Hasty sling

[PhillipM]

Jeff Cooper says to never use a sling if the supporting hand is unsupporeted. I can't ask him since he's dead but why is this a fact?

[Maury Krupp]

It's not a "fact"

Where does he say that and are you sure you're reading it correctly?

The whole point of a sling, both hasty and loop, is to provide support when no other type is available or authorized.

And as much as I respect Mr Cooper for many other things he did and wrote, his reputation wasn't built on his skills as a classic rifleman.

Maury

[PhillipM]

It's not a "fact"

Where does he say that and are you sure you're reading it correctly?

The whole point of a sling, both hasty and loop, is to provide support when no other type is available or authorized.

And as much as I respect Mr Cooper for many other things he did and wrote, his reputation wasn't built on his skills as a classic rifleman.

Maury

'Art of the Rifle' p 42; "The sling is not used from either the standing or offhand position. In my youth several coaches encouraged the use of what was called the "hasty sling." It never did anything for me, and it is geometrically unsound."

pg 64, "The function of the shooting sling is to take the weight off the muscles of your support arm, so that when you are in a proper firing position you can relax all your muscles and the weapon will remain exactly on target. This is accomplished by binding the support hand to the fore-end of the rifle and then securing that contact to the support shoulder so that the left elbow is held in its flexed position by the strap itself without any support from the biceps. This works when the support elbow is resting on something solid or something nearly so, such as the ground or the support leg; thus, it works in the prone, sitting, military squat, and kneeling positions -- in addition to a good many "jackass positions, " which may be imporvised in the field."

On page 34 your link from the 03 board, USMC Scorebook copywright 1912, the standing position is shown using a sling. When was the sling dropped from the standing position and why?

[Maury Krupp]

Well, you're reading Mr Cooper correctly; I was the one not reading your post correctly

When you initially said "unsupported" my rulebook besotted brain went to "Artificial Support" (eg, bench, bipod, sandbag, etc) but I see now he includes the ground or body as "support" so that makes sense now.

When it comes to the hasty sling for Standing it may not have done anything for him but it did and still does something for other shooters. I know it helped me when I shot 3-gun. It puts the muscles in tension against each other and the sling which helps to steady the position.

It's in all the Army marksmanship manuals from the turn of the 20th Century to 1964 when they stopped teaching the sling entirely. It's still in today's Marine Corps marksmanship manual.

CMP allows it for the Standing stage of Infantry Trophy but these days hardly anyone has any ammo left to shoot Standing so it doesn't see much use or attention. It's also the only sling use allowed in Sitting and Prone the Carbine Match but you'll find a fair number who say *any* sling use in the Carbine Match isn't worth the trouble.

As for highpower competition, even though it's clearly been part of military marksmanship training for over a century I don't know if it has ever been allowed as part of this stylized kabuki-dance we engage in

Maury

[PhillipM]

It's also the only sling use allowed in Sitting and Prone the Carbine Match but you'll find a fair number who say *any* sling use in the Carbine Match isn't worth the trouble.
Maury

I wouldn't say not worth the trouble, I'd say it's a detriment to accuracy because slinging up with any tension on a carbine is obviously pulling the barrel to the left. Bad, bad, bad.

http://www.thecmp.org/pdfs/CMP_Carbine_Notes_2007.pdf

(3) Then the problem is of how the metal fastens to the wood. Accurate Carbines require a properly fitted
barrel band and a properly fitted recoil plate. The remainder of the stock inletting rarely matters. The
Carbine mechanism operates without any necessity of the stocking up system being attached. The location
of the metal in the wood is controlled by the barrel band and by the recoil plate. Unless the moving slide
contacts the wood or the handguard is fitted too tightly, the stock system itself usually is not a problem.
On average for easy sorting of carbines, a bayonet lug barrel band out shoots the other kinds with the least
fooling around. The rebuilds with a bayonet band are accurate. The 1" wide type 2 band isn't bad, but a
bayonet band is better. The type 1 skinny 1/2" wide bands are very problematic. Collectors may like them,
but they cause problems with accurate shooting. They take 20 shots just to stop slipping around and find a
place to stay put after every cleaning and re-assembly. Pick it up by the sling and it moves again. The tight
fit of the bayonet lug barrel band covers up and cures many other problems with carbines. The skinny
bands just make the other problems worse.

[bzmqmsb]

One my way to becoming a SSgt in the USMC and a Law Enforcement firearms instruction I went to a considerable number of schools and have spent more than 2500 hours on the range taking instruction, another 5000 hours on the range practicing and have taught more than 1500 police officers the fine arts of rifle, shotgun, pistol and sub machine gun skills. I had the good fortune to go to Gunsite on 5 different occasions as a student and personally met Col Cooper on each trip. I can tell you first hand that Jeff would have never stated "never use a sling if the supporting hand is unsupported". Think about that question. Isn't the purpose of a sling to support the support hand?