Rifle Gunfighting Notes - Reverse Shoulder

[choirboy]

RANK ROOKIE at weak hand rifle here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I stroked out 5 years ago I had some limited right (shoot'in) hand function.

For 20 plus years I had been in "weak hand" drills with pistols. I never knew that I shot weak left hand with strong right eye. Stroke showed my right eye was worth as much as my right toe.

I had to wear a patch to learn -- blind right/aim left. ( No disrespect to you 2 eyed shooters)

It took well over 1K of .22 shells (probably 2x) to get to the point , that without the patch I could deliver with left hand AND LEFT EYE reasonable fire.

Purpose of the post:

Patch your dominint eye, ignore your best hand;------ then shoot alot.

Even though I am mostly shooting at varmits on the farm it is good practice for left hand shooting if I have to.

Right eye and hand still a little impaired but they are back to dominant status.

Choirboy

[Anthony]

Patch your dominint eye, ignore your best hand;------ then shoot alot.

Now that sounds like a good idea for practise !
Regards,
Anthony.

[snolden]

Ok, I tried right hand, left shoulder with the FAL today. I don't think it is the best platform for this but at ten yards i was still able to get good fast COM hits.

I also did ALOT of full out movement drills and kept em all on the cardboard. some of those hits may have been just to extremities but still good.

The EOTECH on a carry handle mount or in a cowitness position on an AR is a much much better tool for opposite shoulder shooting than the eotech on a FAL in any configuration.

I used a tactical sling both from a low ready (in a three point config) position and from African carry (in two point setup). I have done this the last several of my training sessions.

Three point sling does not lend itself to reverse shoulder firing. Single point maybe, two point yes, three point no.

[ballistic_ken]

I tried this technique yesterday afternoon, someone that attended Gabe's AK class showed me.

My single point sling didn't transition well, it got in the way when shouldering on the weak side(right side for me). Things went a lot smoother after the single point sling was removed.

When I got home I put the standard AK sling back on and did a few drills. Problem solved.

Off topic, but as soon as I got home I ordered the rifle BOB from Gabe. Can't wait to get it rigged up.

[Eric]

Huh? Are we talking about the same thing? Butt of the rifle on the left shoulder, but the right hand still in the pistol grip (as the first stage of a side swap with the rifle....from which you can also fire). I'm not sure what you describe is physically possible.

I'm confused. I've been following this thread, and the related article. Thought I knew how this was intended to work: left shoulder, left hand in the trigger guard, right hand on the forestock. Gotcha!

But the foregoing quote has me puzzled. I find complete side transition logical, as this is what I training for in Kempo. But partial transition? Not sure how this would work.

Also not sure I understand what this buys you.

Left side I can understand, especially with leftward movement. Or in the event of injury to the right hand. Left shoulder, left hand firing, left eye sighting.

But let shoulder, right hand firing? Which eye sights? Wouldn't this make lateral movement clumsy? You'd still have to move foot over foot to keep rifle and target lined up and handle recoil... Footwork seems kind of wierd. Wouldn't this throw your balance? Cause drift in your aimpoint?

[Gabe Suarez]

But let shoulder, right hand firing? Which eye sights? Wouldn't this make lateral movement clumsy? You'd still have to move foot over foot to keep rifle and target lined up and handle recoil... Footwork seems kind of wierd. Wouldn't this throw your balance? Cause drift in your aimpoint?

Partial transition is a good way to look at it. You begin shooting on the partial transition and its faster than waiting for a full transition. After a few shots, complete the transition.

To answer the quaetions:

Which eye sights? Both
It makes lateral movement safer than backing up and faster than waiting for the complete transition.
Most of the time you would point shoot anyway.

We will drill this this weekend. I'll report back on the range AND force on force results.

[michael]

We will drill this this weekend. I'll report back on the range AND force on force results.

Shoot Jack for me with the airsoft. I'm still digging casings out of my car from last year.:D

[Roger Phillips]

I spent the day running continuum shooting with the rifle. Shot about 1000 rounds, and did a lot of work with the partial transition. I have not been taught this by Gabe....this is just what I found to work for me.

Since this is point shooting it very much falls within the fight continuum concept. What is important, is to understand the context of the technique. Once again, as has been said thousands of times by Gabe and 7677, your response is going to be dictated by the proximity and the urgency of the encounter.

The partial transition works very well inside of the correct context and definitely has it's place. That would be.....when you are behind in the reactionary curve, when you need to explode off of the X, when the action is close and fast, when you need to move dynamically to the support side.

I was doing very well with this from 3 yards out to 15 yards (I did not try it further than that) today, with dynamic movement, while being threat focused.

Just as in handgun continuum shooting, with the rifle, the more visual input the better the accuracy and the further that it can be pushed. I was using an underarm assault inside of ten yards. I was taught the underarm assault last October by Matt and have found it to be an excellent CQB technique. I have taken it and brought it into the dynamic movement skillset and have found that it really does well there.

The "underarm assault partial transition" placed the butt of the gun on my support side in the pocket of the gut, right in front of the hip. This gives me the all important "visual centerline" and put the barrrel of the gun right below my dominate right eye, while moving dynamically to the support side forward oblique.

Outside of ten yards the butt of the gun was coming up to my support side collar bone about two inches past centerline. It was not on the shoulder or in the shoulder pocket, it was closer to the centerline. Once again this gave me a great "visual centerline" while moving dynamically to the support side forward oblique.

Nice technique.....I would use this techniqe without hesitation within the correct context of the fight.

[Gabe Suarez]

Sweat,

You wrote: "The "underarm assault partial transition" placed the butt of the gun on my support side in the pocket of the gut, right in front of the hip. This gives me the all important "visual centerline" and put the barrrel of the gun right below my dominate right eye, while moving dynamically to the support side forward oblique."

Intersting as we are looking at the same thing. I have been doing the support side movement beginning from "patrol carry". I think Taylor (and of course FS) used to call it Rhodesian Ready.

I found the rifle butt, in partial transition, would end up horizontal, with the toe of the stock toward centerline, and the butt "pad" iteslf just under my left pec. The support arm would be more or less horizontal and pointing the muzzle toward the target. As soon as possible, of course, the ful transition was made to support side UA assault.

That seemed to be the most natural "default" when I picked up speed. No pun intended, but I could not find a "pocket" for me.

All of these seem to work well within the limits of distance and target specificity, and much our work would seem to be focussed on developing the easiest to treach, and maintain methods as well as the most natural to execute.

[Roger Phillips]

Yesterday on Fox news, there was a clip of some dynamic room entrys in Iraq. First man throught the door was moving dynamically to the support side while engaging to the firing side. He was very much doing what we are talking about.

(here comes the inevitable broken recored) I agree that we need to allow the students to find what is natural and comfortable for them. I feel that the visual centerline (nose index) is important. But besides that, the placement of the butt would be user dependent on proximity and known skill level.

The soldier in the clip was working off of his visual centerline, four inches of so below line of sight, with the butt of the gun off of the body just off of his centerline. The rifle was basically floating in his arms only.

I was working with both methods, the floating method and the braced method (butt against the body.) Once again this is going to sound a lot like my "Necessary visual input shooting" (commonality is good.) The floating method seemed to work very well with extreme dynamic movement inside of seven yards. It was very fast (both in target aquisiton and speed of movement), the "shock" from the movement was cushioned by the floating aspect, and there was more than enough "acceptable accuracy." I was able to do this at underarm assualt height.

As the distance increased, the need to bring the gun up higher, to get more visual input on the rifle (for alignment purposes) was apparent. Floating the rifle still worked, but the rifle was coming up higher and I was still working off of my visual cenerline. I was able to "float the rifle" out to about ten yards.

Outside of ten yards it became apparent that I needed to brace the rifle. As I stated before, this was on the collar bone just a couple of inches off of the centerline. The exact position would be dictated by the angle of the attack and the ability to aquire the visual centerline. As I braced the rifle I immediately saw more movement of the alignment, across the targeted area. The "shock" of the movement was now being directly transmitted to the rifle, with no buffering from the arms. This made me slow down and smooth out my movement....which is not a problem when you consider that distance=time. The urgency of the shot has declined slightly....so in turn the dynamics of the movement can decline.

One of the key items that needs to be nailed down here is the understanding of when a partial transition needs to be used and when is there enough time to make a full transition.

Very interesting study Gabe....I appreciate the kick start with the introduction of the revearse shoulder (partial transition.)

"Great time to be a student":D