Realization about my carbine technique

[LittleLebowski]

I'm placing the buttstock way inward, on my right pectoral muscle, and...."it works for me." Anyone else do this?

[Maple Syrup Actual]

On a 5.56 carbine I go stock to nipple. I think I got this from Hackathorn.

On a 30 cal I put it in the pocket.

[SecondsCount]

I'm placing the buttstock way inward, on my right pectoral muscle, and...."it works for me." Anyone else do this?

Yes. I try to keep my head straight side-to-side while leaning it on to the stock.

[breakingtime91]

When I went through SOI, a instructor taught us to shoot that way. I can't remember what made him start shooting like that (some fight in Iraq) but it was because it made you face the target, instead of the tendency that marines had to blade towards the target, exposing their sides.

[TGS]

I'm placing the buttstock way inward, on my right pectoral muscle, and...."it works for me." Anyone else do this?

Yes, but only out to 50yards.

Recoil wise, Your chest is an immovable mass compared to your jointed shoulder.

FWIW, they taught my buddy to shoot this way when he attended PMI/CMT school at Quantico circa 2005-2006.

[LittleLebowski]

Yes, but only out to 50yards.

Recoil wise, Your chest is an immovable mass compared to your jointed shoulder.

FWIW, they taught my buddy to shoot this way when he attended PMI/CMT school at Quantico circa 2005-2006.

I don't know, I've used it way past 100 yards.

[TheTrevor]

I split the difference between "pocket" vs "stock to nipple". I have a positive ape index (long arms), use a c-clamp grip on a 15-inch tube and primarily shoot with a 1-4X MTAC optic. I've found that bringing the stock all the way inboard onto my pec interferes with left arm/hand positioning and comfort for me.

The only time I seat the stock into the pocket is for prone precision shooting at 75+ yards, and that's so I can get opposing lateral pressure between my cheek weld and shoulder pocket.

[jetfire]

I'm placing the buttstock way inward, on my right pectoral muscle, and...."it works for me." Anyone else do this?

Yep. I want that sucker as close to the centerline of my body as possible. I do it with shotguns too.

[TGS]

I don't know, I've used it way past 100 yards.

I've noticed my accuracy drops off significantly past 50 yards using a pectoral hold. I shake too much, and it just seems so much easier to move it over a few inches to the shoulder and all is well. Did you take you a lot of dedicated practice to be accurate at 100+ using such a hold, or did it come naturally?

FWIW, I use a VLTOR IMOD stock, 1 position from fully extended. Longer or shorter seems to make it uncomfortable. Using a pec hold naturally makes me c-clamp the gun, even before c-clamping became the fad. I guess it's basic body mechanics....I never realized I was doing it until I saw some dude with a beard on youtube doing it.

[ffhounddog]

I have been doing this for a few years really works well and makes you a smaller target while letting you control the rifle better.

[TheTrevor]

I have been doing this for a few years really works well and makes you a smaller target while letting you control the rifle better.

Smaller target? Really? Squaring yourself up to the target area properly aligns your plate carrier and/or soft armor to protect your vitals, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't do anything to reduce cross-section. If anything, the opposite is true compared to a bladed stance, which of course has the notable downside of pointing your rifle plates away from incoming fire.

[breakingtime91]

I find it funny that its assumed fire fights always start or end perfectly facing a target. Recoil management is what really came out of this technique.. Not optimum protection.

[Dagga Boy]

I've been doing this for a long time. Came from my shotgun technique. It was always hard to find a perfect pocket with armor on, and I could shoot a lot with magnum buck and slugs by shooting off my armor over the pecs rather than in the shoulder. I just carried it over to the carbine. I first saw the technique and adopted it from one of our officers who was a very serious skeet and trap shooter. He had a weird stance that had the shotgun almost centered in the chest and used perfectly fitted Krieghoff's. Guy was amazing and I saw the advantage of his stance and shotgun placement.

[TheTrevor]

You bring up an interesting point, D. While I can shoot 5.45 and 5.56 in just a t-shirt all day long, I'm a lot happier shooting shotguns and larger-caliber rifles with my Limbsaver pad on. I've already been considering picking up a soft-armor vest, mostly because I've been muzzle-swept enough times at public ranges in the last few years to think ballistic protection would be a good idea. I can't take credit for this idea -- several of my friends went down this road years ago after some incidents at ranges here in the Bay Area.

Would a Level II concealable-type vest yield roughly the same recoil-dispersing effect as a Limbsaver pad? Or would I need to step up to a thicker/heavier vest to get that?

[Josh Runkle]

Yep. I want that sucker as close to the centerline of my body as possible. I do it with shotguns too.

I'm with Caleb, only I'm no expert. Especially when it comes to carbines.

I do however find "as close to centerline" to be perfect for me. I notice it most in follow up shots. With a brake and a suppressor and 5.56, the gun seriously doesn't move. I can rattle off as fast as I can pull the trigger. Transitions are smooth (but I need a lot of practice), and the speed from low ready to firing is a hair faster in my experience. As the gun rolls onto my centerline, I'm already doing the push/pull method before I'm on my sights. With the "pocket" position, my perception is that I have to wait for the gun to "settle" before I can push/pull.

That's just my experience, and I'm sure there are many more qualified and more knowledgeable than me.

[Jay Cunningham]

This works especially well for home defense since I sleep in armor.

[Tamara]

This works especially well for home defense since I sleep in armor.

...and now I've got the image of Kevlar footies in my head. Thanks a whole bunch.

[LittleLebowski]

This works especially well for home defense since I sleep in armor.

Don't own any armor myself.

[Jay Cunningham]

Don't own any armor myself.

Gamer!!

[LittleLebowski]

Gamer!!


Yup.

[breakingtime91]

LL are you still shooting 5.45?

[LittleLebowski]

Did you take you a lot of dedicated practice to be accurate at 100+ using such a hold, or did it come naturally?


Naturally. Not sure if it was exacerbated by the GSW to my elbow or not but now I do it on both sides. Last time, I really pushed it was with an Army sniper buddy of mine. We playing "Horse" on roughly 4" targets or so out to 120 yards. He had a .308 MWS with a 1-6x and I had my Aimpoint. We made a point of trading weapons and kept on dinging targets :D

However, said buddy does the exact same thing with the pec hold.

[LittleLebowski]

LL are you still shooting 5.45?

Yup. The second barrel is going strong and lasting a lot longer than the first. It's a fairly lube sensitive gun (only with regards to the corrosion) and the Fireclean (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0084J3CX6/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0084J3CX6&linkCode=as2&tag=ratio07-20) an SME here gave me is working out quite well so far. Second barrel is also quite accurate.

I still chuckle about all of the people who told me that 5.45 surp was going to dry up five years ago.....

[JMS]

Yeah, I took a quick look at that on Ammoseek over the weekend, on a whim....and just about plotz'd. Not only does there appear to be TONS of it out there, it's cheap as ****.....!

No wonder you chose it... What's the usual go-to recipe? I was looking at 60gr ball, I think, and it was just crazy-cheap compared to current 5.56/.223 prices.

And same-same with stock placement, regardless of type. Once I started getting issued an M4 instead of a musket, did so to make up for how armor makes a shoulder-pocket disappear, and have just kept doing it with everything, ever since.

[breakingtime91]

Ya I imagine that corrosion is not good for the BCG. What's some of the biggest problem spots on your carbine from the corrosion? Also have you tried Rand CLP? Buddy is using it in the field and loves it on everything from his M4 to the 240.

[Surf]

I have varied technique depending if I am shooting in armor or not. It is just a necessity of the gear in many instances, and no I don't just stick with only one technique to make it consistent across the board which is more BS in my opinion. Definitely more inbound toward the center line of the body on the inner part of the pec if possible. Hard armor may dictate something a bit different.

I notice similar patterns in a shooters technique be it long gun and / or pistol as skill levels change. A newer shooter will obviously have a less then ideal technique, they tend to be more upright or even a rearward upper body lean, less stable and sloppy in their platform and recoil management. This is to be expected. As they progress and start gaining more knowledge over recoil management and multiple round strings of fire their shooting platform adapts and becomes more aggressive. They then arrive at a point where they think they know quite a bit, confident bordering on cocky about their skills. They tend to get into an overly aggressive platform, some have called it the TT or tactical turtle (TT can be applied to long guns and pistols) but with so much tension into the body, particularly upper body from the hands all the way to the shoulders and neck and a huge compression of the head between the shoulders, IMO they are actually holding themselves back from truly achieving the next level of proficiency and skill level. Finding that balance of recoil management without trying to over power the technique and weapon while maintaining proper body position and tension is where we want to be.

I too adapted my rifle platform directly from my competitive shotgun days and originally applied that to the M16 or rifle length AR15's about 25 years ago, which is similar to what people are trending towards these days with the M4 / AR platforms and longer rails. I got to admit that through the 90's early 2000's in the HK MP5SD days we adopted that platform and techniques shifted for that weapon, but as we transitioned back to the M4 platform and longer rails, I naturally progressed back into my shotgun technique that I used 25 years ago with the rifle length AR/M4. Wasn't very popular in my peer group as the magwell hold still dominated even with the M4 and I was definitely on the outside of technique. Of course the "outstretched grip" has become quite a controversial topic over the last few years due to certain training outfits, popular training DVD's and with so many people going to a very exaggerated form of this outstretched grip technique folding it into a tactical turtle but I think that as a shooter truly gains more knowledge and skill they loosen up that technique a bit, use a more heads up orientation with less muscle tension in the arms to the shoulders and neck. Again I think this applies with the pistol as well. Sloppy technique as a new shooter, turns into an overly aggressive technique with way too much head drop and muscular tension and as they get more skilled then a transition to a more relaxed happy medium results as they start taking their game to the next level.

Again my current rifle technique if I am shooting from a static, standing, unsupported position looks almost identical to my traditional competitive shotgun form with a slight variation in my support hands grip where I C-Clamp the forend and because of this have less or no pointing of the support hands index finger along the axis of the barrel. That is a trade off that I accept for recoil management vs pointability with the index finger.

[BoppaBear]

I use this technique with my carbine too.

I grew up shooting skeet and trap, with a Dad that was a competitive skeet shooter, and found moving the stock toward midline was helpful in managing recoil, and staying down "on the gun".

I've had a few instructors also teach this in rifle courses.

[Moshjath]

Without armor, this definitely works well for me, keeping it close to centerline. However, at work if I'm going to be shooting it will be while wearing an IOTV, which makes this pretty difficult based on the thickness of the armor. For those of y'all that also have to deal with this, what are y'all doing to deal with the IOTV? Running close to center, or the stock in a notch or two?

[WBower]

It's interesting, but this is something I just recently had a funny reminder of how much I was doing. I started bringing the butt stock of my M4 onto my pec area, just off of the SAPI plate when I was shooting in body armor in the Army. I never really noticed just how far I brought it in, it just feels natural now when I'm shooting a long gun. A few weeks ago I shot about 200 rounds out of an M1 Garand and about 25 full power 00 buckshot shells out of an Ithaca 37 with a steel buttplate. When I got home and took a shower I noticed the HUGE bruise on my right pec, and the smaller bruise on my left (I was shooting the Garand a little left handed for fun). I didn't even feel it until I saw it in the mirror.

When I was running an M4 in body armor I was using an old style Colt M4 butt stock, all the way collapsed to the rifle, tucked in right next to the SAPI plate. I noticed that the newer Colt buttstocks didn't work as well doing this. No idea how a modern stock like the SOPMOD or CTRs would work out, YMMV and all that.