While it may not be the sexiest topic, the way you manipulate and move with your firearm are huge tells of your experience level. It all comes down to what Varg Freeborn refers to as advanced safety. This is more than simply keeping your finger off the trigger and not pointing guns at people. Having practiced sling positions that you can readily transition between will not only help you move in a safe manner with the firearm, but it will also help you get on target more readily. While ready, carry and slung positions are beneficial to square range work, they are essential to truly fight with a rifle.

Types of Positions

For a fighting rifle, there are slung, carry, and ready positions. Each of these positions has a particular use that it is most beneficial for. When you need your hands free, slung positions give you that option. When you are working close to other people and need to maintain a safe position to move in close proximity, having a good carry position is important. Finally, when searching for threats and remaining ready to engage with the rifle, we have ready positions. Each of the mentioned sling positions has its strengths and using set positions allows us to place less brainpower on what position our rifle is in and more on solving the problems in front of us. What is called weapons flow, essentially transitions between the different positions, is also important to master.

Here is an example of a low carry position. Photo credit @marlisphotos

Stay tuned for articles on each of these positions, outlining uses and benefits. While these positions help in teams, they also cannot be discounted for the responsibly armed citizen. Each position can help when you need to fight around other people, whether at your local grocery store or home. To learn more about training opportunities on these topics check out Alliance Police Training.