Recently I’ve seen a couple of movies on TV where someone needs to make long shots with a rifle. In both cases there were very convenient waist-high objects nearby, on which they could have rested the rifle, but the shooters chose to just stand and hold.
I know very little about firearms, but the scenes left me thoroughly irritated. My question is: Would a knowledgeable shooter take a standing shot if there were nearly perfect gun rests nearby?
The films were The Unforgiven and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman.
In the first, Clint Eastwood is trying to finish off a wounded man before he can crawl behind a boulder. Clint ignores the big rock that he’s been crouching behind and very carefully fires 2 or 3 shots from a standing position. Takes about 30 seconds.
In League, one of the good guys (possibly Sean Connery) has to make an extraordinary shot from a balcony to stop the villain. He ignores the banister and spends about 10 seconds lining up a standing shot.
Any shooter with a difficult long range shot would benefit by using a rest if he could.
The trouble with fixed rests, like rocks or banisters, is that you don’t always have a clear shot when using them. If I were trying to justify the scene in Unforgiven, for instance, I would say that using the rock would have left Clint’s target hidden by a fold of ground, so he had to rise up a little. Or maybe a shot from the banister in League would have left the target behind a wall or building.
Then, of course, shooters don’t always do the most sensible thing, especially if they’ve never been trained to. Civil War soldiers were trained to fire Napoleonic style, standing or kneeling; if Bill Munny learned to shoot from a Civil War soldier, he just might not ever have thought about using rests.
It was my impression that Connery (as Allan Quatermain) took the shot that way because he was just that good with a rifle, or dare I say “extraordinary”.
In any event, a shooter will virtually always benefit from a rest as it is a more stable shooting position.
The director (or possibly the actor - same thing with Clint) thought a standing would look better, be more dramatic, more impressive, better reflect the character, or something like that. Its a movie, not an instructional video on shooting.
However, when firing from inside a building it’s often crucial that your barrel not protrude from the window, marking your location, which makes using window-sills out of the question. In those cases the shooter has to shoot standing up, a few feet back from the window, hopefully in the dark.
I’m no marksman, but I was always taught to use a rest if you can, so I’ll just go along with everyone else. One thing that I remember in basic though that was unusual, is that the Marine D.I. that taught basic marksmanship would hold the rifle in a really odd way. His left arm would make a sort of shelf, and he’d fold the hand back in along the stock so that his left hand rested, upside-down, hear where his right hand did. It’s hard to describe, but I always thought it looks REALLY uncomfortable and awkward…but he could really punch holes in the target, so it must have worked for him. When someone asked him though, he said it gave him a stable platform that was similar to using a rest.
That works well with the right sling arrangement and a stable body position, but the Marine Corps Known Distance Rifle Qualification Course only fires standing from the closest position, 200 yards. Everything at 300 yards is kneeling when you pull the trigger, and the 500 yard line is prone. I could hit a man sized target at 200 yards pretty well with that sling setting (not within a dinner plate), but free handing it? Not realistic from 200 for me, anyway, at my best. Perhaps the OP should clarify “long shots”?
The style I think xtisme talking about is the one used by a lot of competition high-power shooters.
It’s a more contorted position that provides better support – there is more bone supporting the rifle, and it locks the joints against each other. This gives a more stable firing position.
Of course, it’s not used in combat situations because it’s slower to get into, etc. The standard left hand under the fore end of the stock is “good enough” for that sort of shooting.
But if you watch swat/MOUT guys, they use a different stance as well, tucking their arms in close to the body and facing the target more squarely. It’s also less accurate, but it presents the best armored portion of the body toward the direction of incoming fire, lets you move forward instead of at an awkward angle, and keeps your elbows from hitting walls and doors.
But for precise shooting, the high power hold seems to work best for most people.
Some of those Black Powder competitions are 1,100 yards!
I have tried my hand at this in the past. A Chicken is @ 200M, Pig @ 300M, Turkey @ 385M and the Ram is @ 500 meters, and all targets must be knocked off the rail to score. I was shooting a .270 Win in those days and not every hit would score. My best was 6 out of 10 on rams
I’m one of those fanatical-about-realism guys (Wife: “LOAP, you’re overthinking the movie again.”), and I do agree with the consensus above, to normally use some sort of stable rest when possible.
I’d like to point out one thing, though, on “Unforgiven” that actually made Muny’s offhand shooting believable. It was established that Muny wasn’t very good with a rifle, kinda a fish out of water type with one. So, it was believable that he wouldn’t use a pro’s methods. In fact, he missed with the first few (two?) shots.
The answer is that it’s a movie and like all things in a movie it’s done for dramatic effect. The worst gun handling I’ve seen was in a Deniro flick. It was a close up but to emphasize the fact he was holding a gun on someone he was holding his pistol right beside his cheek. I’m sure 99% of viewers never thought a thing about it but it looked quite ackward to me.
Well, he’s always been lucky when it comes to killin’ folks. I don’t think he was particularly worried about return fire from the other cowboys - the movie pretty well established that there were only 3 actual gunfighters in the whole thing - Munny, Little Bill, and English Bob. Munny stood up to get the best shot that he could.
The most egregious use of a firearm I usually see in a movie is when some schlub turns his automatic hand gun on it’s side to fire it gangsta fashion. The second most is when someone with a hand gun is doing single shot head shot kills from long range during a gun fight. Take it from me, my Fallout 3 character with max small guns STILL manages to miss quite often with a hand gun unless it’s really close range…
After the above, the endless ammo (except when they want the start to dramatically reload), and using a car as a supposed shield from automatic rifle fire (bullets generally go right through, especially if you shoot them up like Swiss cheese as they do in most movies) are the other old standbys.
Or using a pistol in each hand. Ok, this was a good idea if you had a pair of muzzleloading flintlocks. Still a good idea with civil war era pistols that had lengthy reload times. It might possibly, in some remote circumstance, be a good idea with revolvers.
Its never a good idea with automatics. Whatever you gain in momentary rate of fire you more than lose in loss of accuracy and greatly lengthened reload time.
BTW, I just watched the relevant scene from Unforgiven and Clint most definitely is not standing. He’s kneeling on one knee, with the arm holding the stock of the rifle braced on the other knee. A much steadier shooting position than standing.
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