Of my 20 something tracked big game kills last hunting season, I believe only 3 of them allowed for a prone shot. The remaining were either too high of vegetation or too steep of terrain to be able to shoot prone.I am a cardiac patient who can't shoot prone because when I go prone the compression on my chest/lungs/heart makes my pulse top out at over 140 BPM. This is very counter to doing box breathing and trying to get my pulse under 60 BPM for optimal shooting. So I am learning to shoot seated, kneeling, and standing via tripod, pack, etc. My goal is to be competitive in NRL-H in the 26 season at least on a local level.
My question is: What percentage of shots during a typical course of fire can be done, and done well, shooting prone?
I was just at the match in Kansas last weekend and I didn't see any single stage where shooting prone was optimal. I DID see several folks who tried to shoot prone who failed at their tasks due to inability to get comfy fast at shooting kneeling or standing however.
Hiking sticks or a long quick attach/detach bipod like the Spartan allow for true spot and stalk opportunities with excellent seated/kneeling stability. Tripods work well for folks with lots of time to get setup and more “ambush” style hunting.
No matter how quickly someone can setup a tripod, it is at least twice as slow (usually 3-4 times as slow) when running timed drills with pack on stalking to getting a shot off.
A position like this, kneeling or seated, is incredibly stable and from pack on to shot off, is the quickest deployment I’ve personally seen.
