This section describes simple but necessary techniques such as breath control and trigger control, and moves on to cover the fundamental basis of position shooting, and proper use of the sling.

Proper breathing is especially important in the offhand stage; not only to be steady for the shot, but to calm yourself. This usually is the first stage of the match, and if you have a case of the jitters it comes during the most unsteady position! Different people have different methods, but I prefer, in slow-fire offhand, to breathe slowly and deeply two or three times before the final firing breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth, feel your stomach expand, not your chest or shoulders (deep vs. shallow breathing). When you are lying on your back, this is how you breathe – your stomach goes up and down at your belt buckle area. This is the deepest and most efficient way of breathing. When you are upright, the tendency is to breathe with your upper chest only, not using your lower abdomen. This wastes about half your lung capacity and actually increases the tension of your neck and shoulder muscles. Stop doing it that way!

Inhale while raising the rifle, exhale while letting it start to settle, then one more inhalation (not too deep), then exhale about halfway while continuing to let the rifle settle for the shot while holding your breath. Remember that after about eight seconds, you will get the shakes and lose visual acuity. At this point, there will be an urge to "yank" the shot just so you can breathe. Don’t do it! Just put the rifle down, release your breath, and start over! Knowing when not to pull the trigger is just as important as pulling it at just the right time. You can always stop the process, grab another breath and try a given shot again, but once you put a hole in the paper in the wrong place, you are stuck with it.

For rapid-fire, you simply speed up the process. Mainly you have to remember to hold your breath during the trigger squeeze.

Shooting aperture sights correctly requires knowledge of certain techniques. First, try to shoot with both eyes open to reduce eyestrain. If this is difficult, place frosted tape over the weak-eye lens of your shooting glasses or buy a handy flip-up shade which clips over one side of your glasses. This is particularly helpful during the two slow-fire stages. Secondly, the front sight tip must be centered in the aperture and your eye must be centered behind the aperture, focusing on the front sight.

To properly align your front and rear sights when using a peep (aperture) rear sight, you need a consistent anchor point for your face on the stock. This means in having your face pressed against the stock at one particular place, depending upon the shooting position you're in. Small variations in face position will mean lost points at 600 yards, with your shots varying from the center by up to a foot or more. Even at 300 yards, this can change your group's point of impact. So, when you do your slow-fire sighters for 200 and 300, and then when you get into your position for the rapid-fire string, and again when you break face/stock contact when you reload, you must be able to consistently re-create the same stock/face contact. You must not only find this position, but replicate it exactly every time you assume that position, and for every shot you fire from that position.

This is called the "stock weld." In prone, I find that the stock comb is so low that resting my face on it has me staring at the rear receiver wall below the sight. So, I hook my thumb over the stock and rest my cheekbone on it. This is called the ‘cheek weld’. Not as comfortable in recoil, but it raises my eye up to where it should be. This prevents craning my head upwards, which results in a varying position of my eye every shot, and sore neck muscles which lead to even less consistent eye placement. I also use this "cheek-to-thumb weld" in sitting.

Another trick is to use some part of the front sight or rifle barrel to align with the rear sight aperture at it's 6-o’clock edge. That is, get a proper alignment with the top surface of the front sight as near centered in the aperture as you can, then see where the lower edge of the aperture "cuts off" the view of the front sight or top of the barrel. Memorize this relationship and make sure it looks exactly the same for every shot. And before you fire, don't forget to transfer focus to the front sight.

This is the main thing: Watch the Front Sight! Keep your focus there, not on the bullseye. There is a tendency among untrained shooters to watch the target ("bull-gazing"). This will cause your shots to wander. Let the target blur slightly and keep your front sight sharp! If your shots are wandering high-low-right-left without any cause you can detect (no wind changes, your hold looked good, etc.), you might be bull-gazing. This also may be the case if your shots seem to form two distinct groups (especially in rapid-fire). One group is formed when properly focusing on your sight, the other from improperly focusing on the bull. Also, this two-group effect is often the result of not replacing the butt in your shoulder in the same position after you reload.

The reason you focus on the front sight is that if the target is blurry, the possible aim error from trying to hold the tip of the front sight against the blurry edge of the target will only be as big as the blurred edge appears – a quite small distance actually. But, if the front sight is blurry, you will not notice small misalignments of the sight, which, due to the geometry differences between where your eye is looking and where the sight/barrel is looking, translate into enormous errors at the target.

If you keep your eye on the front sight and achieve a proper trigger release, you should know where the sight was when you fired. Where the sight goes, the shot goes, and you can "call" its probable point of impact based on your seeing where your front sight was in relation to the target at the instant of firing. There is more on calling your shots, below. You absolutely need to learn how to do this because it is about the only thing that allows self-analysis and self-correction. If you knew that you threw a shot in a given direction, then you can help tell the difference between a shot that went wide due to your aim error, and one that went wide for some other reason. If you don't know when you pulled one, you can't even determine which problem you need to solve.

There are three main ways you can hold the front sight against the bullseye. The first is the 6-o’clock hold. The top of the post is just under the bottom center edge of the target. You may just touch the black, or leave a thin line of white between the top of the post and the black.

The second is the "flat tire" hold. The tip of the post intrudes upward about one-quarter of the way into the bull.

The last is the center-of-mass hold. The top surface of the post comes up to the center of the target.

I prefer the 6-o’clock hold because it gives me a clear contrast between the front sight and the white part of the target, and a clear contrast between the edge of the sight and the edge of the bull. Holding into the black can get tricky, because you now see black-against-black without a clear dividing reference and it becomes hard to make sure your sight is in exactly the same place from shot to shot.

The main requirements are to have that reproducible, consistent face/eye placement

every shot, and to focus on the front sight.

The primary requirement is to release the shot without disturbing your aim. The great enemy of this is the flinch.

If you have a tendency to flinch with anticipated recoil, you can cure this by developing the "surprise break." This is a gradual increase of pressure until the discharge happens without your knowledge of the exact instant it will happen. The flinch is a result of a trigger press which is fast enough to fire almost immediately as it is applied. Therefore, your brain knows that as soon as it directs the trigger finger to start pressing, there will be an immediate recoil pulse, so your subconscious throws in the flinch reflex in the instant between your brain saying "pull the trigger" and the shot actually firing.

The surprise break is a way of fooling your brain so that it can't exactly anticipate when the discharge occurs due to the extended time interval of gradual trigger pressure buildup. Therefore, your subconscious is frustrated in directing a flinch to your body, because it just plain doesn't know exactly when to do it. The shot release is a surprise. If you are concentrating on your front sight as you should be, you actually may see the flame of the muzzle blast and you will be able to call your shot because you will know exactly where the front sight was pointed as the bullet left the muzzle. If you flinched, on the other hand, an eye blink is included, so you won't see anything but the inside of your own eyelid when you fire (which doesn't help you call your shot). If someone asks you where you think it went, and you say "I dunno," and they ask you where your front sight was at the instant you fired and you say "I dunno" because you didn't see it because you blinked, You Flinched.

The flinch also is a physical motion which causes the rifle to jerk off target. I once had a problem in the slow-fire prone stage, where you shoot 22 shots at 600 yards. At least one or two rounds would always go to 10 or 11 o’clock out in the 7 or 8 ring. This drove me nuts because I couldn't figure out why. I finally showed my score book (with its record of hits on target) to an experienced shooter who said, "Aha! That's a shoulder flinch! It pushes forward on the butt and throws your muzzle left and up if you're right-handed!" Aha, indeed. And a great example of why you need a record book – and how to use it. I also have noticed an upward jerk of my left (supporting) hand in anticipation of recoil, with the same high-left result. Careful dry-fire practice, in full equipment, helps train in the surprise break, while also helping to eliminate flinching. You can do this on your living room floor any evening.

The neat thing about this technique is that it is not physical, it is mental – a perception. How fast does it take to have a thought? (No wisecracks please!) This technique is used extensively by practical (combat) pistol shooters who don't exactly shoot slowly. The way they make it work is by developing the surprise slowly, with gradual pressure, over several seconds. Then, once the surprise break is working, they gradually speed up the process so that the interval, which still exists and can be recognized by the brain, is only a fraction of a second. Your brain can accelerate its perception (making reality seem to slow down) and you can train it with repetitions to do this with the trigger pull interval perception. In effect, you can shoot just as fast or faster than the other guy who is just mashing the trigger (and flinching), but your brain can still perceive that tiny interval, thereby preserving that grain of mental uncertainty which prevents the flinch. I don’t know the originator but it is a very clever and useful technique.

Although this compressed technique has little value in slow-fire rifle, it can come in handy during the rapid-fire stage where there is a tendency to yank off the shots under time pressure (especially if you've bobbled your reload and lost time).

Something to avoid, in rapid-fire especially, is "pulling wood" or "grabbing wood." This happens when you have your trigger finger laying along the stock for the length of your finger. Every time you press the trigger, your finger tenses sideways against the stock. This presses the rifle sideways a tiny bit each time you pull and will actually move your shot a full MOA or more (I know from doing it). Keep your trigger finger clear of the rifle stock!

Natural point-of-aim (NPA) may be the most important fundamental principle of position shooting, gaining you good, consistent hits. It is getting your body into a shooting position that naturally points your front sight right on target while you stay as relaxed as possible. If you have to use muscle to point the rifle at your target, and relaxation tends to make the rifle point higher, lower, right or left of your target, you are not in a correct position to let you take advantage of natural point-of-aim. The idea is to use a natural relaxed position that aims the rifle for you, while avoiding muscling the rifle onto your desired aimpoint through brute strength.

When you assume a shooting position, the position of your body will naturally result in pointing the muzzle someplace. That "someplace" is your natural point-of-aim for that position. The trick is to make that "someplace" be exactly where you need to aim. This is done primarily by properly positioning the part of your body which is in contact with the ground. For instance, if in offhand your NPA is pointing right, move your back foot to the right which will rotate your whole body – including the rifle - to the left, rather than using muscle tension to shove the rifle over to where you want it. Using muscle leads to muscle fatigue, which makes you shake, which ruins your aim. Using natural positioning lets you relax as many muscles as possible and helps the front sight "want" to stay on your target. Again using offhand as an example, a proper natural position actually will cause the rifle to point at your target and to want to "hang" there.

Contrast this to an unnatural position where you keep trying to shove the sight onto the target and it keeps trying to swing away, or where you keep waiting in vain for the sight to swing itself where you want it. Both of these situations force you to shoot with an uncontrolled, moving front sight, which (trust me) will lead to very bad hits. A controlled motion of the front sight will work if you can control it in a consistent fashion and if your natural point of aim coincides with the perfect sight picture. This is the offhand technique favored by multi-time national champion David Tubb and described in his excellent book. Keep in mind, however, that techniques which work for David Tubb do not necessarily work for those of us with lesser skill levels!

Natural point-of-aim is a key to rapid-fire success. With it, the rifle will come down from recoil all by itself right onto a near-perfect hold on your target. This allows you to concentrate only on firing the next shot. An unnatural position in rapid-fire results in the rifle coming back from recoil pointed halfway down the firing line and requires you to muscle it back into position for every shot. It is a slow, sloppy, frustrating process resulting in poor scores. Poor NPA also may lead to cross-firing on an adjacent target if the rifle happens to recover pointed there without your noticing it.

Test your "naturalness" by assuming position, closing your eyes, relaxing without consciously trying to point the rifle any place in particular, then opening your eyes and seeing where the front sight put itself. This is your natural point-of-aim. It also can be evaluated while you are shooting by letting the rifle find its own position after recoil and seeing where the front sight wants to go. This post-shooting process is called "follow through". This is useful in rapid-fire because it helps tell you if your NPA is right. If you detect a problem in your first shots before reloading, you can attempt to correct it after reloading.

If your natural point-of-aim is not where you would squeeze off a shot, you must adjust it. Generally, this involves rotation of the whole body relative to the ground for windage, and various limb position changes for elevation. This is another thing you can practice in your living room, so make sure you put some time into it. It will do wonders for your score, make you consistent from match to match, and cure a lot of those "what the heck happened" shots. It really does all the hard work for you. Proper positioning of your butt, knees and elbows (sitting) or your body angle and elbow placements (prone) will give you the correct natural point-of-aim on your target. For sitting, you should be able to control windage by spinning sideways on your fanny, and elevation by moving your legs/ankles and your elbow positions. For prone, rotate your entire body around your support elbow for windage and control elevation by moving your trigger-hand elbow to the side to raise your front sight, or pulling it in to your body to lower your front sight. The goal is a relaxed natural position yielding as perfect a sight picture as you can get. If you have to push the rifle onto the target, your position is wrong. Shift your body until your NPA coincides with a perfect sight picture.

Position creation is greatly helped by ‘shooting against your ligaments’ - the principle of creating a position of maximum joint travel while being totally relaxed. This consists of arranging your limbs so that your position includes at least one of your relevant joints being at the greatest extension or flexion, so that no further movement is possible. Your ligaments and bones hold the joint in that position automatically without any applied muscle tension – excellent stability with total relaxation of the joint.

This is a very useful trick to achieving maximum relaxed stability. Consider this carefully and experiment. A good stable offhand position can be built using this technique, to stabilize the hips, spine, and torso, though it requires a number of what can only be described as slouching, twisting, slumping contortions of the pelvis and back. These allow you to let the weight of your upper body settle itself into a position where it really can't sway much anymore, as compared to its range of motion when standing erect with proper posture. Remember, you want to let your skeleton, not your muscles, do all the work.

Some notes on standing and sitting positions are relevant here. First, I suggest perusing David Tubb’s excellent and comprehensive treatment of position-building in his book. Second, I’ll simply state that in offhand, you want to push your lead hip slightly toward the target, while leaning your upper body away from the target, and holding the rifle with your support hand well back under the receiver area. This allows you to lay your support arm against your rib cage with your forearm very close to vertical, which effectively transfers the weight of both arm and rifle away from your shoulder joint muscles and rests it on your torso. Plant your feet a little further than shoulder-width apart.

For sitting, there are three main positions: open-legged, cross-ankled, and cross-legged. Open-legged is feet apart, about what you’d do sitting on the ground naturally. This is the least stable of the three (although an excellent hunting position). Cross-legged is having your legs folded tightly under you. Your base area on the ground is a bit narrow, and I find that its usefulness seems to be dictated by body shape. Skinny people such as myself end up canting the rifle sharply towards the strong side and downwards, while stocky or rotund people seem to be held in a more upright and straight position. In my case, attempting to shoot cross-legged resulted in requiring the butt placed well down on my bicep and my head hovering behind the sight without my cheek contacting the stock. It was very steady, but almost impossible to aim with it. Cross-ankled widens this by pushing your feet further out in front of you and crossing your legs at the ankles. Your knees will be close to a 90-degree bend. This allows a sharper forward lean and a wide base of ground contact. It still requires canting the rifle slightly (to get your cheek properly on the stock) and a slightly lower position of the butt, however it works very well for me. Put your support elbow ahead of your shin or knee (not on top of it) and keep your strongside elbow tucked into the little hollow inside the crook of your strongside knee (so recoil won’t push it off to the rear).

Experiment with these positions, and pick the one that gives the best combination of steadiness, recoil resistance, aiming ability, and comfort (with comfort being least important!). You may find that with a little development, practice, and proper sling use, a good sitting position is almost as steady as a benchrest.

Except during Stage 1 offhand, you will use the sling. It supports the weight of the rifle, taking over from your bicep muscle, and allows you to relax into your position, thus freeing your muscles of the strain of holding up the rifle and recovering it on target every shot.

With proper use of the sling and the proper position, you essentially can fall asleep on the line and your front sight will not waver off the target. The sling does this by forming a loop which wraps around the back of your upper support arm (the higher the better) and the front of your wrist. This makes a tight strap which pulls against the back of your arm and prevents your support wrist from moving forward (where the weight of the rifle wants to push it), opening the elbow joint. Geometrically, you have a triangle with three rigid sides. The sling immobilizes the elbow joint. So, you can sit there all day in a relaxed state without actually holding the rifle up with your arm or shoulder (if your elbow is solidly rested on something). An important effect of this is to allow you to naturally fall back into your relaxed position after the rifle recoils. If, in the relaxed state, you have a correct natural position pointed right at your target, you should return to the same position after recoil, all automatically and without any conscious effort by you. Obviously, this is far superior to having to wrestle the rifle back on target every shot.

The sling, combined with Natural Point-of-Aim, is the key to rapid-fire success!

Two things have to be done for this combination to work:

First, put your support elbow as directly under the rifle as possible. Avoid positions where that elbow is well to one side of the rifle. The reason is that the sling only works to hold up the rifle if gravity pulls the rifle in a direction that would cause the opening of your elbow joint angle (what the sling loop prevents). This is what happens when your elbow is under the rifle. If it's off to the side, gravity does not work directly against your elbow. Instead, there is a tendency for the rifle to fall sideways away from your support arm toward the trigger hand side. This produces a sideways pivot of your support arm over the elbow, flexing from the shoulder, identical to the motion you try to make in arm-wrestling. In essence, your support arm tilts over sideways with the elbow joint angle remaining unchanged.

The sling has no control over this type of motion. Thus, the rifle will tend to fall sideways (rightwards for a right-hander) and also forward off of your shoulder, especially after recoil. This works exactly the same way in prone (both rapid- and slow-fire), so make sure you understand this principle and apply it to all sling use where the elbow is rested on something solid. This may cause some pain in the muscles behind your shoulder until they get used to being stretched that far. Just ignore those people who claim the sling is an infernal torture instrument designed by evil sadists.

Watch how your front sight moves as you breathe. If it moves straight up and down, chances are your position is good. If, on the other hand, it moves at a slant, you probably need to refine your position.

Second, adjust your natural position correctly as described above. Also, for sitting, keep your butt pushed far enough to the rear that your upper body wants to lie forward of its own weight, supporting itself by elbows resting near the knees. Avoid having the point of your elbow on the point of your knee; it wobbles too much. If you have a tendency to roll backwards when you relax and have to hold yourself upright with stomach muscle tension, push your butt further back. You know you are doing it right when you can close your eyes, relax completely, sag forward into the buttstock (which tightens up the sling), open your eyes while still relaxed, and see your front sight sitting exactly where you would have it to fire. When you get this right, your front sight will seem to find the target all by itself, your position will magically reproduce itself after recoil, and it will seem like you are just along for the ride.

This general principle of the correct position doing the work for you applies to all positions. Strive to perfect this for rapid-fire especially. The good part is that you can figure out all of the above, including recoil recovery, on your living room floor with dry-fire sessions. It’s the only way to learn and remember the best position for you. The recoil can be simulated by a helper sharply racking the operating handle rearward and releasing it while you are in position. This requires having no magazine in an M14, or a little wooden block clip-filler in an M1 to keep the action from locking open. Put up an aimpoint (I use a black thumbtack on the wall) and see where you come down after the fake recoil pulse. Figure all this out at home then test it on the range in practice.

With your sling properly installed, you will notice that the forward part is a loop, with the ends hooked together by the metal prong (the frog ). Two leather loop rings (keepers) should ride on the main loop, one on each side of the frog. The rear part of the sling is a separate strap that attaches to the front loop via a shared brass rectangular hoop and attaches to the rear swivel by going through and hooking back to itself via another frog. The rear strap converts the shooting sling into a carry sling and has no use in shooting. Ignore it (some shooters detach it from the rear swivel and let it hang free).

You use only the front loop part of the sling for shooting. Your arm will go through the rear-most end of the front loop with the leather up as close to your armpit as possible, so that both keepers and the frog are between your bicep and the front swivel. You’ll use the keepers to jam against the frog and keep the loop from loosening.

Photograph 2 shows the forward loop, ready to go over the arm. The frog and the two keepers are being held between the thumb and index finger.

The length of the loop is determined by where the frog hooks back onto the strap. The loop length is a critical adjustment. Too long, and your support forearm sags too far forward, lowering the muzzle too much. Too short, and your forearm cannot move forward enough to let the buttstock into your shoulder. If it's troublesome to get the butt into your shoulder with the sling on your arm, the loop's too short. The butt should go snugly in your shoulder with just a little bit of effort. Find your own most comfortable setting and mark it. Set the loop length for your own build and arm length. You will probably use different settings for sitting versus prone.

Just before putting your arm through the loop, first twist the loop a half turn (clockwise looking down from the perspective of the forward swivel when the rifle is muzzle-up vertical) so the strap wraps smoothly around your wrist when you wrap your forearm through. If the edge of the sling bites into your wrist as it wraps around, you forgot the half-twist or did it in the wrong direction. This can get painful.

Once you put your arm through the loop, and before you wrap your arm around and through again, you need to properly lock the loop around your upper arm. The back keeper should be pulled down against your arm, tightening the loop. The frog should be forward of the rear keeper, with the second keeper ahead of it. What you want to do is lock the loop around your arm tight so it will not loosen up and allow the loop to slide down your arm.

Before you tighten the back keeper against your arm, roll the whole forward part of the sling loop so that the frog pulls downward against the lower keeper. You do this by grabbing each side of the straps of the forward part of the sling and pulling one and pushing the other, rolling it like a tank tread through the front swivel and around the back of your arm. Photograph 2a shows the shooter’s left hand pulling the outer strap upwards in the direction his left thumb is pointing; the right hand is doing the opposite.

 Pull the frog downwards against the lower keeper, which will be what tightens the loop around your arm. The lower keeper should NOT be loose enough to pass over the frog, so the frog acts like a lock to prevent the keeper from sliding forward (which it wants to do). If it did, it would allow the loop around your arm to loosen, which would allow the sling to slide down your arm, lowering the rifle into the dirt. When you have this adjusted, take the upper or forward keeper and slide this down against the frog for a triple-lock of the sling loop to keep everything from coming apart, as shown it photograph 2b.

Note that this works only on slings where the excess end with the holes will pass through the lower keeper. If you have one of the thick Turner slings with tight keepers, the keeper won't slide over three thicknesses of strap. You have to use a different method to achieve a lock, which is graciously provided by Turner in the form of a diagram that comes with their sling. Conversely, if your keepers are so loose that they slide right over the frog, you also can't use the above loop-lock method. You need to find a different way to lock the loop (or replace the keepers or the sling).

Now, wrap your hand around the sling and back between the rifle stock and both straps of the loop. Ram it up against the front swivel, with the sling strap running across the back of your hand from the "Y" between your thumb and forefinger, with the hand relaxed. Do not grip the fore-end. This wedged position of the hand is why you need a padded glove or mitt.

The end result of proper sling use is pain, grumbling, arm numbness due to cut-off circulation, and a benchrest-solid position allowing complete relaxation, zero muscle effort, little or no fatigue over long firing strings, and a position which magically and immediately resumes itself after recoil. The result is definitely worth the initial annoyance. The hardest part is finding just the right sling loop length for sitting and prone. Once you have everything figured out, it's routine. The sling is extremely important in highpower shooting.

Photograph 3 shows the author using the sling in the prone position. The gloved hand is jammed against the forward swivel while the loop around the upper arm keeps the elbow from opening any more. This forms a very stable triangle.

Proceed to Part 4