I recently attended a match where a portion of the stage involved shooting from the rear door of a helicopter fuselage using a sling for support. Essentially a piece of 1” webbing strung across the top of 5’ wide open door. I rested the back of my hand supporting the muzzle on the sling, barely on one knee with rifle shouldered and leaned into it a bit. Got it done, but that shit wasn’t ez. I struggled to hit my 300 yd targets as the front of the rifle rocked back and forth. It was hard enough doing this on stable ground, I couldn’t imagine being airborne. I was told this is a common shooting position when shooting from a helicopter so there must be some kind of special technique. Anyone got some tips on stabilizing the rifle in this position? Thanks.
Shooting off a suspended sling?
- Thread starter MK20Niner
- Start date
We have done similar stages in our rimfire events. The best I can offer is no exaggerated movements, smooth and steady will get it done. We are shooting out the right side of our helicopter simulator, so it will test the “strongly right handed”, firing lefty. Of course the option exists to rotate your body and squeeze into a right handed position, but again, your smoothness (or lack thereof) will tell on you.
These pics were months apart, but I preferred just switching to left hand.
I use a free recoil-ish position for those. I do my best to stack my body vertically with the least amount of support from or pressure on the rifle. Basically the same as any very fore and aft wobbly prop. I find confidence and inner peace gained from lots of practice really pays off in these positions. Tripod rear is the gamer solution, if possible. MD’s usually make the target big enough that doing well is a mind game more than raw skill.
First, when you shoot from a real helicopter it doesn't swing from the recoil like the platform shown above. You want to push into the strap across the door, and support your upper body in any way you can find to.
We had the exact same stage at our match last weekend. Several modified prone shooting positions inside the helicopter first, then the suspended sling and two targets to finish the stage.
My approach was to use tripod rear with my gamechanger bag as a front rest on the sling. The extra weight of the bag helps slow down the movement of the sling and also makes it easier to get the gun level. Tripod rear was tricky, it needed to be just the right height plus you had to pre-set the tripod legs at different heights to get it to fit (one short, two long, then place it in the right orientation). With this approach you can get stable enough to hit small targets, but time management becomes the challenge.
With bigger targets and tighter times I would just throw a bag on the sling, get stable in NPA and try to make the best shots I could.
I fairly recently watched one of the latest sniper team challenges.
The most difficult stage I saw taking into account hit percentage was the helicopter stage.
Some of the best in world looked noticeably frustrated with thier results.
The most difficult stage I saw taking into account hit percentage was the helicopter stage.
Some of the best in world looked noticeably frustrated with thier results.
