sling Technique Questions

[Chris Rhines]

Last night I was running through my usual dry-fire/dry-handling, and I decided to do some carbine-to-pistol transition drills, for fun more than anything else. I slung up my carbine* (Daewoo AR-100 with a right-handed single point loop sling) and went at it. I made some interesting discoveries:

- When I drop the carbine to transition to my pistol, The muzzle of the carbine ends up hanging directly between my knees. This seriously compromises my ablility to move quickly.

- Worse, with the carbine hanging down like that, anytime I crouch or take a knee, the muzzle goes straight into the ground. It gets in the way, and it could end up jamming the end of the barrel with earth.

I'm a bit less sold on the "tactical sling" concept than I was before last night. It seems to me that maybe it's use should be limited to submachineguns and other very short, entry-type firearms.

On the other hand, maybe I'm doing something wrong, equipment or technique-wise. Anyone have any thoughts?

- Chris

 

[Fed168]

When you go to transition, grab the long gun with your off hand (left I assume), controlling it as you draw the handgun. Sweep the long gun to the side of your body and out of the way, moving to a two handed grip with the handgun. It helps the long gun stay tucked into the body.
Another thing I do is to make sure the long gun rides high on the torso. Yes, the muzzle getting in the way while kneeling is a concern, but sweeping it to the side helps out.
It's a heck of alot easier with a short barrelled weapon than with a carbine, just based on barrel length.

 

[Still Learning]

This is how I was taught to do it by John Farnam. It works well for me and I practice it almost every time I do live fire practice at least five or six times.

From the firing position let the buttstock fall down and bring the carbine into your weak side chest, muzzle up. As the weak hand is bringing the carbine in to your body, move laterally while drawing strong hand only. Shoot-move-shoot-move to cover where you can clear a stoppage or reload more safely.

When I carry the carbine slung, it is carried African style (Muzzle down, carbine slung on weak side.) Both Farnam and Jim Crews teach this method and it works best for me.

While I have never had a problem with the muzzle getting into the dirt when knealing, Crews' manual showed me a method that works like a charm and makes a lot of sense. When knealing I go down on my weak side knee. As I kneal, I sweep the muzzle to the strong side so that the carbine rests on my strong side leg, just north of the knee. Muzzle is still aiming safely into the ground but much farther from it than If I allowed the carbine to hang straight down.

Anyway, that's the way I am currently practicing. I'll stay with these methods until I learn better ones!

 

[Oleg Volk]

When practicing shotgun-->pistol transition, I had to sneel in order to get the long gun out of the way of the pistol. For me, three point sling with the rifle at 45-50 degrees to the horizontal solved the problem...also freed up hands for balancing on slopes. $35 spent at www.tacticaltailor.com seems worth it -- based on a weekend's worth of experience.

 

[Chris Rhines]

Tried sweeping the rifle to my left side with my off hand, which seems to work pretty well. Loosening the sling up a bit seemed to help as well. Kneeling is still a bit clumsy with the rifle hanging off my left side, but I'm working on 'draping' the gun over my left knee (I always put my strong-side knee down unless there's a good reason to do otherwise.) This technique looks promising.

Thanks for all your advice, folks. Now I just need to practice until I get comfy with it. Story of my life...

- Chris

 

[Jeff White]

Chris,
I have a single point sling on one of my M4geries.
I wear it loose enough to sweep the weapon behind me as I take a knee.

Some people I know use a piece of elastic bungee cord on their gear to tuck the barrel under to keep it from flopping around as you move. I haven't tried that yet though.

I use a Tactical Taylor 3 pt sling on my duty carbine and I really like it. Both systems have their good and bad points. The TT is hard to transistion to the off side shoulder with, but it doesn't let the weapon flop around so much.

I'm going to try the bungee cord with the single point sling. I'll let you know how it works for me.

Jeff