sniper shooting between heartbeats

[sarduy]

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/fight-science/4234/Overview#tab-Videos/07708_00

A well-trained sniper uses mind over matter to control his own physiology.

 

[41magsnub]

What is a heart bit? The fragments of the heart leftover after being shot in the heart?

 

[birdshot8's]

the video refers to shooting between heart "beats". i am guessing the OP used a malapropism.

 

[Shadow Man]

Not so much "mind over matter" as it is breath control, used to relax your body so your heart doesn't beat so rapidly.

 

[Jubjub]

One of my shooting buddies was a distance runner back when we were young, and went to college on a track scholarship. He had about 3% body fat, had to eat every two hours, and bundled up when the temperature hit 65. When he was training hard, his resting pulse rate was around 40.

When he was shooting, you could see his pulse by watching the muzzle of his gun. Sitting position with a rifle, especially. He always timed his shots to go between heartbeats.

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

If you're cinched up tight in your shooting jacket, and have your sling right, you minimize the pulse effect, partially by cutting off flow of blood to your slung up arm. Throw in a couple of small sand bags (snipers are allowed to cheat), and, well, you get the idea. Use whatever means you can to maximize your accuracy. I find that when calling the shot, there are far more things to compute and worry about than my heartbeat. I have heard of the practice, though. I just don't pretend to use it. I think there might be some pretenders out there yanking some chains.

 

[taliv]

i personally prefer finding a better position where my hb doesn't affect my muzzle so much

i don't know anyone who cuts off their circulation in their arm intentionally when shooting

but a bad position can easily result in heartbeats causing you to miss

 

[Bart B.]

The best prone competitors will hold an aiming area about 2/3 to 3/4 MOA. They'll see their scope's reticule bouncing around, mostly up and down but also sideways due to heartbeat pulsing through their muscles and into the sling and butt plate making the sight picture follow that motion. Then they try to break the shot inside a 1/2 MOA area.

If these folks put a rest under their front hand and under the stock's toe, they can hold about 1/10th MOA on target. There's still a little pulse beat making its way to the rifle. Shooting inside that holding area is pretty close to bench rest results. Most folks will shoot more accurate slung up in prone this way than if the rifle's atop rests on a bench.

Watching the guy break the 600 yard record in the mid 1990's putting 20 shots in a 4 inch circle inside the 6 inch X ring with aperture sights kind of proves that they're just as accurate as scopes; properly used.

 

[Casefull]

That is some darn good eyesight for that shooter. Good breakdown on what is happening as we shoot. Chuck

 

[Art Eatman]

My understanding is that the "between heartbeats" is taught to our Olympic shooters.

One other factor: There is a time lag of 0.2 seconds (average for our species) between the time the brain says, "Do it!" and a muscle reacts. To have a perfect sight picture when the gun fires you must anticipate where the sights will be, 0.2 seconds in the future, when you tell your trigger finger to Do The Deal. That ain't easy.

 

[mshootnit]

I try to get the rifle coming back to center as it rests between heartbeats. Then my focus is on squeezing that trigger ever so slightly until it surprises me when it breaks. I can't time it between heartbeats because that would cause me to jerk the trigger. Maybe not much but any jerk on that trigger is bad. Also I guess in some situations heartbeat disturbance is unavoidable, but you can set yourself up to minimize its effect to the point where crosshairs are not moving off target.

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

I guess if we became Shaolin monks, we could just stop our hearts fo a second or two, and then squeeze...............

 

[Snakum]

I've been trying to get back into good shooting form since picking it up again last year, and I've been pouring over my old manuals (US Army and Marine) and reading everything I can find on NRA high power techniques. But I also know I don't have the kind of time it would take to be able to shoot between heartbeats. Gotta be realistic. For the average shooter who practices to be a better long range hunter or to enter the odd local competition, the basics need the most attention: trigger control and follow thru, solid positioning bone-to-bone where possible, learning where in the breathing cycle you shoot best, and practicing NPA with each shot. All these things that can be done sitting in the living room dry-firing. I don't get hung up on esoteric stuff that is beyond my available time.

But I've seen guys shoot who can do some amazing stuff with constricting shooting jackets and slings, controlling respiration to the point they can break the trigger between beats, etc. My hat's off to them.

I've also seen old guys in the Army who knew nothing more than what was taught in Infantry school and sniper school and while they couldn't articulate the esoteric techniques and knew jack shiite about shooting jackets, they could shoot the proverbial "wings off a fly" at 250 meters with almost any weapon handed to them. I couldn't so I had to really work at it.

 

[Sergeant Sabre]

I remember shooting the known-distance course in the Marine Corps about eight years ago. At 500 yards in the prone position my loop sling was pulled so tight that my heart beat would cause the muzzle to jump. I had to do exactly what is specified in the original post. I shot between heart beats. It wasn't that hard.

 

[G.A.Pster]

I was shooting between heartbeats last time I shot a friends scoped rifle at the range, Because I didn’t have time to construct an elaborate sandbag structure to support the gun.

 

[rskent]

As taliv said, if you are seeing your pulse in your sights, you may need to rethink your position. Every now and then I will see my pulse.
When I do, it generally means that my sling is to far up my arm, sometimes rotated a bit to the right. If you are slung properly, you will
not see your pulse. And if your position is good, you will see your sights go straight up and down with your breathing, not at an angle.
Sounds simple, don’t it?
Steve

 

[Offfhand]

Statement from above post"

"If these folks put a rest under their front hand and under the stock's toe, they can hold about 1/10th MOA on target. There's still a little pulse beat making its way to the rifle. Shooting inside that holding area is pretty close to bench rest results. Most folks will shoot more accurate slung up in prone this way than if the rifle's atop rests on a bench."

No disrespect, but curious, seems this needs further clarification. Doesn't a rifle on a rest, as in bench shooting, not move at all? Why would this be less accurate?

 

[kingmt]

I think they said 100 feet. He still missed his mark by 1/2" with a scope which I would hope he shoot in before the show. If it would have been a slingshot I would be inpressed. I shot targets that small in the army years ago with only a M16 & front sight post at 50 meters. I had to make 40 of them instead of just 1.